two takes
“Will You Love Me Tomorrow” (Gerry Goffin & Carole King)
This could go wrong in so many ways. But it doesn’t.
Bryan Ferry, live, TV broadcast (Later with Jools Holland, BBC), 1993
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
The Shirelles, 1960
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
sight seen
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, sitting on a brick sidewalk in Harvard Square, a panhandler with a large sign:
I HAVE A
DREAM
OF A
CHEESEBURGERHold the Pickle
Happy (96th) Birthday, Billie!
Tune in to WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) and you’ll swear you must’ve died and gone to heaven—it’s all Billie, all day.
Billie Holiday, “The Blues Are Brewin'” (with Louis Armstrong, trumpet), New Orleans (1947)
Vodpod videos no longer available.More? Here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
art beat
Joan Mitchell, Chamonix (c. 1962), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Feeling glum?
Not for long.
Albert Ammons, Lena Horne, Pete Johnson, Teddy Wilson
Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944)
Part 1
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Part 2
Vodpod videos no longer available.We’ve always believed in singing, in expressing ourselves.
***
Sometimes a song . . . is just as great as a sermon.
***
A hurricane starts off slowly . . . and when she gets a certain speed, that’s when she’s dangerous. Most preachers . . . get their power going up . . . . [M]ost of my power is given by coming down, down, after I’ve gone up.
—Rev. Johnny L. Jones
Rev. Johnny L. Jones, live, Atlanta
The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta (Dust-To-Digital 2010)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
. . . music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.—T.S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages” (Four Quartets)
favorites
(an occasional series)
Here—with a shout-out to my brother Don, with whom (at the age of 15) I saw the MC5 in Chicago’s Lincoln Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention (when nobody outside the Detroit/Ann Arbor area [including us] knew who they were)—is an awfully good cover, from what might seem an unlikely source, of one of their “greatest hits.”
Jeff Buckley, “Kick Out The Jams,” live, Chicago, 1995
And here, courtesy, apparently, of the Department of Defense, is (silent) footage of the scene in Lincoln Park on August 25, 1968—the day the MC5 (who appear here fleetingly) played.
(Originally posted 9/7/09.)
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lagniappe
on the road
Last night, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I’ve been since Sunday, I heard a concert, on the Harvard campus, of contemporary music featuring two different groups (Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble and Ensemble SurPlus) and works by six different composers, including Morton Feldman and John Luther Adams (who was present). Virtually every time I hear live music—last night was no exception—I leave thinking that I really need to do this more often. I love recordings, but live music breathes.
*****
Tonight, in Boston, I’ll be in the front row for this production of Merchant of Venice. Tomorrow I’m seeing a series of short works by Samuel Beckett, directed by the legendary Peter Brook. So that’s three straight days of live music. (What’s theater, after all, if not musical speech?)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
I could listen to this—just the drum track, even—all day.
Booker T. Jones with The Roots, “Everything Is Everything”
Live (recording studio), The Road From Memphis (5/11 release)
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lagniappe
reading table
spring peace—
after rain a gang war
garden sparrows
—Kobayashi Issa, 1795 (trans. David G. Lanoue)
(Want to improve your life immeasurably? For free? Without side effects? Sign up for Issa Haiku-a-Day. Your inbox never had it so good).
*****
Alcove
Is it possible that spring could be
once more approaching? We forget each time
what a mindless business it is, porous like sleep,
adrift on the horizon, refusing to take sides, “mugwump
of the final hour,” lest an agenda—horrors!—be imputed to it,
and the whole point of its being spring collapse
like a hole dug in sand. It’s breathy, though,
you have to say that for it.
And should further seasons coagulate
into years, like spilled, dried paint, why,
who’s to say we weren’t provident? We indeed
looked out for others as though they mattered, and they,
catching the spirit, came home with us, spent the night
in an alcove from which their breathing could be heard clearly.
But it’s not over yet. Terrible incidents happen
daily. That’s how we get around obstacles.
—John Ashbery (Planisphere [2009])
basement jukebox*
(an occasional series)
Fontella Bass, “Rescue Me” (1965)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Tyrone Davis, “Can I Change My Mind” (1969)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Otis Clay, “The Only Way Is Up” (1980)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*When I was a little boy, a big bright shiny jukebox lit up our basement. Daily it granted our wishes, communicated with just the touch of a finger, for “Wake Up, Little Susie” (Everly Brothers) and “The Battle of New Orleans” (Johnny Horton) and “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” (Gene Pitney). It taught me something I’ve never forgotten—music is magic.
Zimbabwe
The music is as sweet as the news is bleak.
Zimbabwe College of Music Mbira Ensemble (with Thanda Richardson, vocals), live, Harare (Mannenberg Jazz Club), 2/17/08
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Mbira Dzenharira, “Saramugomo,” 2001
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
SMG Young Stars, Kenge Art, Mutubambile Orphan Choir with Oliver Mtukudzi, Magariro Edu Marimba Band
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
reading table
. . . [Robert Mugabe’s] regime . . . has lost all its moral bearings, a gang of thieves and murderers bent on holding power at any cost. The book draws to a close with the testimony of Emmanuel Chiroto, a Harare opposition leader whose campaign for mayor has brought down the wrath of Mugabe’s goons. Even as he is celebrating his victory, members of the youth militia set his house on fire and abduct his wife, Abigail, and 4-year-old son. The boy is released, but Abigail’s swollen and battered corpse is found in the morgue. “This is my lovely wife,” Chiroto tells Godwin, holding up a cellphone image of Abigail in her wedding dress. “And they killed her.” Three years after his defeat at the polls, Mugabe still clings to power in his ruined nation. But Godwin’s intrepid reportage has at least given voice to some of his victims.
—Joshua Hammer, New York Times Book Review, 3/27/11 (review of The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe by Peter Godwin)
*****
sight seen
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, sitting on a brick sidewalk in Harvard Square, a panhandler with a large sign:
Seeking Human Kindness
music clip of the day 