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Friday, October 09, 2009
ANGRY
Paul McCartney
Press To Play
Capitol : 1986
[Buy It]
HE MAKES ME SO MAD
Hollywood Jills
1968
Available on : One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost & Found
Rhino : 2005
[Buy It]
MADNESS
Miles Davis
Nefertiti
Columbia : 1967
[Buy It]
MAD
Prince and the N.P.G.
NPG Music Club : 2001
GOD IS MAD WITH MAN
Rev. T.E. Weems
1927
Available on : Goodbye, Babylon
Dust to Digital : 2003
[Buy It]
I AIN'T MAD AT ALL
Public Enemy
Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age
Def Jam : 1994
[Buy It]
SICK OF MYSELF
Matthew Sweet
100% Fun
Volcano : 1995
[Buy It]
From diary, 1977:
"Mom and Dad were both mad at me today. I was mad at people at school and acted bad and they noticed. I felt bad because of school so I wanted them to be more nice but they were less nice because of how I acted. Six Million Dollar Man was the end of a two parter about trained sharks."
From this site, right now:
"Feel like I made some people mad this week. Didn't mean to. Might have miscalculated. Can be bossy and overbearing at times with friends. If so, am sorry. Am taking foot off gas so as not to additionally antagonize. Should concede, though, that I might be wrong, that people might not be mad at me at all, that instead it might be a matter of indifference. Should also concede there's something in me that rebels more strongly at that possibility than at the prospect of anger. Anger at least signals investment. Indifference is divestment and worse than an affront. It's a null set. Not to mention that if people aren't mad at me, then maybe it's just that I'm displeased with myself, and that's intolerable, because that requires locating myself within myself, as the damn dirty hippies say, and processing my own error without any engagement, challenge, or friction furnished by others. It requires standing still, and who can do that? Not me. Not sharks. Maybe trained sharks."Labels: ben, gospel, jazz, pop
posted by Ben
LINK |
Friday, March 27, 2009
COME RAIN OR COME SHINE
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan in Hi-Fi
Sony : 1949
[Buy It]
COME RAIN OR COME SHINE
Billie Holiday
1954
Available on : Lady in Autumn: The Best of the Verve Years
Polygram : 1991
[Buy It]
PINKY
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan in Hi-Fi
Sony : 1949
[Buy It]
DO U LIE?
Prince
Parade
Warner Bros. : 1986
[Buy It]
This week, Prince released two new albums.
Today is Sarah Vaughan's birthday.
We will bring these two things together soon.
Sarah Vaughan would have been eighty-five today. She's been dead since 1990, taken after a short but painful battle with lung cancer. According to more than a few published accounts, she expired at home, in bed, while watching a television movie starring her daughter.
Of the three women generally considered to be the triple pillar of American jazz singing, Vaughan is usually my least favorite. Billie Holiday comes in first, almost always, and Ella Fitzgerald comes in second. Vaughan is third: not distantly, but definitively. I realize that this is an idiotic exercise, to take three people with vast and important bodies of work and rank them top to bottom like I am filling out a March Madness bracket. I apologize to them, their families, their spirits.
Sarah Vaughan is always praised for her voice, which I suppose makes sense, though it makes less sense to me when I am listening to her. Her incredible control, her vast range, her box (or is it bag?) of improvisational tricks, they're all indisputably impressive, but for some reason they leave me cold, or have generally done so. If I listen to Billie Holiday's version of "Come Rain or Come Shine" and then hers, one moves me and the other doesn't. For a while, I thought it was because Vaughan was following Holiday's more powerful original, but in fact the reverse is true: Vaughan's was recorded a full five years before Holiday went into the studio for Verve in 1955. Maybe the fact that Vaughan's such a virtuoso works against the song, which purports to be about powerful devotion but sounds like a song about romantic helplessness. Why would someone with ultimate power worry about having none? Holiday, on the other hand, is a more limited vocalist who makes the lyric -- and the song -- work the way it should. When she does away with the idea of contentment, it's heartbreaking:You're gonna love me like nobody's loved me
Come rain or come shine
Happy together unhappy together
Won't it be fine? Again, this is just me. I once lived with a woman who put the three women in a different order. For her, Ella Fitzgerald was first, Sarah Vaughan second, and Billie Holiday flat last. "Too mopey," she said with a showily dismissive flip of the hand. It hurt me to see her flip her hand that way, but what could I do? I had no choice but to stand by and watch it happen. To get back at her, I decided to dislike Ella Fitzgerald, and for many years I succeeded: she was too chipper, too cheery, too up. Sarah Vaughan hung in the middle, though. I tried to listen to her, tried often, never had much success. The one exception was instructional: "Pinky," which I loved because it was a wordless vocal, Vaughan's equivalent of "Dark Was the Night." I couldn't identify a lack of conviction in her performance because I wasn't sure what exactly she was trying to communicate.
This woman also hated Prince. Well, I should clarify. She loved Prince in the mid-eighties. Who didn't? Crazy people, maybe, or art directors. She was neither, and when I met her in the late eighties, she was still very much in love with Prince, and we would lay awake at night listening to "Something in the Water Does Not Compute" over and over again. She made me a tape with "Purple Rain" on it, even though I already had "Purple Rain." Who didn't? Crazy people, maybe. She stuck with Prince through "Around the World in a Day," through "Parade," through "Sign O The Times" and "Lovesexy." But then, all at once, she acquired the most dangerous thing a Prince observer can have: perspective. She saw through the ridiculous parts of the "Batman" soundtrack, and most of "Graffiti Bridge," and by then we were heading out the door, perhaps because she had also begun to see through the ridiculous parts of me. Her eyesight improved markedly as we hurtled toward separation. Once, very late in the game, I came home and she was in the bathroom with the door locked. I asked what she was doing. "Thinking how long I can do this," she said. I told her I hoped that was a euphemism for something fun. She didn't even laugh. "If you don't like it," I said, "I'm going to release it to everyone else as a euphemism." This time, there was a laugh, but a tiny one that I knew wouldn't be enough.
This week, Prince released two new records and I thought of this woman, wherever she was (is?). I wondered if she cared about the records, if she planned on paying [insert large amount of money] a year to subscribe to Prince's new Website or in standing in line at Target and buying them for [insert smaller amount of money]. I doubted that she did. I doubt that she does. I have heard the records, repeatedly, and as much as I want to say that I now see through the ridiculous parts of Prince, the fact is that I am as incapable of objective assessment as I was in 1989, when I spent the better part of the summer listening to the "Batman" soundtrack on an auto-reverse cassette player, over and over again. The new albums are not that good, and maybe they're not good at all, but they're Prince, and because of that, I'm somewhat powerless to do anything but love them come rain or come shine.
