Night Music: Yes--That Was on TV!

To the left on my video link you have access to performance footage from the late-'80s music variety show Night Music. Check it out. You will, I bet, be amazed that such a performance made it to national television (NBC, to be exact). The show was originally hosted by Jools Holland, who's doing something similar now in the UK that's not nearly as surprising, who then handed the reins over to major geeb David Sanborn. Concept: expose unsuspecting American night owls to great musicians on the margins. Partial list: Sonic Youth, Pixies, Sun Ra, Al Green, Diamanda Galas, Leonard Cohen, Sonny Rollins, the Kronos Quartet, the Residents. After each artist got to play a couple of their own pieces (which were separated by vintage black and white video footage of folks like Louis Jordan, Nellie Lutcher, and Aretha), they teamed up at show's end for the final piece, which resulted in bizarre pairings like Conway Twitty and the aforementioned Residents. Not surprisingly, the line-ups were put together by Hal Willner (Wikipedia him, please). Anyhow, my favorite performance ever, master tenor saxophonist Rollins and Sweet Pea Atkinson of Was Not Was spurring on Cohen's deathly "Who By Fire," is captured on the link. Check it out. Dig Sonny's improv and Converse, and Sweet Pea's encouragements. This show needs to be on DVD now!

Records That Got Me Through the Week

I have been bound up with increasing dizziness, more doctor visits, grading, and taking naps. But this week offered (as all weeks have done since I was 17) some recordings that kept me moving forward. I am going to try to make this a regular post--we shall see.

Merle Haggard: The Untamed Hawk Edit--This is a comp I burned from a huge Bear Family box of Merle's early recordings. Besides capturing the purity and subtle ache of his early singing, it includes some cool forgotten songs of his ("Life in Prison," "You Don't Have Very Far to Go," "I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known) and a treasure trove of his Lefty Frizzell covers--always interpreted with precision, passion, and love.
Mamas and the Papas: Gold--Not the group anyone who knows me would think I would like, but I dig the harmonies and strange rearrangements ("Do You Wanna Dance?" as a seductive ballad, Lennon-McCartney's "I Call Your Name" as a '30s chestnut, "Dedicated to the One I Love" as a spooky harmony showcase) and specific, out-of-left-field slice o' Sixties life originals ("Straight Shooter," "Creeque Alley," "Do What You Wanna Do"...and the eternal "California Dreamin'"). Denny Doherty and Mama Cass were way up there among the most underrated pop singers of the Sixties.
Marvin Gaye: The Ultimate Marvin Gaye CD--Another burn job. It's hard to get all the best Marvin in one place. So overrated he's underrated; also--smooth and rough, charmingly simply and intriguingly complex, waxing perfect pop and flawless funk--the man was a walking paradox. Fave Raves: "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" (with that great break in his voice when he sings "I have kissed a few/Honey, a few have kissed me too-uh-hoo!"), "You're All I Need to Get By," and especially "Trouble Man," which is just an audacious display of everything his voice could do couched in one of his greatest rhythmic inventions.
The Staples Singers: The Best of the Vee-Jay Years--FINALLY, a legit collection of these sessions is on the shelves. A monumental sound: Pops Staples' electric guitar, a water moccasin in the service of the Lord and learned at the feet of Charlie Patton, supporting the deepest gospel harmony ever waxed by teens (highlight: Mavis Staples, who at 66 is making her own waves these days), taken at an even, deliberate, almost stalking pace. A MUST for anybody who wants to understand the evolution of rock and roll in the 1950s, enough to convert Sam Harris to the Gospel, and the source of a myriad of allusions and straight-out steals galore (Funkadelic, Willie Nelson, Dr. Dre, the Rolling Stones, Dylan...those name sound familiar? Fave raves: "Uncloudy Day," "I Know I Got Religion," "Swing Down, Sweet Chariot," and "This May Be the Last Time"...but it's all good, folks.

Here's to Hampton Hawes

I came home today exhausted from my battle with labyrinthitis (an inner ear inflammation that causes me to feel as if I have just stepped off the Zambezi Zinger from the minute I wake until the minute I doze). I needed a serious nap (I am not nappy in any way, shape, or form), and needed a delicate, pianistic touch to put me out fast. Put in The Charles Mingus Trio, which just happens to feature Hampton Hawes on the ivories. Hawes was a less intense, less jaw-dropping, but exceedingly surprising and delightful West Coast version of Bud Powell. Despite doing time for horse (was that a prerequisite for West Coast boppers?), he had productive careers on both sides of the bust, and though he died in '77 at 49, left some exquisite recordings behind. Oddly, many of them are touched with gospelly flourishes.

