Music Notes
By 
I don’t often read scholarly music books, but I just finished B. Brian Foster’s, 2020 book, I Don’t Like the Blues: Race, Place, and the Backbeat of Black Life. Foster is a sociologist and storyteller who lived in Clarksdale, Mississippi for a few years to learn about what all the blues tourism and the blues legacy meant to Black folks who actually live there. The short answer is that they hate it. They see themselves as actually living what the blues really mean–poverty much more than just being low over a relationship or something–and they see the tourism and the festival and the whites who come as having nothing to do with them. In fact, most avoid the blues clubs and the museums and the festivals entirely because nearly all of them have stories about going to something and having a white say something racist to them. They see what has happened in Clarksdale as a way for the wealthy to get more money while not investing in their community at all. Clarksdale is a place where whites got out after the decline of segregation and it is poor, with bad schools and bad roads, and the residents don’t see any of the money coming into town from this tourism go into what they want or need. They don’t mind the music, even if they find it old-fashioned, and the understand the past, but the blues tourism is totally hostile to them.
Foster’s book is quite accessible (also short) and worth reading for those interested in the issues around musical heritage. And let’s face, any blues show I’ve ever been to in my entire life, the audience has been vast majority white. The literature on tourism and how it impacts local communities is long and fertile and Foster’s book reflects these findings and the great ambivalence of locals over what happens to their homes, even if for many, the economic gains are worth it. But what about when the economic gains are absolutely not worth it because they aren’t seeing any of those? Given how Clarksdale is revered as a mecca by aging whites, this is probably an issue a lot of people should think about when they approach the music they love.
We lost the composer and critic Tom Johnson, one of the key figures of the New York minimalist scene in the 70s and 80s. Born in the definitional cowtown Greeley, Colorado, died in Paris, what a journey.
I had no idea that Sam Moore from Sam & Dave was still alive. What a great duo and one of the great bands of the 60s. RIP. Everyone listen to “Soul Man” tonight, at least.
Coltrane’s A Love Supreme at 60. Greatest album ever? Or merely one of the five greatest albums ever?
I loved this story about old roadies still on the road. It’s really amazing, like who are these guys? My favorite part of roadies–and this never seems to change no matter the age or era–is that they continue to look like the scuzziest guys on the face on the Earth! It’s like there’s a certifying board and if you don’t look the right way, you can’t set up any gear. My favorite part of this story is the guy who is the long-time roadie for Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony. Despite working with him for decades, Anthony is such a clueless prick that he has no idea what work his man does:
Knee and hip issues seem especially endemic in the tech industry, because of the constant need to lift heavy equipment and climb up and down endless stairs. And road workers also have to deal with a schedule that occupies them from midmorning until after midnight. Recently, Dugan, who has been working with Anthony since the early days of Van Halen, informed his boss (who now tours regularly with Sammy Hagar and Joe Satriani) that he was thinking of slowing down.
“When I first told Michael that I wanted to get off the road, he said, ‘I’m not going to do that, why should you? I’m still going to be out there,’” Dugan said. “And I said, ‘Michael, are you trying to compare your day to my day?’” He explained how his work begins at 8:30 a.m. and wraps at 2 a.m. “‘You come out and do the show,’” he recalled saying. “‘You leave in a limo, go back to the five-star hotel, or go back to a private jet way and fly home. Your day and my day are worlds apart.’”
Is that not peak Michael Anthony?
Fun Bandcamp piece on Bang on a Can and its role in bringing minimalism to the mainstream. Speaking of which I will at the Bang on a Can Long Play Festival in May again. I’ll be the middle aged white guy. Pete Townshend will be playing Terry Riley?!?!?!
This week’s playlist:
- Richard Thompson, Mock Tudor
- Jeremy Ivey, Waiting Out the Storm
- James Brandon Lewis, Eye of I
- Wayne Shorter, Speak No Evil
- The Gil Evans Orchestra, Little Wing: Live in Germany
- Big Thief, U.F.O.F.
- Waylon Jennings, Waylon Live, disc 1
- Medeski, Martin, & Wood, It’s a Jungle in Here
- Bob Wills, The Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 8
- Lee Bains + The Glory Fires, Old Time Folks
- The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour
- Don Byron, Nu Blaxploitation
- Stevie Wonder, Innervisions
- The Paranoid Style, Underworld, USA
- Kevin Morby, This is a Photograph
- Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Noopiming Sessions
- Miles Davis, Sorcerer
- Drive By Truckers, Live at Plan 9: July 13, 2006
- Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Susie Ibarra, The Multiplication Table
- Margo Cliker, Valley of Heart’s Delight
- Waxahatchee, Cerulean Salt
- Joey Purp, iiiDrops
- Riddy Arman, self-titled
- The Hold Steady, The Price of Progress
- Jerry Joseph, Tick
- Marissa Nadler, For My Crimes
- Guy Clark, Cold Dog Soup
- Torres, Thirstier
Album Reviews. Now that I rushed through as many 2024 albums as I could, back to the backlog.
