[Gregory Isaacs' friend and former manager Don Hewitt] said of Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones that when he was introduced to Mr. Isaacs, “he carried on like he’d met Jesus.”

***

In a 2001 interview, Mr. Isaacs reflected on his legacy. “Look at me as a man who performed works musically,” he said. “Who uplift people who need upliftment, mentally, physically, economically—all forms. Who told the people to live with love ’cause only love can conquer war, and to understand themselves so that they can understand others.”

—Rob Kenner, New York Times (obituary, 10/25/10)

Live, London (Brixton Academy), 1984

“Number One”

***

“Night Nurse”

***

“Border”

*****

“Sad Mood Tonight” (1994)

*****

“Kingston 14” (Made in Jamaica, 2006)

*****

Want more? Here: “Gregory Isaacs Memorial Broadcast,” Eastern Standard Time, WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University), 11/6/10.

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reading table

No battle that can be won is worth fighting.

—T Bone Burnett (blog comment, 10/9/10)

Elton John & Leon Russell

Making The Union (2010)

*****

Live (TV broadcast [Good Morning America], with Marc Ribot, guitar), New York (Beacon Theatre), 10/20/10

Part 1 (music begins at 4:10), “If It Wasn’t For Bad”

***

Part 2, “Hearts Have Turned To Stone,” “Tiny Dancer”

What do you do?

If you’re pianist/composer Kenny Werner, what you do is create music.

Kenny Werner, No Beginning No End (featuring Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone), recording session, New York (NYU), 2009

*****

street music

Whatever it is, this guy’s got it.

(Originally posted on 8/25/10.)

*****

take two (or is it one?)

Following up on Vijay Iyer’s take (6/30/10), here’s the original.

M.I.A., “Galang” (2005)

One of the things I love about M.I.A. is that she doesn’t let any of the usual stuff get in her way. Take her dancing, for instance: she’s, uh, not real good at it—at least not by the usual standards. Does that stop her? Nah.

(Originally posted on 7/2/10.)

*****

Guitar, drums—that’s all it takes.

Bambino (AKA Bombino), live, Niger (Agadez), 2010

Part 1

*****

Part 2

(Originally posted on 8/9/10.)

Tom Waits, live, California (Mountain View), 1999

Part 1

***

Part 2

Want more? Here.

You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board.

“People Get Ready”

Curtis Mayfield, live, England (London), 1988

*****

The Impressions (featuring Curtis Mayfield), 1965

More Curtis Mayfield? Here. Here. Here.

*****

Al Green, live, Washington, D.C., 1983 (Gospel According to Al Green, 1984)

More Al Green? Here. Here. Here.

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radio gems: gospel

Gospel Memories
WLUW-FM
Chicago, Illinois
Saturday, 10-11 a.m. (CST) (archived shows)

Kenge, Kenge (Kenya), live, Denmark (Roskilde), 2008

*****

Khaira Arby (Mali), live, Mali (Festival of the Desert), 2010

“Haidara”

*****

“Sourgou”

*****

Scribblings from the show (habit picked up reviewing live jazz for the Chicago Reader):

Kenge Kenge’s bass player at the start of their set: “We’ve been in America for the last three months. This is our last show. And we want to have some fun.”

Drum is king.

As much as I appreciate the musical experiences available via the ’net, they’re no substitute for live music. Among the casualties of the technological filtering are bass and drums—this music’s heartbeat.

This stage isn’t a dividing line. It’s porous, readily penetrable in both directions. Those onstage come down and dance; those offstage go up and dance. When everybody’s dancing—onstage, offstage—the performer/audience line dissolves.

African music, live, is a full-body experience: you listen not just with your ears but with your hips, your feet.

If folks aren’t dancing, this music ain’t happening.

Kinetic elegance.

At times the dancers look as if they’re in a trance.

Lightness, buoyancy, drive: this is music that takes you in its arms, lifts you up, carries you away.

Amadou & Mariam

Live, Mali (Festival of the Desert), 2010

***

“Dimanche A Bamako,” live (with David Gilmour, guitar), England (Islington), 2009

***

“Welcome To Mali,” “Africa,” live, South Africa (Johannesburg), 2010

Want more? Here.

*****

I saw Amadou & Mariam, like Orchestra Baobob, with my son Alex—last year at Chicago’s Park West.

How far away does Africa seem to Alex?

About as far, I think, as South Carolina seemed to me at 23.

Orchestra Baobab, “Utru horas,” live

Here’s a big (23rd) birthday shout-out to my son Alex—with whom I saw these guys a few years ago at Chicago’s (much missed) HotHouse.