Does that bring the two things together? Not quite. Time works, when it works correctly, like auto-reverse, always moving forward but reliably returning you to the past. When I heard the new Prince records this week, there was a moment in one song that reminded me of a moment in another song. It's not a direct connection -- not a lyrical or musical one, but an impressionistic one -- and so there's no need to restage it. The song I was reminded of was "Do U Lie?" which was (is?) the second song on the second side of Parade, a moody ballad tucked between the album's two most massive songs, "Mountains" and "Kiss." When the album came out, a billion years ago, I did not know this woman I have been discussing. But when I knew her, the album was not yet old, and we played it the same way we played "Something in the Water Does Not Compute," late at night and often. It was on cassette, and sometimes after "Mountains" I would get up out of bed to fast-forward to "Kiss." She didn't like that, I suppose because she liked "Do U Lie?" After I had been stopped from skipping it a few times, I asked her why she liked it so much. "Sarah Vaughan," she said with a showily dismissive flip of the hand. I understood what she meant, to some degree. She was saying that it was Prince's attempt to mimic Vaughan's vocal mannerisms, especially at the end, when he sounds like he's practicing "Pinky" in the shower. (I release this to everyone for use as a euphemism: practicing "Pinky" in the shower.) But I misunderstood in another regard. I thought she was dismissing Prince for this affectation, or dismissing Sarah Vaughan (who was, after all, second in her bracket). A little while later, a little bit too late, I realized that she was dismissing me.Labels: ben, jazz, vocals
posted by Ben
LINK |
Thursday, January 08, 2009
EASTBOUND AND DOWNJerry Reed 1977 Available on : The Essential Jerry ReedRCA : 1995 [Buy It]BUSY DOIN' NOTHIN'The Beach Boys FriendsCapitol : 1968 [Buy It]TOO BUSYLouis Armstrong 1928 Available on : The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven RecordingsSony : 2000 [Buy It]WORK SONGDan Reeder Dan ReederOh Boy : 2004 [Buy It]I had a busy week back from vacation. Lots to do and not very much time, and so the days felt pinched, kind of like they did for the Bandit: We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there He wasn't kidding. In only twenty-eight hours, the Bandit and his Trans Am had to block for Snowman as they ran 400 cases of Coors from Texas to Georgia. They had to make the Southern Classic or else they'd never get their eighty thou from Big Enos: Keep your foot hard on the pedal, son, never mind them brakes
Let it all hang out cause we've got a run to make
The boys are thirsty in Atlanta, and there's beer in Texarkana
We'll bring it back no matter what it takes My situation is nearly the same as the Bandit's, with some instructive differences. Instead of ducking and dodging Buford T. Justice and picking up runaway brides on the roadside, I sit in an office, generally either writing or editing, sometimes meeting to talk about writing or editing. In any given day, there are many things to do, but the size of those things is subjective. They have no set physical dimensions and consequently few set chronological dimensions. At my discretion, within reason, the time spent on those things can contract and so, in a sense, the time-container can be felt to have expanded. This was not dreamt of in the Bandit's philosophy. Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine and...well, that should tell you something about how busy I was. I was pressed for time. I was strapped. I was running in circles. Still, I had time for her in the sense that I had the desire to talk to her, and consequently the will to contract the tasks at hand. You can always count on my making time for friends, because friends are what make time count. I think that was stitched on a sampler I saw once. (One of the other ones was "Peace in your heart can be seen on your face and in your soul." I never quite got that.) As coincidence would have it, the conversation we had was about how another friend of hers is always too busy to talk. The two women have been friends for years. Their friendship with one another predates my friendship with either. Despite that, whenever the first friend calls the second friend during the day, the second friend says that she is too busy, and rushes the first friend off the phone. The first friend has complained bitterly to me about the state of affairs. "How can she be too busy? That's crap." As I have said, to disagree would smack of hypocrisy. The other day, when she called, her purpose was twofold: to reiterate her central complaint about the second friend and then to dispense an epiphany. I think it was a fresh one and that she dialed me as it was crowning. "I don't think it's that she's too busy at all," she said. "If she's really as busy as she says, she would just let the phone go through to voice mail." "Good point," I said. "I think she's trying to put me in my place." "How so?" "Well, we have a different relationship socially. Whenever we're at a bar, she monopolizes the conversation. She tells me about her bad boyfriends, about how this one was mean and that one drank too much and the other one kept meaning not to drink so much." "Monopolize, you say?" I said. "Absolutely. One hundred percent. No, more. One thousand percent. It's not fair. I mean sometimes I have a bad day, like today. My boss is opening a second store and she's been in a terrible mood and she almost took my head off when I asked her where the deodorizer for the bathroom is. I'd like to be able to talk about that. But when this friend and I go out, it's all about her. I like hearing about it, but sometimes I look at my watch and I see that she has chewed up two hours. I don't know where the time goes, and I don't mean that like someone in love." "Have you said anything to her?" "Of course not. What could I say? It would hurt her feelings, and she's my friend. So why doesn't she feel the same way?" I started to answer, but then I remembered the terms. She went on. "You know, the reason I feel so bad about it is that once I had a boyfriend who was exactly the same as her." This, delivered like an epiphany, was not one. It had been rehearsed. In fact, I had heard it before. "He was my first serious boyfriend when I came to New York. He was a lawyer in a big firm and I was just getting started in the office of an art supply store. There were no cell phones then, or far fewer, but I had a phone at my desk, and lots of downtime. I used to call him during the day. He rarely answered, and when he did, he was like a different person. It was like someone was pointing a gun at his head on his end of the phone. It made me feel smaller than a flea, like a worthless little speck. But did I break up with him?" It was my line. "Not soon enough." "You said it," she said. "Not soon enough." Our conversation went on from there into other topics: her brother's nagging cough, the strange appeal of commercial wallpaper, a book she read, another she meant to read. My phone keeps track of the length of the call, and this one was more than fifteen minutes. I won't say how much more. Eventually she said she had to go. Someone was standing near her desk and she needed to look busy. I put on my headphones and forgot all about the phone. I had editing to do. While I worked, I listened to music: it's like being busy in two different ways at once, and since I was listening to music about being busy, it was like being busy in three different ways. I went through Elvis Costello's "Busy Bodies," which is, predictably, about a different kind of getting busy, and the Lyres' "Busy Body," which I think is also about sex, or possibly about rock-and-roll. For more than a little while, I stuck close to the Beach Boys' "Busy Doin' Nothin'," which is a little Brian Wilson vignette about the way that the daily grind can interfere with important things, like communication with friends. I will quote a large swath of it, because that's quicker than picking out a few resonant lines: I get a lot of thoughts in the morning
I write 'em all down
If it wasn't for that
I'd forget 'em in a while
And lately I've been thinking 'bout a good friend
I'd like to see more of, yeah yeah yeah
I think I'll make a call
I wrote a number down
But I lost it
So I searched through my pocket book
I couldn't find it
So I sat and concentrated on the number
And slowly it came to me
So I dialed it
And I let it ring a few times
There was no answer
So I let it ring a little more
Still no answer
So I hung up the telephone
Got some paper and sharpened up a pencil
And wrote a letter to my friend There is a desperate Zen flavor to this, as there is to many Beach Boys songs of the period, but there's also practical advice. Don't spend all your time on the phone. If you don't get an answer right away, write a letter. I called my friend to tell her, but she didn't answer. I called back a few minutes later: still nothing. Once, a few months ago, after weeks of her calling me all the time to tell me about her troubles, she dropped off the map. I experienced an even mix of relief and lack. But this was just a phone that wasn't being answered. I returned to the headphones, and soon enough came across Louis Armstrong's "Too Busy," from 1928, which is a fairly straightforward tale of busted love, distinct only as a result of the spirited and altogether strange lead vocal by Lillie Delk Christian. (Armstrong shows up scatting at the end.) The lyrics are short and sharp, like a pocketknife, and they are occupied (maybe even preoccupied) with what happens when one person can't find time for another person. When you're blown off, what's the blowback? Again, to save time (I could explain the reasons but that would defeat the purpose--you can find them up above, by the Beach Boys' song), I'll quote generously: Why do you keep avoiding me
I confess it's annoying me
Honestly it's so aggravating Play that twice, the way Christian moves from the rhyming verse of the first two lines to the almost witheringly conversational "Honestly, it's so aggravating." Play it three times, in fact, then move on. Won't you tell me just what to do
When I ask for a kiss or two
You say no not now dear
Somehow dear
You're always too busy for my loving
Too busy for my petting
That is all that I've been getting from you
What's more and I'm not lying
I noticed you've been trying
Hard to shake me
And it's making me blue
I can't understand your actions
But I'll get my satisfaction
Don't you worry just you wait and see dear
Wait til you want me honey
Then it won't be so funny
When I say that I'm too busy for you The Armstrong was the flip side to the Beach Boys, not literally--though that would have made a great split single--but temperamentally. Should you let the day run its course and value precious time when you find it, or should you feel acutely the sting of other people's alleged unavailability, sharpen your resentment to a point, and then plunge it into their hearts? I see that my friend has called a few times. I should call her back and see where she falls on the question, but it'll have to wait until later. I tell you, I've got enough to do. Labels: ben, country, jazz
posted by Ben
LINK |
Friday, March 14, 2008
LOVE FOR SALE
Elvis Costello
1981
Available on : Trust (Expanded)
Rhino: 2003
[Buy It]
LOVE FOR SALE
Fine Young Cannibals
Available on : Red Hot + Blue
Capitol : 1990
[Buy It]
DAY TRIPPER
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
1967
Available on : BBC Sessions
Experience Hendrix : 1998
[Buy It]
SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY
Donna Summer
She Works Hard For the Money
Polygram : 1983
[Buy It]
I COULDN'T PAY FOR WHAT I GOT LAST NIGHT
Swamp Dogg
Gag a Maggot
Stone Dogg : 1973
[Out of Print]
THE MIND DOES THE DANCING WHILE THE BODY PULLS THE STRINGS
Swamp Dogg
Have You Heard This Story?
