keep on dancing
(an occasional series)
If nothing bad ever happens while you’re dancing, can dancing keep anything bad from ever happening?
Arnold Jarvis, “Take Some Time Out” (1987)
Original Club Mix
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Rugged Riddim Mix
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Dub/Instrumental Mix
Vodpod videos no longer available.People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett), “DrivingFlyingRisingFalling”
Vodpod videos no longer available.
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lagniappe
listening room
What did I listen to last night?
A radio show I’d never heard before—Antique Phonograph Music Program with MAC (WFMU-FM), which features old (really old, like 90, 100, 110 years old) 78s and cylinders, played on period hand-cranked players. Last night’s program, as well as previous shows, can be heard here.
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
13th Floor Elevators
TV broadcast, 1966
“You’re Gonna Miss Me” (Billboard Hot 100, #55)
*****
Live, San Francisco (Avalon Ballroom), 1966
“Gloria”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“You Really Got Me”
Vodpod videos no longer available.More of Roky Erickson? Here.
Happy Birthday, Pops!*
Louis Armstrong, “Basin Street Blues” (three takes)
#1 (live, 1959, Germany [Stuttgart])
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
#2 (live, 1953, New Orleans)
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
#3 (recording, 1928, Chicago)
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
more
Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five, “West End Blues,” 1928, Chicago
*****
radio
The federal government, in its wisdom, gives you the day off so you can listen to Louis Armstrong.
—Phil Schaap, 7/2/11, Traditions in Swing, WKCR-FM
(broadcasting from Columbia University), which today is all Pops, all day
*****
reading table
Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
—Henry James
*Louis Armstrong gave July 4th as his birthday, something that was determined, after his death, not to be true—at least not literally.
This guy I can’t get enough of.
Vernard Johnson, “Don’t Wait ’Til The Battle Is Over, Shout Now!”; live, TV broadcast (Bobby Jones Gospel)
Vodpod videos no longer available.Time for just one note? 6:23.
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lagniappe
art beat
Lee Friedlander, Cherry Blossom Time in Japan (2006)
*****
reading table
Yesterday, opening my Emily Dickinson collection (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin) at random, I came upon this.
We do not play on Graves —
Because there isn’t Room —
Besides — it isn’t even — it slants
And People come —And put a Flower on it —
And hang their faces so —
We’re fearing that their Hearts will drop —
And crush our pretty play —And so we move as far
As Enemies — away —
Just looking round to see how far
It is — Occasionally ——Emily Dickinson (#599)
***
*****
listening room: what’s playing
• Echocord Jubilee Comp. (Echocord)
• Art Ensemble of Chicago, Full Force (ECM)
• Art Ensemble of Chicago, Urban Bushmen (ECM)
• Paul Motian (with Lee Konitz, soprano & alto saxophones; Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone; Bill Frisell, guitar; Charlie Haden, bass), On Broadway Vol. 3 (Winter & Winter)
• Rebirth Brass Band, Feel Like Funkin’ It Up (Rounder)
• Marc Ribot, Silent Movies (Pi Recordings)
• Wadada Leo Smith, Kabell Years: 1971-1979 (Tzadik)
• Charles “Baron” Mingus, West Coast, 1945-49 (Uptown Jazz)
• John Alexander’s Sterling Jubilee Singers, Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb (New World Records)
• Rev. Johnny L. Jones, The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta (Dust-to-Digital)
• Elliott Carter, composer; Ursula Oppens, piano; Oppens Plays Carter (Cedille)
• Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, composers; Maurizio Pollini, piano, piano works (Schoenberg), Variations Op. 27 (Webern) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa)
• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Daybreak Express (Various, jazz)
—Out to Lunch (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Profiles (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Alternatives (Various, jazz)
—Morning Classical (Various, classical)
—Afternoon New Music (Various, classical and hard-to-peg)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)
• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Give The Drummer Some (Doug Schulkind, sui generis)
—Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine (soul)
Here’s a different take—one deeply indebted to Lester Bowie—on the
brass band.
Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy
DD, trumpet; Louis Bonilla, trombone; Vincent Chancey, horn (AKA French horn); Marcus Rojas, tuba; Nasheet Waits, drums
“Bowie,” recording session (Spirit Moves, 2009)
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Spirit Moves,” “This Love Affair,” “Twilight of the Dogs”
Live, Washington, D.C., 2009
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lagniappe
reading table
How can I possibly sleep
This moonlit evening?
Come, my friends,
Let’s sing and dance
All night long.—Ryokan (1758-1831), trans. John Stevens
two questions
1. Why would anyone create a piece of music that lasts not one, or two, or three, or four, or five, but six hours?
2. Why don’t more more people?
Morton Feldman, String Quartet No. 2 (1983), excerpts, Flux Quartet
***
On June 12th the Flux Quartet performed this piece in Philadelphia, the finale of American Sublime, a festival devoted to Feldman’s late music. The concert, which took place in the sanctuary of Philadelphia Cathedral, began at 2 p.m.; it ended around 8 p.m. The program notes said: “Audience may come and go as they please.”
More? Here. And here. And here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
this & that
I don’t win stuff. I don’t even enter things—contests, sweepstakes, lotteries—that would give me a shot at winning stuff. Until yesterday, that is.
Yesterday morning, driving home after dropping my son Luke off at work (7 a.m. can be a pretty brutal starting time for a 20-year-old), I was listening, as I often do while driving, to our local public radio station (WBEZ-FM), which, I learned, was in the midst of a fundraising drive. “Pledge,” they said, and “you’ll be entered in drawings for an iPad 2,” which were going to be made throughout the day. The earlier you pledge, they said, with what seemed unassailable logic, the better your chances of winning. I hadn’t sent them any money in a while so, when I got home, I went on-line and pledged. A couple hours later, a friend sent me an email: “Congratulations on your iPad.”
When bad stuff happens, particularly bad stuff that’s unexpected and outside my control (as often seems to be the case), my tendency is to try to let it go. Why invest bad experiences with ill-fitting, after-the-fact meanings? This is different. This experience I’d like to invest with all kinds of after-the-fact-meanings, ill-fitting or not. I’d like to see this as a favorable omen, one that portends all sorts of wonderful stuff—things that, at the moment, I can’t even begin to imagine. Goofy? Yeah, I suppose. But is it any nuttier than any number of other stories we tell ourselves to get us through the day?
Quiet beauty—what a novel concept these days.
*AR (Autumn Richardson, Richard Skelton), “Rise”
Vodpod videos no longer available.Someday, just as I sometimes do with my own father, who’s been gone for over thirty years, my older son Alex, now twenty-three, will recall occasions, after I’m gone, when he and I went out to hear live music together, like, for instance, last night, when we saw this group, from Africa, who are on their first U.S. tour.
Group Doueh, live, England (Bristol), 5/10/11
Vodpod videos no longer available.
music clip of the day 