sounds of Chicago
Ken Vandermark (1964-, reeds) & Hamid Drake (1955-, drums, MCOTD Hall of Fame), playing the music of Don Cherry (1936-1995), live (performance begins at 4:50), Chicago, 10/9/21
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago (Columbus Park)
passings
Henry Grimes, bassist, November 3, 1935–April 15, 2020
With Sonny Rollins (tenor saxophone), Don Cherry (trumpet), Billy Higgins (drums), live, Rome, 1962
*****
With David Murray (tenor saxophone), Hamid Drake (drums, MCOTD Hall of Fame), live, Finland (Kerava), 2004
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With Kidd Jordan (tenor saxophone), live, New York, 2010
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
More of Ornette.
Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone) with Don Cherry (cornet), Charlie Haden (bass), and Billy Higgins (drums), The Shape of Jazz to Come, 1959*
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR’s memorial broadcast continues until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.
*****
*Track list (courtesy of YouTube):
00:00 Lonely Woman
05:01 Eventually
09:24 Peace
18:25 Focus on Sanity
25:18 Congeniality
32:07 Chronology
passings
Charlie Haden, bassist, composer, bandleader, August 6, 1937-July 11, 2014
Old and New Dreams (Charlie Haden, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; Dewey Redman, tenor saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet), “Happy House” (O. Coleman), live, Norway (Molde Jazz Festival), 1979
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lagniappe
radio
Thank God, once again, for college radio. Beginning tomorrow at 2 p.m. (EST), WKCR (Columbia University) will air a memorial broadcast. Two hours? Three? Nope. They’ll be playing Haden’s music, continuously, until 9 p.m.—Monday.
Ornette, at 84, still plays some of the most haunting blues I’ve ever heard.
Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone), with Henry Threadgill (alto saxophone), David Murray (tenor saxophone), Savion Glover (tap dance), et al., live, New York (Prospect Park), 6/12/14
*****
With Don Cherry (trumpet), Charlie Haden (bass), Billy Higgins (drums), The Shape Of Jazz To Come, 1959
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lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), East 100th St., New York, 1966
Happy (83rd) Birthday, Ornette!
Ornette Coleman Quartet (OC, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; Charlie Haden, bass; Billy Higgins, drums), live, Spain (Barcelona), 1987
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
How can I turn emotion into knowledge? That’s what I try to do with my horn.
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It’s not that I reject categories. It’s that I don’t really know what categories are.
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You take the alphabet of the English language. A to Z. A symbol attached to a sound. In music you have what are called notes and the key. In life you’ve got an idea and an emotion. We think of them as different concepts. To me, there is no difference.
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The violin, the saxophone, the trumpet: Each makes a very different sound but the very same notes. That’s pretty heavy, you know? Imagine how many different races make up the human race. I’m called colored, you’re called white, he’s called something else. We still got an asshole and a mouth. Pardon me.
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I don’t try to please when I play. I try to cure.
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radio
All Ornette, all day: WKCR-FM (Columbia University).
My favorite drummer?
There are days I’d say this is the guy.
Among the many things I love about his playing, which dances, always, is the balance of simplicity and complexity—it’s never more complex than it is simple, never simpler than it is complex.
Old and New Dreams (Don Cherry [1936-1995], pocket trumpet; Dewey Redman [1931-2006], tenor saxophone; Charlie Haden [1937-], bass; Ed Blackwell [1929-1992], drums), live
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lagniappe
reading table
Art is not in some far-off place.
—Lydia Davis, “Extracts from a Life” (The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, 2009)
What’s surprising here isn’t that there are so many wonderful moments. Given the line-up, you’d expect that. What you wouldn’t expect is for these guys to sound so cohesive, as if they’d been playing together for years.
Sun Ra All Stars (SR, keyboards; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet, vocals; Lester Bowie, trumpet; Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone, vocals; John Gilmore, tenor saxophone; Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, percussion; Philly Joe Jones, drums; Clifford Jarvis, drums; Famadou Don Moye, drums, percussion), live, Germany (Berlin), 1983
Vodpod videos no longer available.
More Sun Ra? Here. And here. And here.
More Don Cherry? Here. And here. And here.
More Lester Bowie? Here. And here. And here. And here.
More Archie Shepp? Here.
Does anyone have more fun than drummers?
Sonny Rollins/Don Cherry Quartet (SR, tenor saxophone; DC, trumpet; Henry Grimes, bass; Billy Higgins, drums), “52nd Street Theme” (T. Monk), live (TV broadcast), Rome, 1962
Vodpod videos no longer available.
More Sonny Rollins? Here. And here. And here. And here. And here.
More Don Cherry? Here. And here.
More Billy Higgins? Here.
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lagniappe
You know the drum was the first instrument besides the human voice.
energy + delicacy = kinetic beauty
Rashied Ali, drums
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet
James Blood Ulmer, guitar
Live (TV broadcast, Sweden), 1978
Vodpod videos no longer available.
More Don Cherry? Here.
I interviewed Rashied in 2008 just before he died, and he showed me this clip on his Mac. He was psyched that it was up on YouTube.
—YouTube comment
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lagniappe
art beat
Paul Cezanne, Study of Trees (c. 1904)
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
music clip of the day 