Island : 1975
[Out of Print]
In 1930, Cole Porter and Herbert Fields wrote the musical "The New Yorkers," which told the story of a socialite who embarked on a fling with a bootlegger and began to investigate the city's underbelly: bootleggers, thieves, the demimonde. One of the songs in the production was Porter's "Love For Sale.":When the only sound in the empty street,
Is the heavy tread of the heavy feet
That belong to a lonesome cop
I open shop.
When the moon so long has been gazing down
On the wayward ways of this wayward town.
That her smile becomes a smirk,
I go to work.
Love for sale,
Appetising young love for sale.
Love that's fresh and still unspoiled,
Love that's only slightly soiled,
Love for sale.
Who will buy?
Who would like to sample my supply?
Who's prepared to pay the price,
For a trip to paradise? "Love for Sale" was a hit at the time for Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians; over the years, scores of performers have taken a crack at it, including Billie Holiday, Art Tatum, Elvis Costello (who kept the lyrics intact), and Fine Young Cannibals (who focussed on the chorus and filled the corners of the mix with actual fake street noise). In early 2008, the song was covered, of a fashion, by New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who was exposed as a customer of a high-priced escort service.
As a politician, Spitzer shot himself in the foot, and then the other foot, and then between his own legs. As a human being, though, he joined a long, storied, and highly equivocal tradition. The Beatles, who consorted with all kinds of ladies of all kinds of evenings in Hamburg, liked to joke that "Day Tripper," was about prostitution, as they did at an August 1966 press conference in Los Angeles:Q: I'd like to direct this question to messrs. Lennon and McCartney. In a recent article, Time magazine put down pop music. And they referred to "Day Tripper" as being about a prostitute...
PAUL: (nodding) Oh yeah.
Q: And "Norwegian Wood" as being about a lesbian.
PAUL: (nodding) Oh yeah.
Q: I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today.
PAUL: We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all.
(room erupts with laughter)
JOHN: "...quipped Ringo."
PAUL: (chuckles) Cut!!
JOHN: You can't use it on the air, that. Donna Summer was certainly not joking in "She Works Hard for the Money." The song's video, which you will no doubt remember from the nineteen-eighties, includes scenes of women working in sweatshops, as nurses, and as policewomen; the main character is a waitress in a diner (played by an actress, though it echoes the picture of Summer on the record sleeve). Beneath that, though, it is explicitly identified as a tribute to "the working woman," and it's hard to subtract prostitution from that equation:Twenty five years have
Come and gone
And she's seen a lot of tears
Of the ones who come in
They really seem to need her there
It's a sacrifice working day to day
For little money just tips for pay
But it's worth it all
Just to hear them say that they care Spitzer's escort-service patronage raises several issues about the sanctity of the marriage contract, particularly the function of married sex--which, as we know, is the kind you don't shell out $4300 for, even if it does involve unprotected assplay or drugs or whatever the unsafe practices hinted at actually were. I have sung the praises of Swamp Dogg repeatedly, but it's more efficient just to let him sing. In "I Couldn't Pay For What I Got Last Night," he tells his girlfriend or wife why she's the one for him:Last night you kissed me and my heart began to flutter
And I melted in your arms like good old country butter
You whispered sweet words honey in my ear
I knew it was the truth when you said "I love you"
You got a way of treating a man so right
If I had all the money in the whole wide world
I couldn't pay for what I got last night The girlfriend or wife will no doubt be thrilled to hear this, but also a little disconcerted. After all, who has introduced the concept of payment here? He has. A second before the song started, no one was thinking about paying anything. It's like "Can't Buy Me Love" turned to less reputable ends. And then there's the more philosophical, more funky, and more monumental "The Mind Does the Dancing While the Body Pulls The Strings," which goes halfway to explaining why men--in power or out of power, in marriages or out of them, in sickness or in health--don't always make the right decision in carnal matters:Every time you parade it never fails to rain
All experienced spectators advising you get it together
Oh, a meteorologist what's going to be the weather?
Your mind is playing tricks on you
It's got you so confused
You can't talk right all you do is stutter
You want to know why white milk makes yellow butter
Where do lights go when they go out
There's too many things you feel you gotta find out about
The mind does the dancing and the body keeps pulling the strings But the last word should belong to Michael Keaton--or rather Michael Keaton as Bill Blazejowski in Ron Howard's 1982 comedy "Night Shift," in which a pair of morgue workers (Keaton and Henry Winkler) decide to start an escort service. As the business gets underway, Bill assembles all the working girls, writes the word "Prostitution" on a chalkboard, and proceeds to deliver one of the finest motivational speeches in the history of the movies. I am quoting from a twenty-five year-old memory, so I may be a bit off:Prostitution--what does that mean really? The first thing you have to do to find out what a word means is break it up. "Pros." Doesn't mean anything. "Tit." We're all big boys and girls; I think we know what that means. "Tu." Well, there's two of them. "Shun"--that's from the Greek, meaning "I don't want it, I don't need it, push it away." I have no idea what the hell that's doing here. Labels: ben, jazz, soul, vocals
posted by Ben
LINK |
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
ALABAMA BOOGIE
John Lee
Federal : 1951
Available on: Rural Blues vol. 1 1934-1956
Document : 1995
[Buy It]
ALABAMA MAN
Earl Scott
Chascamp c. 1960 (?)
Available on: Nashville Rockabilly
Stomper Time : 2004
[Buy It]
THE STORY OF ALABAMA BOUND
Jelly Roll Morton & Alan Lomax
c. 1938
Available on: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings
Rounder : 2005
[Buy It]
Welcome, folks, to Alabama!
The great state of Alabam' is the 'bammiest state there is. Established in 1973, Alabama was desert until a creek run through, and didn't that desert turn verdant with pasture and slaves? These days, Alabama folk live peacefully and know there never was much to worry about.
ALABAMA
The Blue Sky Boys
RCA : 1949
Available on: The Blue Sky Boys
JSP : 2007
[Buy It]
ALABAMA LULLABY
The Delmore Brothers
Columbia : 1931
Available on: Classic Cuts: 1933-1941
JSP : 2004
[Buy It]
AUTOMOBILE RIDE THROUGH ALABAMA
Red Henderson
OKeh : 1928
Available on: The Roots of Rap
Yazoo : 1996
[Buy It]
Still, people is people, and Alabama people have stories to tell. Stories about apple trees, space men, bull frogs and the sometimes mistreatment of peoples. Up in Chicago, J.B. Lenoir had some mean things to say about the way white folks treated the black folks down in Alabama, and up in Chicago he wasn't afraid to sing about it -
ALABAMA
J. B. Lenoir
Alabama Blues
L& R : 1965
[Buy It]
and sing about it -
ALABAMA (LIVE)
J.B. Lenoir
Home Recording (with Willie Dixon) : 1962
Available on: One of These Mornings
JSP : 2003
[Buy It]
and sing about it some more -
 ALABAMA (LIVE)
('bout 7.5 minutes in)
Like Skip James' "Washington D. C. Hospital Center Blues," the song "Alabama," by J. B. Lenoir, is a last gasp of the old, acoustic country blues. But "Washington D. C. Hospital Center Blues" is a spider-web of a song; "Alabama" is a mighty gasp. Born in Mississippi, Lenoir recorded in and around Chicago for over a decade, but never broke through to a national audience. By 1967, he was working as a dishwasher a the U. of Illinois Champaign campus; he died of heart attack that year, at the age of thirty-eight. The last, unrecorded song he wrote went like this:Something got a hold of me
it must be the Lord
Something got a hold of me
it must be the Lord
Something got a hold of me
it must be the Lord
Something got a hold of me
it must be the Lord
I can't sing right, I can't play right
I can't walk right, I can't talk right
I can't eat right, I can't sleep right
I can't do nothing at all. According to the liner notes I'm looking at, "J.B.'s autopsy revealed that blood from his heart was backing up into his abdomen. His family settled a wrongful death suit against a driver who had hit his car from the rear [three weeks earlier] for $2250. After the lawyers and the court got paid, there was a little over $1,400 for the Lenoir family." Across the pond, in England, John Mayall recorded this eulogy for Lenoir; you can see more of Lenoir on YouTube here, here, and here.