For the readers out there, Hawes' memoir Raise Up Off Me is one of the best musician-written books on jazz (out of many). Very hard to find, though.

Have Moicy!: The Healing Power of Absurdity

Recently, this house suffered the loss of one helluva dog. His name was Lobo; he was a devilish blue heeler with more than his share of personality, and only eight years old. My wife and I were crushed, and for the first few days after, the only song I could hear in my head, even if others were playing outside of it, was "Old Dog Blue," first made famous in this country by the Memphis songster Jim Jackson:

"I’m goin’ back to where I’m come
I’m goin’ back to where I’m come
I’m goin’ back to Giles County
My wife died and left me a bounty
Way them pretty girls ganged around
That’s the reason why I’m goin’ to Giles County

I had an old dog whose name was Blue
You know that Blue was mighty true
You know Blue was a good old dog
Blue treed a ‘possum in a hollow log
You know from that he’s a good old dog

Blue treed a ‘possum out on a limb
Blue looked at me and I looked at him
Grabbed that ‘possum and put him in a sack
“Do fer me, Blue, ’til I get back.”

“Here, Ring! Yeah, Ring Here!
Here Ring! Hey, Ring here!”
Who’s been here since I been gone
Little bitty girl with the red dress on
Who’s been here since I been gone
Little bitty girl with the red dress on

Old Blue’s feet was big and round
Old Blue’s feets was big and round
Never ‘lowed a ‘possum to tech the ground
Me and Blue went out on a hunt
Blue treed a ‘possum in a hollow stump
You know that Blue was a good old dog
Blue treed a ‘possum in a hollow log
You know from that he’s a good old dog

Old Blue died and I dug his grave
I dug his grave with a silver spade
I let him down with a golden chain
And every link I called his name

Go on Blue you good dog you
Go on Blue you good dog you
Blue laid down and died like a man
Blue laid down and died like a man
Now he’s treein’ ‘possums in the promised land

I’m goin’ to tell you this jes’ to let you know
Old Blue’s gone where the good dogs go
When I hear old Blue bark
When I hear old Blue bark
Blue’s treed a ‘possum in Noah’s ark
Blue’s treed a ‘possum in Noah’s ark."

The track's on the amazing Anthology of American Folk Music, if you want to look it up and listen to it. Anyway, the point is, if I'd kept hearing it, I would have been driven mad. So I turned rather blindly to a CD titled Have Moicy!, by three crazed hippie entities (the forefathers, as it were, of Animal Collective and the other freak folk crew, though by comparison they haven't even got the freak flag above half-mast): Michael Hurley, the most eccentric songwriter Pennsylvania's ever produced; Jeffrey Frederick and the Clamtones, fatalist funnymen from Oregon; and the (Un)Holy Modal Rounders (Steve Weber and Peter Stampfel), whose cockeyed, disrespectful-thus-respectful approach to traditional American music has been catching listeners by surprise since '65. The record features songs about the following, and I am not making this up: bohemian madness in Paris ("You wear my beret/And I'll use your bidet, Cherie/I'll be clean, you'll be free!"); a paean to crime that stretches from Argentina to Alaska ("Lord, I love poachin' chickens!"); making, eating, cleaning up after, and excreting food--potatoes, perch, tortillas, beans, spaghetti, to be specific ("We fill up our guts/Then we turn it into shit/then we get rid of it!"); freshly disattached and bleeding ears on the floor; a "meaning of life" conversation between a crow and a newt ("I don't really care too much if'n I die," sez the newt while in the crow's beak); philosophical inquiries into the disappearance of hamburgers and the source of heart attacks; a "hoodoo bash" complete with magic mushrooms; the seduction of young Griselda ("learnin' the lessons/Nature taught us!"); jealous curses from beyond the grave ("Don't you monkey with my widow when I'm gone!"); and much, much more. The music's downhome but slightly off-kilter British Isles balladry cum bluegrass; the singing can only be described as embued with flaming experience, though Stampfel (one of the Rounders) sings with more crazed enthusiasm than any non-singer in American history. Needless to say, listening to this record (plus the Rounders' Too Much Fun--which IS--and Last Round) got me out of the mourning rut and onto the road to perfect mental health (of which a touch of insanity is an essential part).