Christian Wolff (composer, piano, melodica; with Larry Polansky, guitar; Robyn Schulkowsky, vibraphone, miscellaneous percussion; Robert Black, bass; Joey Baron, drums), “Quintet,” live (performance followed by conversation), New York (Roulette), 12/12/09

Want more of Christian Wolff’s music? Here.

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Every now and then I like to make a mess. But generally speaking I prefer transparency.

***

The music happens when it’s played—not when it’s composed.

—Christian Wolff

Salif Keita, live, Spain (Cartagena), 7/10/10

Want more Malian music?

Amadou & Mariam

Oumou Sangare

Toumani Diabate

Ali Farka Toure

Bassekou Kouyate

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mail

An attentive reader/listener—someone I’ve listened to music with for over fifty years (which reduces the pool of possible correspondents to, uh, one)—wrote yesterday to tell me about an amazing bargain: a recording of Morton Feldman’s For Bunita Marcus (last mentioned here, previously featured here) that’s available, in MP3 format, for 89¢.

Konono No. 1, “Lufuala Ndonga”

Musical Brotherhoods from the Trans-Saharan Highway, excerpts (2007)

Whatever it is, this guy’s got it.

Steve Reich, “Clapping Music” (1972)/So Percussion, live, California (Palo Alto), 1/8/10 (music starts at 3:35)

More Steve Reich? Here.

“Where did everybody go?” you wonder.

With each passing year, more of the musicians who’ve shaped your world—who’ve made life sing—are gone.

Ed Blackwell, Lester Bowie, Betty Carter, Malachi Favors, Steve Lacy, Kate McGarrigle, Art Pepper, Professor Longhair, Sun Ra, Junior Wells, Julius Hemphill (below): the list goes on, and on, and on.

World Saxophone Quartet (Julius Hemphill, alto saxophone; Oliver Lake, soprano and alto saxophones; David Murray, tenor saxophone; Hamiet Bluiett, baritone saxophone)

Medley: “West African Snap,” “I Heard That,” “Fast Life,” “Hattie Wall,” live (TV Broadcast [Night Music]), 1990 (music starts at 2:20)

Listening to Julius Hemphill (far left), a phrase from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech comes to mind: “the fierce urgency of now.” Hemphill has, it seems, so much to say—right now. Listen, for instance, to 4:30-6:35.

*****

Live, with M’Boom (Max Roach’s 9-piece percussion ensemble), New York (The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine), 1981 (music starts at 1:55)

Want more? Here.

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musical thoughts

Without music, life would be an error.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

Sun Ra & His Arkestra in Egypt and Italy, 1971

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Even in the excesses of this era there were few audiences prepared for an ominous, ragtag group of musicians in Egyptian robes, Mongolian caps (Mongolian, as from the planet Mongo of Flash Gordon), and B-movie spacesuits who played on a variety of newly invented or strangely modified electronic instruments (the sun harp, the space organ, the cosmic side drum) and proclaimed the greatness of the most ancient of races (this, the Sun Ra of the Solar-Myth Arkestra); or, on yet another night, a merry band in jester’s motley, jerkins, and pointed caps (a la Robin Hood or perhaps the Archers of Arboria) who marched or crawled through the audience, chanting cheerful songs about travel to Venus. It was intensely dramatic music, moving from stasis to chaos and back, horn players leaping about, or rolling on the bandstand, sometimes with fire eaters, gilded muscle men, and midgets, an all-out assault on the senses. At the end of the evening the musicians and dancers moved among the audience, touching them, surrounding them, inviting them to join the Arkestra in marching off to Jupiter.

—John F. Szwed, Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra (1997)

*****

Sun Ra’s consistent statement, musically and spoken, is that this is a primitive world. Its practices, beliefs, religions, are uneducated, unenlightened, savage, destructive, already in the past. . . . That’s why Sun Ra returned only to say he left. Into the future. Into Space.

—Amiri Baraka (formerly known as LeRoi Jones)

*****

Silence is music. There are different kinds of silence, each silence is a world all of its own . . . silence is an integral part of all music . . .

***

When you meet a man

You meet a scheme of words

Patterns of concept

A concepted being

Whose very birth conception is called.

***

The earth cannot move without music. The earth moves in a certain rhythm, a certain sound, a certain note. When the music stops the earth will stop and everything upon it will die.