But that's neither here nor there (big love to the Heart of Dixie!) except insofar as "Alabama" by J. B. Lenoir always did strike me as one of the more politically-minded records of the sixties; just a few years earlier, you could stick a microphone in front of any old bluesman, ask all about the hard times, and get no reference to any mistreatments whatsoever:
MONOLOGUE ON ACCIDENTS
Alan Lomax & Blind Willie McTell
The Library of Congress Recordings
c. 1940; first released in 1969
Document : 1995
[Buy It]
Given all this history, it's not surprising that some of the ways folks in Alabama get along is by drinkin':
I AIN'T A BIT DRUNK
George Roark
c. 1938
Availbale on: Kentucky Mountain Music
Yazoo : 2003
[Buy It]
Workin':
OLD ALABAMA
Artists Unknown (Recorded by Alan Lomax)
Negro Prison Blues and Songs
Legacy Intl. : 1994
[Buy It]
And singin' about movin' to Alabama:
GOING TO MOVE TO ALABAMA
Charley Patton
Paramount : 1930
Available on: Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues
Revenant : 2003
[Buy It]
If you're thinking of moving to Alabama, you'll want to print this handy map out. Keep it in your glove compartment. And those of you without a glove compartment, take heart: Alabama is also a fairyland where no one else can enter, and your every valuable is always safe:
STARS FELL ON ALABAMA
Billie Holiday
Verve : 1957
Available on: The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve 1945-1959
Polygram : 1993
[Buy It]
STARS FELL ON ALABAMA
Art Tatum
c. 1955
Available on: The Tatum Group Masterpieces vol. 4
Pablo : 1991
[Buy It]
STARS FELL ON ALABAMA
The Mountain Goats
Nine Black Poppies
3 Beads of Sweat : 1995
[Buy It]Labels: alex, blues, country, geography, jazz, old-timey
posted by Alex
LINK |
Monday, January 28, 2008
Folks, Brian's on deadline today, so I'm pinch-hitting with a few songs I've been meaning to post for, well, for a few years now. Pop songs, about American history. Which, you'd think there'd be more of - and if you do think of more, I'd be happy to post a follow-up. Whoever comes up with the most gets a copy of our New Year's mix (not to be confused with our xMas mix, which you can still download from last month's post). Which, a question presents itself: Does Neil Young's "Cortez, The Killer" fit the bill?
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
Fats Waller
Victor : 1936
Available on: If You Got To Ask, You Ain't Got It
RCA : 2006
[Buy It]
I've loved Fats Waller ever since I was a kid, but didn't hear this song until I was well into my 30s. And boy, do I love this song - it's raunchy, sophisticated, hilarious - in a way that songs aren't raunchy, or sophisticated, or hilarious anymore. Not exactly History 101, but an excellent intro to any Survey of American Music course.
GIVE IT A DAY
Pavement
Pacific Trim
Matador : 1996
[Buy It]
Great beauty, weirdness, and stupidity, in this song. Beauty:Today the Gods
Can't make us quake
We see our lives as situations
Eyes are eyes, and teeth are teeth
But mine are rotten underneath Weirdness:Years and years have passed
Since the Puritans invaded our soul
Just like those Arab terrorists
You never know Stupidity: Increase Mather is a "her," and the whole bit at the end there.
LEWIS & CLARK
The Embarrassment
Death Travels West
Fresh Sounds : 1983
Available on: Heyday 1979-1983
Bar None : 1995
[Buy It]
I don't think I've used my Moistworks Bully Pulpit to adequately convey my love of The Embarrassment. The band, not the feeling. Although, the feeling, too. This isn't really typical of the band - it's slower, and more regal (that soaring, single-note guitar solo, the slow crescendo from "famous, famous explorers" to "famous, pinheaded egotists"). And, to the best of my knowledge, it's the only song about our old friends Lewis & Clark (though come to think of it, I can't think of too many songs about the Mathers, or Columbus, either). Death travels West, indeed.
Tune in next week for the second installment of the Alex & Ben geography show (I'm tackling the great state of Alabama), and later this week for more Ben, and Brian, and a guest post from the excellent Jamaican-American music critic, Garnette Cadogan.Labels: alex, geography, jazz, rock and roll
posted by Alex
LINK |
Thursday, January 03, 2008
I'M BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT
The Duke Ellington Orchestra
1944
Available on : The Complete RCA-Victor Mid-Forties Recordings
RCA : 2000
[Buy It]
I'M BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT
Duke Ellington & Louis Armstrong
1961
Available on : The Great Summit: The Master Takes
Blue Note : 2001
[Buy It]
BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
Polydor : 1969
[Buy It]
BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT
The Velvet Underground
The Legendary Guitar Amp Tape
1969
IN THE BEGINNING GOD
Duke Ellington
1965
Available on : The Centennial Edition: Complete RCA Victor Recordings
RCA : 1999
[Buy It]
WANNA BE STARTING SOMETHING
Michael Jackson
Thriller
Sony : 1983
[Buy It]
WANNA BE STARTING SOMETHING 2008
Michael Jackson feat. Akon
Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Thriller
Sony : 2008
[Buy It]
DON'T STOP THE MUSIC
Rihanna
Good Girl Gone Bad
Def Jam : 2007
[Buy It]
So, Happy New Year. But along with the celebration, a complaint: the beginning of a year is such an illusion that it's almost not worth remarking upon. The same disappointments that were present on December 31 are present on January 1. The problems that were on the table on December 31 are still on the table on January 1. The same events that were current on December 31 are current on January 1. The only thing that begins as the new year dawns is hope, and since it's traveling by itself, it is, by definition, false hope. I have a friend who called me to compare our New Year's Eve parties. Hers was okay, she said. Her skirt was very short. She then told me that she was drawing up a list of goals for the new year, making a point of alternating between substantial resolutions (be a better person; renew faith in faith) and trivial ones (return to very short skirt with some regularity). I said I might jot down some resolutions, but I won't, unless they start with "Don't make any more resolutions," and that's a cheap ticket.
Though I don't think the new year starts anything, I am well aware of the importance of fresh starts. Without them, it's all middle or end, and that's hard to endure. So where are the real beginnings? There's Husker Du's "New Day Rising" or the Breeders' "New Year," although they're kind of generic, one in a revolutionary key, one in a pantheistic one. I was thinking of something more specific, and that's how I found my way to Duke Ellington's "Beginning to See the Light," a song about the genesis of romantic awareness:I never cared much for moonlit skies
I never wink back at fireflies
But now that the stars are in your eyes
I'm beginning to see the light
I never went in for afterglow
Or candlelight on the mistletoe
But now when you turn the lamp down low
I'm beginning to see the light
Used to ramble through the park
Shadowboxing in the dark
Then you came and caused a spark
That's a four-alarm fire now
I never made love by lantern-shine
I never saw rainbows in my wine
But now that your lips are burning mine
I'm beginning to see the light The song was composed by Ellington and Johnny Hodges and fitted to lyrics by Don George and Harry James. It was one of the first records that Ellington made after the lifting of the American Federation of Musicians' recording ban, which was called in August 1942 as a result of the union's belief that mechanical reproduction of records was ruining the careers of performing musicians. Record companies were asked to pay royalties to the union, and eventually did --Decca relented in September 1943, followed closely by Capitol and then, a year after that, by Columbia and Victor. Recording artists had a new beginning, and Ellington was eager to set down a version of the already-popular song. He did, with vocals from Joya Sherrill--soon enough, he was joined by nearly every other performer of standards, from James (his version charted higher than Ellington's) to Ella Fitzgerald to the Ink Spots to Bobby Darin. Louis Armstrong took a crack at it when he and Ellington recorded together in 1961, and he turned in a typically brilliant vocal that is, typically, both earthy and empyrean.