Ahmad Jamal Entertained Columbia High School Students...

...for five consecutive class periods in my British Literature class today. Students work on quarter projects every Friday. This work usually is done with intense concentration and silence. However, silence sounds to me like Jimi Hendrix solos sounded like to 90-year-old grannies in '67. I begged them to let me at least provide some (what I called) "ambient noise" while they worked, so I unleashed Jamal's early '50s Epic recordings on them. No complaints. Though the stuff toes the easy-listening line, it's beautiful, deceptively complex, and perfect for concentration. I even saw toes tapping. I gave 'em a little background on Jamal's impact on Miles' thinking--but you can't bring any music gods up without providing about 15-20 minutes of background. Some of my 17- and 18-year olds haven't heard (of) the Beatles.

Jenny Lewis Has Finally Weakened My Knees

Because I am an old fart, I remain stoic in the face of "Next Big Things." Because I am an old fart with almost 6,000 records and CDs in the house, I am usually wise in doing so. The hype surrounding Jenny Lewis set off my bullshit detectors for two reasons: she is by most definitions (not necessarily my own) hot, which fucks with listeners perceptions, and she's indie, and--I do not make this observation flippantly, but after much research--indie lowers the bar for hot, breathy chicks that write or perform a little idiosyncratically. If I were a nihilist, Regina Spektor and that harp-playing scar on the face of rock and roll (I cannot even utter her name) would be six feet under in some swamp. So...though I have to admit I liked some of her Rilo Kiley lines...I kept Miss Lewis at arm's length. This despite a student's passionate exaltations--a student obviously inspired, in her writing and guitar playing, by Miss Lewis herself.

Well, against my better judgment (I thought), I put Lewis' solo Rabbit-Fur Coat disc in the pickup CD player to just assure I was being fair, and had my hat knocked in the creek. Mostly, it's her writing--damn near free association, but logical and rhyming and specific and imaginative and funny and evocative. Her voice is richer; I have an unrestrained hatred for Anglo geishas, but she doesn't push that button much (a few times, yes), but rather relies on a rich, really sexy, soulful delivery that doesn't need coos and whispers to make a man pay attention. I hear she's bringing sexy back with the new Rilo Kiley, but--late as it is--I can tell you she's sold me, and I WILL be paying attention from now on.

Porter Wagoner

Got the new Porter Wagoner record in the mail today. I had been skeptical; the music press falls all over itself pretty much anytime an oldster puts a new record out, and, beyond his weird writing, I'd never been all that convinced of The Thin Man from West Plain's legendhood. And Johnny Cash is gone and there's no one to go all soft and reverent about. Well, I have to say that Wagonmaster, produced by the often blindly enthusiastic Marty Stuart (that's mean--the fucker loves pure country music and pushes it every time he has a chance), is a strong offering from end to end. Porter never had a fantastic voice--often, he was more moving talking than singing. And here he's actually written some new ones that are as weird as the old ones, covered a Cash song that is like a precursor to Wagoner's legendary "The Rubber Room," and carried off the vocalizing and talking as good if not better than the other recent senior citizens (Charlie Louvin, George Jones, Bobby Bare) who've been resurrected. I expected 4-5 cuts would be dead in the water, but actually, I liked every one of 'em. Now...if they can get Jones in the studio with someone tough and imaginative and get one great record out of him before he finally drops...I myself can die in peace.

Marc Ribot

If I need peace after a long day of noise and heavy activity, for some reason I turn to skronky, chaotic music, and it blisses me out. Today I am listening to Marc Ribot's tribute to alto sax skronk god Albert Ayler, SPIRITUAL UNITY. Ribot is best known to the general public as Tom Waits' studio and tour guitarist during the RAIN DOGS/FRANK'S WILD YEARS years, but the man can do purt-near everything interestingly and never stoops to acoustic mellowshit. His sound is metallic, vibrato'd to the max, humorously off-kilter (like Thelonious Monk, whom he's often covered), and embued with swelling emotion. It's also ALIVE; hard to predict where he's going from moment to moment. This album really does justice to Ayler's commitment to simplicity, feeling, and freedom. That's the great triumvirate I need right now.

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