—Sun Ra

*****

]]> http://musicclipoftheday.com/2010/07/05/tuesday-7610/ Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:42:23 +0000 musicclipoftheday http://musicclipoftheday.com/2010/07/05/tuesday-7610/ What the world needs now?

Nah, not love.

What the world needs now—what it cries out for, daily—is inspired silliness.

Brave Combo, live

“The Denton Polka,” Texas (Denton), 2007

*****

“Louie, Louie,” Illinois (Berwyn [FitzGerald's]), 2008

Brave Combo played a wild set Sunday night (the 4th) at FitzGerald’s American Music Festival—everything from “Beer Barrel Polka” to a hard-rockin’ “Hokey Pokey” to a polka-inflected “Ode to Joy” (“Any Beethoven fans in the house?”) to a Tejano-style “America the Beautiful.” By the end of the 90-minute set, everybody’s IQ, it seemed, had gone up 15 points. Or was it down?

If music were money, it might be this.

Nathan Abshire (accordion), “Ma Negresse” (AKA “Pine Grove Blues”)

Take 1

With The Balfa Brothers (Dewey Balfa, fiddle), live, Louisiana (Dedans le Sud de la Louisiane [1974])

*****

Take 2

Live, Louisiana (Mamou [Fred's Lounge]), 1976

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mail

Thanks, Richard, for another tremendous clip. Art Pepper [6/21/10] left us way too soon. Along with his music, I loved his autobiography. Keep up the great work.

*****

Thanks so much!

—L. [Laurie Pepper, Art's wife, in response to an email letting her know that Art's music was being featured here [6/21/10]]

Bassekou Kouyate (ngoni) & Ngoni ba

“Ngoni fola” (2007)

*****

Live, Mali (Timbuktu), 2010

*****

Live, Germany (Rostock), 2007

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, “Orleans & Claiborne,” live, New Orleans, 2010

There are a lot of things to like about this performance. One is the way Shorty, following two hot solos (tenor, baritone), doesn’t try to out-blow those guys. Instead, he changes directions (3:20). Sometimes nothing packs more punch than restraint. (Yeah, I don’t know why this clip cuts off when it does, either.)

Want more? Here.

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passings

Soon I’ll be leaving for a funeral—my uncle, Hugh Frebault. Nine days ago we sat and talked and laughed for over an hour; now he’s silent. Does life get any more understandable as you get older? I don’t think so—if anything, it seems to become only more mysterious, more unfathomable.

Blind Willie Johnson, “Dark Was The Night – Cold Was The Ground” (1927, Dallas)

Scene 1: Parade of the New Orleans Social Aid and Pleasure Club

*****

Scene 2: Chouval Bwa

*****

Scene 3: Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, “Backatown” (record-store performance)

*****

Scene 4: Pinettes Brass Band (outside another record store)

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Scene 1: Sousaphone Parade

*****

Scene 2: Brian Blade & The Fellowship

Want more Brian Blade? Here.

*****

Scene 3: Mardi Gras Indians (Members of the Golden Star Hunters, Carrolton Hunters, et al.), Backstage

Want more Mardi Gras Indians? Here.

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The less-is-more camp may, in turn, be divided into the less-less-is-more and the more-less-is-more.

And the less-less-is-more . . .

Jon Hassell and Maarifa Street (Jon Hassell, trumpet; Peter Freeman, bass, laptop; Hugh Marsh, violin; Steve Shehan, percussion, laptop), live, Serbia (Belgrade), 2006

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Want more? Here.

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. . . Jon Hassell’s ideas and techniques have so thoroughly permeated lo- and hi-brow contemporary electronic music, albeit often in a third or fourth hand way . . . that it’s difficult to think what contemporary music would sound like without his influence. . . . there’s categorically no doubt that Hassell has had as an important effect on contemporary music as Miles Davis or Jimi Hendrix or James Brown or the Velvet Underground.—The Wire

*****

reading table

More on John Berryman (12/28/09): Here Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Philip Levine recalls John Berryman (also Robert Lowell) as a teacher at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

He [John Berryman] took that class with a seriousness I had never seen before. . . . He was entrancing. He was magnetic. . . . He had a marvelous sense of humor. . . . He really took this seriously. He was a great teacher. He was the greatest teacher I ever had—and an inspiration.—Philip Levine

Philip Levine, live, England (Aldeburgh), 2009

Oran Etkin’s Group Kelenia (Oran Etkin, clarinet; Makane Kouyate, percussion; Lionel Loueke, guitar; Joe Sanders, bass), live (radio recording session), New York, 2009

Want more? Here.