Within a decade, the title of the song, and some of its sense, had migrated from jazz to rock. Lou Reed's lyric quickly points to an epiphany that is at once broader and deeper:Well, I'm beginning to see the light
Well, I'm beginning to see the light
Some people work very hard but still they never get it right
Well, I'm beginning to see the light As it rolls along, it sidesteps the difficulties of modern existence ("there are problems in these times but whoo none of them are mine") before breaking euphorically into its predecessor's space: "How does it feel to be loved." The second version is an instrumental, sort of: it's from the Legendary Guitar Amp tapes, which were the result of a tech at the Boston Tea Party plugging directly into Lou Reed's amplifier. It's very difficult (and very foolish) to say that one Velvet Underground song is the best, but in certain moods, such as the mood produced by the false beginning of a new year, this is the best.
Locating new beginnings within light and light within love isn't a bad idea, but it has its limits. Duke Ellington, later on, located some of those limits with his aggressive exploration of faith and devotion. These were his Sacred Concerts, the first of which premiered in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral in September 1965. The centerpiece of that first Sacred Concert was the first piece, "In the Beginning God," a twenty-minute epic that starts with a piano solo, gives way to a baritone-saxophone solo by Harry Carney, begins to move with the power you might expect might be needed for a Genesis--whose first four words, of course, give the piece its title--and then arrives at a fleet, jivey monologue by Brock Peters:No heroes no zeroes
No naughty no nice
No limit no budget
No bottom no topless
No cows no bulls no barracuda no buffalo
No birds no bees no beetles Or is it Beatles? Ellington began to write the text after he learned that Billy Strayhorn, his collaborator for nearly thirty years, was dying of cancer. Maybe he was making a stand for jazz against rock-and-roll, which must have seemed like a new beginning at the time, or a novelty, or a step backwards, depending on who you were.
You can begin to see the light. You can try to see God's first light. You can work very hard and try to get it right. Are all useful ways of exposing the artificiality of the new year, although the meaninglessness of arbitrary beginnings already has an anthem, and an excellent one at that: Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Starting Something." It's a song about gossip, give or take: Billie Jean is always talkin'
When nobody else is talkin'
Tellin' lies and rubbin' shoulders
So they called her mouth a motor
Someone's always tryin' to start my baby cryin'
Talkin', squealin', spyin'
Sayin' you just wanna be startin' somethin' Anyone who doesn't think Michael Jackson is one of the two or three finest singers in pop music history should listen to the way he sings "So they called her mouth a motor." But then listen to the rest of the song, and realize that it rapidly and intentionally devolves into a song about how gossip is not only malignant but meaningless, and not just gossip, but everything else: existence, maybe, when you're stuck in the middle and the pain is thunder. The final resolution of the problem, when he decides to lift his "head up high, and scream out to the world 'I know I am someone,' and let the truth unfurl," is a nice sentiment, until it, too, devolves into nonsense: mamase mamasa mamakossa. (Of course, it's not really nonsense. It's the chant from Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa," from 1972, but here it's nonsense, and the best kind.)
It's now twenty-five years since Jackson released the album that started with "Wanna Be Starting Something" (it was called Thriller -- you may have heard of it), and the record industry is trying to give one of its best-selling properties a new beginning by re-releasing it with five special modern remixes. Here's the thing about special modern remixes: they are usually so bad that calling them terrible is insulting to terrible things. Most of these are no exception. Kanye West redoes "Billie Jean," somehow subtracting all that's exciting about the song, which is pretty much the entire song. Fergie defangs "Beat It." Will.I.Am applies some wit.le.ss trickery to "The Girl Is Mine." The only version that doesn't qualify as a botched plastic surgery is Akon's remix/remake of "Wanna Be Starting Something," which transforms the song from a battle challenge to a bedroom come-on. It's smooth and seductive and even a little bit menacing. And it's not the best remix of the song. That would be Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music," which knows that if you never stop, you won't need to fool yourself with the illusion of starting.Labels: ben, jazz, rock and roll
posted by Ben
LINK |
Monday, December 31, 2007
WHAT TIME IS IT?
The Jive Five
Beltone : 1962
Available on: Our True Story
Ace : 1991
[Buy It]
I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS
Roland Kirk Quartet
Mercury : 1962
Available on: Rahsaan: The Complete Mercury Recordings
Polygram : 1990
[Buy It]
TIME FOR EVERYTHING
Ed Pauling & The Exciters
Federal : 1965
Available on: The "5" Royales : Catch That Teardrop : The Best of the Home of the Blues 1950-1954 Sessions (Plus the Complete Federal & Savoy Recordings of El Pauling & Royal Abbit)
Ace : 2007
[Buy It]
PLEASE SEND ME SOMEONE TO LOVE
Percy Mayfield
Specialty : 1950
Available on: Poet of The Blues
Specialty : 1990
[Buy It]
PLEASE SEND ME SOMEONE TO LOVE
James Booker
Keyboard King of New Orleans
c. 1976 (JSP Reissue : 2005)
[Buy It]
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE
The "5" Royales
Federal : 1960
Available on: Catch That Teardrop : The Best of the Home of the Blues 1950-1954 Sessions (Plus the Complete Federal & Savoy Recordings of El Pauling & Royal Abbit)
Ace : 2007
[Buy It]
I CRIED ALL NIGHT LONG
Harvey Sims
Art Rosenbaum Field Recording : 1991
The Art of Field Recording Vol. 1
Dust to Digital : 2007
[Buy It]
TO LOVE SOMEONE (WHO DON'T LOVE YOU)
The Kaldirons
Twinight : 1970
Available on: Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Midnight Rotation
Numero Group : 2007
[Buy It]
HAPPY NEW YEAR, BABY
The Johnny Otis Orchestra
Excelsior : 1947
[Buy It]
MEADOWLANDS
Nancy Jacobs & Her Sisters
Quality : 1955
Available on: The History of Township Music
Wrasse : 2001
[Buy It]
YOU'RE ALL I NEED TO GET BY (TAKE 2)
Aretha Franklin
Atlantic : 1970
Available on: Rare & Unreleased Recordings from The Golden Reign of The Queen of Soul
Atlantic : 2007
[Buy It]
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Lightnin' Hopkins
Decca : 1963
Available on: Blue Yule: Christmas Blues and R&B Classics
Rhino : 1991
[Buy It]
THIS TIME ANOTHER YEAR YOU MAY BE GONE
Rev. Edward Claybor
Vocalion : 1928
Available on: American Primitive vol. 1: Raw Pre-War Gospel (1926-36)
Revenant : 1997
[Buy It]
NOBODY'S BUSINESS
Joe Harris & Kid West
Available on: Field Recordings, vol. 5: Louisiana, Texas, Bahamas 1933-1940
Document : 1998
[Buy It]
The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears. ~W.H. Auden
NEW YEAR'S PARTY
Blowfly
Weird World 12" : 1980
Available on: The Worst of Blowfly
Hot : 1996
[Buy It]
Happy new year to you and yours, from Ben, Brian, James, Joanna, Alex, and the extended Moistworks family!
AULD LANG SYNE
Jimi Hendrix
Live @ The Fillmore : January 1, 1970
Courtesy of: WFMU's Beware of the Blog
[Unreleased]Labels: african, alex, blues, doo-wop, gospel, holidays, jazz, rhythm and blues, soul
posted by Alex
LINK |
Friday, November 02, 2007
IF YOU PICK HER TOO HARD (SHE COMES OUT OF TUNE)
Little Richard
1972
Available on : King of Rock and Roll: The Complete Reprise Sessions
Rhino Handmade : 2005
[Buy It]
WE'RE GONNA HAVE A REAL GOOD TIME TOGETHER
The Velvet Underground
1969: Velvet Underground Live, Vol. 1
Mercury : 1974
[Buy It]
TOO MARVELOUS FOR WORDS
Frank Sinatra
Songs for Swingin' Lovers!