Porridge Radio, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky
Despite an album title that might make one think it is some arch modernist composition, in fact Porridge Radio is a British indie band and this album was released in 2022. This is plaintively delivered punk-influence music from a singer with an impressive accent and an emotionally powerful voice. This band is very much a wear it all on the sleeve, no metaphor kind of band lyrically. I enjoy this band more than I think they are great. The vocal delivery is the best part of the band, the music is pretty good, the lyrics are kind of whatever except that you know she means it so damn much. And that does matter for something, especially when you are that good at the delivery.
B+
Callum Pitt, In the Balance
Acceptable enough singer-songwriter rock, but there’s not much here to grab the listener. High production values I guess. A bit catchy. But pretty rote. Nothing really wrong with it except being a bit overwrought in the singing. But not that much that right with it either.
B-
Silver Synthetic, Silver Synthetic
Imagine you know a bunch of dudes who can play well and sound good together and they mostly play in your backyard by the campfire, drinking some beers and hanging out. Well, that’s basically Silver Synthetic, where you had a couple of guys from the New Orleans punk scene realize they really liked Laurel Canyon music too and they know some guys and they just got together and jammed. It’s a little better than that obviously–these are guys who can play. But that’s basically what it is–guys who have listened to a lot of Jackson Browne.
B
Durand Jones & The Indications, Private Space
I figured this Jones album from 2021 would sound pretty sweet and it sure does. He’s got such a great Curtis Mayfield-esque falsetto. There are a couple of dud songs here, maybe taking a bit longer and writing a bit more could have led to a more solid 10 songs, but overall, this is a pretty fair modern soul album. Especially for a band from Indiana.
B
Mikaela Davis, And Southern Star
Davis is part of the revival of the harp in pop music. Or maybe revival isn’t the right word, arrival perhaps. I really liked this. I was a bit skeptical, given her work with jam musicians. Thought it might be bullshit, but it really isn’t. It’s not just that the band is good–in fact, the band and the Silver Synthetic band could probably trade off and both be fine, minus the harp of course–but that she can really belt it out and is a pretty good songwriter. Moreover, her singing isn’t the kind of tossed off blues rock that makes lots of whites into the jam world get all excited. No, she actually has her own character in the voice.
A-
Boris Kozlov, First Things First
I was unfamilar with Kozlov’s work. He’s a Russian bassist who has been in the U.S. for some time. In fact, outside of Rudy Royston on drums and percussion, I didn’t know anyone in this band, which also includes Donny McCaslin on sax and flute, Art Hirahara on piano and keys, and Behn Gillice on vibes. It’s a pretty straight-ahead post-bop type of session, but one with a ton of character and really first rate playing. Nice cover of Mingus’ “Eclipse” too. Sometimes, the mid-60s feel of a lot of modern jazz frustrates me; the music didn’t stop there and I will argue that the best jazz ever made is being made right now. Even as the mid-60s was an astoundingly great time in the genre, it isn’t better than the best music being made today and some of that is fresher and more interesting than this. But, in terms of those bands really mining the mid-60s vibe, I don’t think you are going to do much better than what you have right here. And for a lot of you, this is very much the kind of jazz you want.
A-
Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet, Hear the Light Singing
I saw this wonderful band at Big Ears last year and what a treat it was. Could this be the greatest all-women band in jazz history? With Melford on piano, Mary Halvorson on guitar, Tomeka Reid on cello, Leslie Mok on drums, and Ingrid Laubrock on sax, it has quite the case. As it was live, this is just a fantastic album, especially when they really get going on the longer pieces. All of these musicians are masters, even as most of them are youngish, and in fact, both Halvorson and Reid are official MacArthur Genius Grant winners. But this is very much Melford’s band. She has always deserved more credit and publicity as one of the finest pianists of her generation, but so often hasn’t. And yet just about every Melford-led album I’ve ever heard, I’ve really thought was first rate. Probably none surpass this brilliance though.
A
As always, this is an open thread on all things music and art and none things politics.