Capitol : 1955
[Buy It]
TOO MARVELOUS FOR WORDS
Art Tatum
The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 1
Pablo : 1953
[Buy It]
YOU CAN HAVE WATERGATE (JUST GIMME SOME BUCKS AND I'LL BE STRAIGHT)
The JBs
1973
Available on : Funky Good Time: The Anthology
Polydor : 1995
[Buy It]
A friend of mine returned from a trip recently. We spoke a few days later. I'm sure that the thing I was supposed to do was to say, "Welcome back" and leave it at that. But you know how it is with friends -- they're not acquaintances. So we got into a discussion about life and what it means. At some point, philosophy slid into soap opera. She wanted to talk about a relationship she's in and I was reluctant at first because I didn't think it was a wise idea. The relationship, I mean, not the talking about it, although it turned out that the talking about it wasn't such a great idea, either, because what I said caused additional tension. What I said was that this relationship of hers seemed to have an element of opportunism, and a section of my mind felt that was unfair. The man she was seeing seemed to me to be spending intimate time with her under somewhat false pretenses, not in a malicious way but not in an especially provident way either, although I recognized that it was condescending to suggest that she wasn't capable of seeing that on her own and making her own judgment about how much the false pretenses were offset by the genuine pleasure and comfort. I was worried about someone I cared about standing in harm's way, even voluntarily, but opening up my mouth to begin to express that worry was not necessarily my right. I didn't say that. How could I? It was a conversation, not a symposium. But what I did say failed me, and her, and our friendship. I was bossy. In working things through in my mind, I came uncomfortably close to telling another adult how to live her life. I grew angry at myself -- I should have laid out and said nothing -- and then I grew angry at language.
Why was I mad at language? Well, let me explain, using more language. Language has limits, particularly when it is charged with expressing complex emotions. Or rather: there may not be any theoretical limits, but there are operational limits. The operators of the language (in this case, me) are hobbled by conflicts of interest, by positionality and personality, by temerity and timidity. There were no words, or there weren't enough words, or there were too many words that got in the way. Stupid language.
Songs seemed like a better way to go. They have one foot in language, but that foot is tapping. They have meaning but also the spell of melody and the force of rhythm, which improves their ability to address situations that touch on emotional and physical issues along with intellectual ones. This is a contentious stance -- again, stupid language -- until it's demonstrated. Exhibit A: Little Richard. In the early seventies, Little Richard, like many iconic artists from the fifties, was in limbo, uncertain how to respond to the quickly changing times. The electric blues giants who were still alive released heavy blues-rock records with psychedelic flourishes (Muddy Waters had Electric Mud, Howlin' Wolf had Howlin' Wolf's New Album), but the rockers faced equally severe identity crises. Each of them dealt with it idiosyncratically, sometimes desperately, and not always to their critical or commercial advantage. Elvis had been to Memphis and was already slouching toward Vegas. Jerry Lee Lewis had shifted over into country. Chuck Berry experienced a pyrrhic victory when "My Ding-a-Ling," the worst song he ever recorded, hit number one. Bo Diddley soldiered on at Chess, covering many of the artists who had imitated him. The remaining giant of fifties rock, Little Richard, signed to Reprise and recorded a quartet of records: The King of Rock and Roll (1970), Second Coming (1971), The Rill Thing (1972), and Southern Child. They were roots records, reaching back into country and jazz as well as taking a stab at the rock-and-roll of the time. The vocals weren't as volcanic as the Specialty sides, but they were more than just respectable, and the songwriting was sometimes fascinatingly personal.
Respectable and fascinating sold poorly. Sales were so sluggish that the fourth album of the series, Southern Child, wasn't even released at the time, and only saw the light of day thanks to bootleggers and, eventually, a Rhino anthology of the Reprise years. Southern Child is of a piece with the others, with some key differences: more original songs, subtler vocals, and a more mellow feel. It also contains Little Richard's mid-career masterpiece, a country-folk composition called "If You Pick Her Too Hard (She Comes Out of Tune)." The song has many assets (arresting title, peaceful acoustic guitars, unorthodox structure) but its real strength is in its wordless opening, which consists of some two dozen sweet exhales and then a rousing cry that communicates some kind (and maybe all kinds) of freedom:Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Whoa whoa whoa yeah yeah yeah The song has other lyrics, and they're not bad.If you pick her too hard she'll come out of tune
If you pick her too hard she'll come out of tune
The sound of your breath mixing with my breath
It's the only sound that's true
The touch of your back pressing on my back
Gives us both a place to play out back If you subtract the sexual implications (which make up about 50 percent of the song) and the strangeness of Little Richard addressing a love song to what seems to be a woman (40 percent), there's not much left over, but what there is conveys a simple message: don't pressure your intimates lest you throw your relationships with them into crisis. It seemed like a good lesson regarding the benefits of laying out rather than charging ahead. And while the song isn't expressly about using language injudiciously, the argument is elevated, and maybe even made true, by the nonsense syllables in the lyrics.
Connected to this apology was my own need for reassurance that I hadn't caused any permanent damage to the friendship. I couldn't ask directly. That would mean more language. Instead, I turned to another song that turns on wordlessness, the Velvet Underground's "We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together." The lyrics aren't artful or even anthemic, but they're not exactly placeholders either:We're gonna have a real good time together
We're gonna have a real good time together
We're gonna have a real good time together
We're gonna laugh and dance and shout together
Na na na na na na na na na na na hey hey hey baby Listening to it restored my hope. So now I had two song-messages, one about my understanding that I should have backed off and the other about my hope that good faith would return intact, and they said what they needed to say without any words at all. Whoa whoa whoa yeah yeah yeah, na na na na na na na na na na na hey hey hey baby.
Little Richard and Lou Reed weren't the first songwriters to recognize that the language that they depended upon for their livelihood was iffy at best. The great Johnny Mercer, who once dismissed a musical he didn't care for by saying "I could eat alphabet soup and shit better lyrics," copped to the problem in 1937, when he fit words to a song by Richard Whiting for the film "Ready, Willing, and Able":You're just too marvelous
Too marvelous for words
Like glorious, glamorous
And that old standby amorous
It's all too wonderful
I'll never find the words
That say enough, tell enough
I mean they just aren't swell enough
You're much too much, and just too very very
To ever be in Webster's dictionary
And so I'm borrowing a love song from the birds
To tell you that you're marvelous
Too marvelous for words The song became a standard. Everyone recorded it: Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Rosemary Clooney, Nat King Cole, Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine. In 1947, a version by Jo Stafford was used in the film, "Dark Passage," which starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and the film also incorporated an instrumental version. The irony of stripping "Too Marvelous For Words" of its marvelous words was not confined to the film. Art Tatum recorded a coruscating solo piano version of the song (as wordless pieces go, it's pretty wordy--all those notes!) and the song even supplied the title of James Lester's biography of Tatum. "Too Marvelous for Words" is about love, of course, but love is just one of many possible sites of failure for language; pretty much any emotion that requires explanation also thwarts explanation.
When I spoke to my friend a few days later, I didn't plan on raising the issue of her relationship. She raised it. She said that she had thought more about the situation and why she was in it. She then explained herself, badly. "Things will either get better or they will get worse and when it's better or worse than I'll know which way it's going," she said. She was trying to tell me something, and probably trying to tell herself something, but she ran afoul of language. Then, that night, I was listening to the JBs perform "You Can Have Watergate (Just Gimme Some Bucks and I'll Be Straight)." The lyrics are largely the title, repeated over and over again, along with a few other short chants and some James Brown punctuation. The song is officially listed as an instrumental, but in this case the small amount of language does everything it needs to do:You can have Watergate
But give me some bucks and I'll be straight
I need some money You can spend all your time discussing the large issues of corruption in society or the complexities of an imperfect relationship, but when it comes down to it, people have needs that have nothing to do with fine-grained discussion, precise rendering of interior states, or persuasive argument. Those things are luxuries. My friend just wanted her bucks and she'd be straight. I was going to call her and recommend the song. But then I'd have to explain the connection, and maybe who the JBs were, and that would mean more words, and maybe picking too hard. I remembered that Little Richard had said "whoa whoa whoa yeah yeah yeah," and also something else that he said. He said "Shut up!" That was good enough for me.Labels: ben, funk, jazz, soul
posted by Ben
LINK |
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
While Kip heroically battles the World Zionist Conspiracy (aka capitalism), let's take a trip to jazz age Harlem. Hey, what's that smell?
SENDIN' THE VIPERS
The Mezz Mezzrow Orchestra
RCA/Bluebird: 1934
Available on: Rhapsodies in Black, Dope & Glory, et al
Say hello to serial convert Mezz Mezzrow. Russian Jew by birth, he converted to black music at 15, which he discovered, of course, in prison. (It "hit me like a millennium would hit a philosopher," said Mezz.) Black music was just a gateway drug. Under its pernicious influence Mezz converted to the demon weed and became a lifelong viper. Here's how he describes the experience:I began to feel very happy and sure of myself. With my loaded horn I could take all the fist-swinging, evil things in the world and bring them together in perfect harmony, spreading peace and joy and relaxation to all the keyed-up and punchy people everywhere. I began to preach my millenniums on the horn, leading all the sinners to glory. In a rapidly accelerating spiral, Mezz left Chicago (having converted to New York) and moved to Harlem, where he converted to Negroism (see also Norman Mailer.) And that, of course, led him right back to prison, where he famously asked to be confined in the colored cell block. ("I don't think I'd get along in the white blocks," said Mezz.)
Like Woody Allen, Mezz was only an okay clarinetist. He did write a decent song.
REALLY THE BLUES
Sidney Bechet and Tommy Ladnier and His Orchestra
RCA/Bluebird : 1938
Available on: Really the Blues
[Buy It]
He leveraged some synergy by using the same name for his autobiography (co-written with Bernard Wolfe.) But basically Mezz was famous for being Louis Armstrong's dealer and such a master stoner that an especially thick marijuana cigarette (aka "fatty") was known in Harlem as a "mezz."
Across the street from Mezz lives Willie the Lion. He grew up in Newark. His business card says Hebrew cantor. Only he's a shvartzer. See?
RELAXIN' (WILLIE'S THEME)
Willie "the Lion" Smith
The Memoirs of Willie the Lion Smith
RCA Victor : 1967
[Buy It]
According to the African-American registry, Willie became cantor of the black synagogue in Harlem in the 1940s. I wish I'd known about that place growing up; I had to settle for Adas Israel. Here he goes, rambling on like somebody's grandpa, talking about the good old days, wearing his trademark derby hat, and sporting a jaunty cigar roughly the size of a mezz.
THE CLEF CLUB
Willie "the Lion" Smith
The Memoirs of Willie the Lion Smith
The Clef Club was the Skull and Bones of black Jews, guys like Rabbi Arnold Ford, who became Marcus Garvey's musical director. (He's the guy who wrote the Garvey theme song, the "Universal Ethiopian Anthem.") As Willie tells it, in those days these was no racism, a point he emphasizes by singing, "that's why they call me shine."
Look, there's Langston Hughes, writing Fine Clothes to the Jew. It sure was a crazy, mixed-up world back then. Who knew?Labels: conversions, jazz, megan
posted by Megan
LINK |
Thursday, July 12, 2007
MAX'S VARIATION (POP GOES THE WEASEL)
Clifford Brown & Max Roach
Available on: Alone Together: The Best of the Mercury Years
Verve : 1995
[Buy It]
THE BOO BOO SONG
King Coleman
King : 1967
Available on: It's Dance Time!
Norton : 2003
[Buy It]
MOCKINGBIRD
Inez & Charlie Foxx
Dynamo : 1968
Available on: Count The Days
Charly : 1995
[Buy It]
MARY'S LITTLE LAMB
Otis Redding
Volt : 1964
Available on: Otis! The Definitive Otis Redding
Elektra : 1993
[Buy It
ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT
James Carr
Goldwax : 1970
Available on: The Complete Goldwax Singles
Ace/Kent : 2001
[Buy It]
+ an:
Educational Video Courtesy of Dallas Penn Dot Com
A) Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
B) If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either.
C) Never have children, only grandchildren.
D) I am fond of children - except boys.
E) Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.
F) Children are contemptuous, haughty, irritable, envious, sneaky, selfish, lazy, flighty, timid, liars and hypocrites, quick to laugh and cry, extreme in expressing joy and sorrow, especially about trifles, they'll do anything to avoid pain but they enjoy inflicting it: little men already.
G) There are only two things a child will share willingly - communicable diseases and his mother's age.
H) I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
I) There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
J) In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children
K) The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children.
L) The English take the breeding of their horses and dogs more seriously than they do their children.
M) Your children need your presence more than your presents.
N) I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
O) Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them.
P) The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.
Q) Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.
R) Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.
S) My music is best understood by children and animals.
T) You make 'em, I amuse 'em.
U) The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother's always a Democrat.
X) Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.
V) Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.
X) God is dead! Heaven is empty - Weep, children, you no longer have a father.
Y) It is a wise father that knows his own child.
Z) You don't even live once.
. . . . . . . . . .
1)John Adams 2)Margaret Atwood 3)Robert Benchley 4)Jean de La Bruyère 5)Dick Cavett 6)Lewis Carroll 7) Clarence Darrow 8)Ralph Waldo Emerson 9)Robert Frost 10)Theodore Geisel 11)Oliver Wendell Holmes 12)Jesse Jackson 13)King Edward VIII 14)Karl Kraus 15)Gerard de Nerval 16)Princess Michael Of Kent 17)Antoine de Saint-Exupery 18)William Shakespeare 19)Socrates 20)Benjamin Spock 21)Igor Stravinsky 22)Harry Truman 23)Gore Vidal 24)Andy Warhol 25)Oscar Wilde 26)YodaLabels: alex, jazz, kids, soul
posted by Alex
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Friday, July 06, 2007
AZALEA
Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington
The Complete Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington Sessions
Blue Note : 1961
[Buy It]
CAREFUL (CLICK, CLICK)
Wu-Tang Clan
The W
Sony : 2000
[Buy It]
BLACK STARLINER MUST COME
Culture
Two Sevens Clash
Shanachie : 1977
[Buy It]
In recent posts, I've been writing about friendship, trust, faith, belief, hope, disappointment, communication, sexual possessiveness, and sexual permissiveness. This week, for Independence Day, I'm going to temporarily leave off with all that. Regular programming will resume next week.
Every year, around the Fourth of July, I spend whatever spare time I have listening to Louis Armstrong, who was supposedly born on July 4, 1900. That's legend -- in fact, he was born a year and a month later -- but it's an appropriate legend for the man who went on to become the greatest American artist of the century. And evey year, when I'm thinking of Louis Armstrong, I try to listen to different music. Anyone can go through the Hot Fives and Sevens or the W.C. Handy album for the hundredth time, and everyone should, but there are dozens of other records I wouldn't get to if it wasn't for set-asides. This year, I ended upon on the Armstrong-Ellington sessions, specifically "Azalea." Ellington wrote the song a few decades earlier, recorded it with Al Hibbler in 1951, and finally had a chance to record this definitive version with Armstrong in 1961. It's one of the slower songs from the Great Summit sessions, but whereas the rest of the record is autumnally slow, two lions not yet in winter, this is literally a spring song. It's also about New Orleans, obviously, and got a little bit of a boost after Katrina, but it should stand on its own as a love song.
Also worth noting this week: today is the birthday of the RZA, and tomorrow, of course, is the day when the three sevens clash.Labels: ben, hip-hop, jazz, reggae
posted by Ben
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Monday, June 11, 2007
SUMMERTIME
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Boogie Woogie String Along For Real
Warner Bros : 1977
[Out of Print]
Thanks, perhaps, to the immense popularity of Moistworks dot com, people come up to Ben, Brian, James, Joanna and me all the time: Rank strangers, but they ask us, have we been ignoring you? Or, how do hydroelectric dams work? Or, what have you been listening to? Strangers: I can't speak for Ben, Brian, James, or Joanna (actually, I can speak for Joanna - she's been listening to the Zombies non-stop for the past 18 months or so) - but I've been listening to this spider web of a song: Rahsaan Roland Kirk, in New York, post-stroke, in 1977. From his last recording session.
A SAD SAD SONG
Charles Crawford
Hy-Sign : 1973
Available on: Shreveport Southern Soul: The Murco Story
Kent : 2000
[Buy It]
Stranger, here's something else you'll like: Sir Shambling's Deep Soul Heaven. Countless 45s, annotated, indexed, transferred to MP3, and free to each and every one of you. I downloaded everything - then the iPod and I had a lovely candlelit evening all to ourselves. It's where I found Charles Crawford's "Sad, Sad Song," which also happens to be the only song Charles Crawford recorded. Too bad, no?
. . . . . . . . . .
NOCHE AZUL
Unknown Cuban Orchestra
[Test Pressing for a certain Mr. Madriguera]
Available on: Music of Cuba: 1909 - 1951
Sony : 2000
[Buy It]
MOONLIGHT HIGHLIFE
Dr. Victor Olaiya
Available on : Lagos All Routes
Honest Jon's : 2005
[Buy It]
I've been collecting old Cuban recordings, and - this isn't entirely unrelated - obsessing over Congolese music from the 50s and 60s, and Nigerian and Angolan music from the 60s and 70s. Hoarding it, really, in hopes of dedicating Moistworks to Cuban music, or African music - or bleed-through between the two - for a few weeks, exclusively. But who has the time? So, in lieu of theme weeks, here are two of the loveliest things you'll hear this summer.
. . . . . . . . . .
TOP TEN ROCK
Fuller Todd
King : 1958
Available on: King Rockabilly
Ace : 2001
[Import]
Next up, a kick-ass rockabilly track (which I know next to nothing about - it seems fairly google-proof), one of the best things Willie Colon ever (what's the appropriate cliche here - committed to wax?), and some old, equally google-proof funk from Ohio. Let me know if it gets you through the day.
LA MURGA
Willie Colon & Hector Lavoe
Asalto Navideño
Fania : 1970
[Buy It]
JUNKIE'S HUSTLE
Earth's Delight
Black Forest : 1970 (?)
[Out of Print]Labels: african, alex, cuban, funk, jazz, rockabilly, salsa, soul
posted by Alex
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Monday, May 21, 2007
NASTY DAN
Johnny Cash
The Johnny Cash Children's Album
Columbia : 1975
[Buy It]
RED HOT DAN
Thomas Waller with Morris's Hot Babies
c. 1927
Available on: Fats Waller and his Friends
RCA : 1992
[Buy It]
DANNY'S DREAM
Jeanne Newman
Available on: Memphis Belles: The Women of Sun Records
Bear Family : 2002
[Buy It]
MIDNIGHT DAN
Julia Moody & Her Dixie Wablers
Available on: Tight Women & Loose Bands: 1921-1931
Louisiana Music Factory : 2000
[Buy It]
DAN THE BANANA MAN
Nettle Brothers String Band
Bluebird : 1938
Available on: Tulsa Twist: Stompin' Singers & Western Swingers
Proper : 1999
[Buy It]
DANNY SAYS
Tom Waits
Orphans, Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards
ANTI : 2006
[Buy It]
HUSTLIN' DAN
Bessie Smith
Columbia : 1930
Available on: 1929-1933
Allegro : 1998
[Buy It]
ROLLIN' DANNY
The Fall
This Nation's Saving Grace
Beggars UK : 1985
[Buy It]
&
LONE STAR : KINKY FRIEDMAN ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
by Dan Halpern
The New Yorker : 2006Labels: alex, blues, jazz, rock, rockabilly, western swing
posted by Alex
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Friday, April 13, 2007
SEVENTH SON
Willie Mabon
Chess 78 : 1955
Available on: Willie Dixon: The Chess Box
MCA : 1988
[Buy It]
THE SEVENTH SON
Mose Allison
Mose Allison Sings
Prestige : 1957
Available on: Greatest Hits
Original Jazz Classics : 1988
[Buy It]
THE SUN ONE
Yochannan with Sun Ra and his Arkestra
Saturn Records c. 1959
Available on: The Singles
Evidence: 1996
[Buy It]
WE TRAVEL THE SPACEWAYS
Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra
We Travel The Spaceways
Saturn Records c. 1960 or 1961
Available on : We Travel The Spaceways/Bad and Beautiful
Evidence : 1992
[Buy It]
WE TRAVEL THE SPACEWAYS
Sun Ra and his Astro Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra c
Space is the Place OST
GRP : 1972
[Buy It]
&
THE INFINITE MIND
Video
& a (tough) mix & match:
A) Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
B) I had the ambition to not only go farther than man had gone before, but to go as far as it was possible to go.
C) The Earth is a cradle of the mind, but we cannot live forever in a cradle.
D) In the long run, a single-planet species will not survive. One day, I don't know when, but one day, there will be more humans living off the Earth than on it.
E) It is another paradox of neuro-genetics that only in space habitats can humanity return to the village life and pastoral style for which we all long
F) In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York.
G) When the Eagle landed on the moon, I was speechless - overwhelmed, like most of the world. Couldn't say a word. I think all I said was, "Wow! Jeez!"
H) To be the first to enter the cosmos, to engage, single-handed, in an unprecedented duel with nature - could one dream of anything more?
I) Astronomy compels the soul to look upward, and leads us from this world to another.
J) Per Ardua, Ad Astra
K) I am eagle! I am eagle!
L) Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.
M) Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe - the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
N) When we find space so hideously void, we are describing our own unbearable emptiness.
O) To vomit in space is not my idea of a good time
P) Outer space is no place for a person of breeding.
Q) Until they come to see us from their planet, I wait patiently. I hear them saying: Don't call us, we'll call you.
R) Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.
S) What is it that makes a man willing to sit up on top of an enormous Roman candle, such as a Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rocket, and wait for someone to light the fuse? T)axes takin' my whole damn check,
Junkies making me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
And as if all that shit wasn't enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
With Whitey on the moon
Her face and arm began to swell.
But Whitey's on the moon
Was all that money I made last year
For Whitey on the moon?
How come there ain't no money here?
Hmm! Whitey's on the moon?
Y'know I just 'bout had my fill
Of Whitey on the moon
I think I'll send these doctor bills,
Airmail special
To Whitey on the moon U) Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind.
V) The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do.
W) The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens.
X) The strongest affection and utmost zeal should, I think, promote the studies concerned with the most beautiful objects. This is the discipline that deals with the universe's divine revolutions, the stars'motions, sizes, distances, risings and settings... for what is more beautiful than heaven?
Y) It's too bad, but the way American people are, now that they have all this capability, instead of taking advantage of it, they'll probably just piss it all away.
Z) There will be wings!
. . . . . . . . . .
1) Lady Violet Bonham Carter 2) D.H. Lawrence 3) Leonardo da Vinci 4) The Royal Air Force 5) Tom Wolfe 6) Nasa director Mike Griffin 7) Walter Cronkite 8) Konstantin Tsiolkovsky 9) Neil Armstrong 10) Yuri Gagarin 11) Captain Cook 12) Jules Verne 13) Timothy Leary 14) Kant 15 ) Lord Kelvin 16) Copernicus 17) William Shatner 18) LBJ 19)Gil Scott-Heron 20) Galileo 21) Einstein 22) Marlene Dietrich 23) Plato 24) Anaxagoras 25) Robert Louis Stevenson 26) Gherman TitovLabels: alex, jazz
posted by Alex
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