don’t miss day 3 of teddy wilson’s 4 day 100th birthday party, or you’ll look like this.
max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular
fine videos daily:
1960s on mon
1970s on tues
1980s on wed
1990s on thurs
2000s on fri
i'm a reporter at bloomberg news, here's some work
my email & twitter
ft. the beatles, aretha franklin, neil young, dr. dre, serge gainsbourg, duke ellington, the kinks, jimi hendrix, pavement, the clash, smog, the smiths, al green, the rolling stones, cat power, dusty springfield, yo la tengo, antony, wilco, elvis, talking heads, elliott smith, r.e.m., ray charles, velvet underground, otis redding, the monochrome set, randy newman, the cure, gillian welch, queen, stevie wonder & more
"mtv makes me want to smoke crack." -beck
see the archives & a random post
"i just happen to be here, and it's okay." -caetano veloso
"sing a simple song but keep the swing strong." -de la soul
"think straight, keep a clean plate." -joanna newsom
"keep a clean nose, watch the plain-clothes." -bob dylan
"keep your feet warm, but keep your clothes on." -harry nilsson
"it took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, nightlife. most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom." -charles mingus
"she had a chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." -tom waits
"you can't hold the hand of a rock 'n' roll man." -joni mitchell
"think about something else. was art tatum talented?" - shoot the piano player
"hey there, hey now, well, you can make a pacemaker blink, easy thing, make a man's heart go bibbity bom. -john cale
"i’ve still got things inside me, sad things, happy things, that people don’t know about." -loretta lynn
"to try to maximize the relationship of listening to a record through promotion is like experiencing driving a car by reading about stimulus programs." -bonnie 'prince' billy
"after cheesecake with all of your friends and family, who's gonna front the bill? me... say you want to take first-class trips, well i want to work those first-class hips. yes i do." -r. kelly
"too much cheesecake too soon, old money's better than new" -roxy music
"my mother used to tell me about vibrations. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death." -brian wilson
"i'm an idiot for you." -iggy pop
"i mean every letter in the words in the sentences of my quotes." -lil' wayne
"lyrics choochoo from my mouth like locomotion." - pato banton
"i'm going to boogie my scruples away." -lowell george
"i drive a rolls-royce, cause it's good for my voice." -t.rex
"i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being." -phil spector
"phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'" -leonard cohen
"they’d whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, 'alright, sonny, what’s your problem?' and he said, 'premature ejaculation, what’s yours?'" -tom wolfe
"he's got a mind like a sewer, and a heart like a fridge" -elvis costello
"i bite my nails and if that fails i go get myself stoned, but when i do i think of you and head myself back home." -gram parsons
"i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louis armstrong’s recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cézanne, the crabs at sam wo’s, tracy’s face." -woody allen
"where have you been all my life?" -emmylou harris, to my brother tommy
"he had a huge room with nothing in it except this huge vast hammond organ, right next door to the police." -david bowie
brian eno songs that will make good book titles for my 10-volume memoir, in order: here he comes, baby's on fire, golden hours, brutal ardour, taking tiger mountain, events in dense fog, through hollow lands, some of them are old, everything merges with the night, dead finks don’t talk
ry cooder albums that every man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch
"really, we don't want people twiddling their goatees over our stuff." -radiohead
thelonious monk's middle name: sphere
#1 song on the white album (tie): long long long, happiness is a warm gun
"the only word is love." -john lennon
"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." -johnny cash
"i could even find it in my heart to love mike love." -belle & sebastian
"the moon is clear, the sky is bright, i'm happy as the horse's shite." -the pogues
"i hope that you all out there, young, old, tall, short, fat or thin, quick or slow, no matter what kind or color or shape or person you are, if you like to make music, why, go ahead.” -pete seeger
"chuck berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's nothing mere about it. say rather that unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports chuck berry as well as it does marcel proust, we might as well trash it." -robert christgau
mashable.com says about us: "you can expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy." 33 1/3 says: "it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction." others say: "pulitzer."
download albums, see album covers, photos, posters, quotes & 'staches
the olden days: 2008 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2009 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2010 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2011 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2012 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o.
make a tumblr!
1960s on mon
1970s on tues
1980s on wed
1990s on thurs
2000s on fri
i'm a reporter at bloomberg news, here's some work
my email & twitter
ft. the beatles, aretha franklin, neil young, dr. dre, serge gainsbourg, duke ellington, the kinks, jimi hendrix, pavement, the clash, smog, the smiths, al green, the rolling stones, cat power, dusty springfield, yo la tengo, antony, wilco, elvis, talking heads, elliott smith, r.e.m., ray charles, velvet underground, otis redding, the monochrome set, randy newman, the cure, gillian welch, queen, stevie wonder & more
"mtv makes me want to smoke crack." -beck
see the archives & a random post
"i just happen to be here, and it's okay." -caetano veloso
"sing a simple song but keep the swing strong." -de la soul
"think straight, keep a clean plate." -joanna newsom
"keep a clean nose, watch the plain-clothes." -bob dylan
"keep your feet warm, but keep your clothes on." -harry nilsson
"it took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, nightlife. most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom." -charles mingus
"she had a chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." -tom waits
"you can't hold the hand of a rock 'n' roll man." -joni mitchell
"think about something else. was art tatum talented?" - shoot the piano player
"hey there, hey now, well, you can make a pacemaker blink, easy thing, make a man's heart go bibbity bom. -john cale
"i’ve still got things inside me, sad things, happy things, that people don’t know about." -loretta lynn
"to try to maximize the relationship of listening to a record through promotion is like experiencing driving a car by reading about stimulus programs." -bonnie 'prince' billy
"after cheesecake with all of your friends and family, who's gonna front the bill? me... say you want to take first-class trips, well i want to work those first-class hips. yes i do." -r. kelly
"too much cheesecake too soon, old money's better than new" -roxy music
"my mother used to tell me about vibrations. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death." -brian wilson
"i'm an idiot for you." -iggy pop
"i mean every letter in the words in the sentences of my quotes." -lil' wayne
"lyrics choochoo from my mouth like locomotion." - pato banton
"i'm going to boogie my scruples away." -lowell george
"i drive a rolls-royce, cause it's good for my voice." -t.rex
"i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being." -phil spector
"phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'" -leonard cohen
"they’d whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, 'alright, sonny, what’s your problem?' and he said, 'premature ejaculation, what’s yours?'" -tom wolfe
"he's got a mind like a sewer, and a heart like a fridge" -elvis costello
"i bite my nails and if that fails i go get myself stoned, but when i do i think of you and head myself back home." -gram parsons
"i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louis armstrong’s recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cézanne, the crabs at sam wo’s, tracy’s face." -woody allen
"where have you been all my life?" -emmylou harris, to my brother tommy
"he had a huge room with nothing in it except this huge vast hammond organ, right next door to the police." -david bowie
brian eno songs that will make good book titles for my 10-volume memoir, in order: here he comes, baby's on fire, golden hours, brutal ardour, taking tiger mountain, events in dense fog, through hollow lands, some of them are old, everything merges with the night, dead finks don’t talk
ry cooder albums that every man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch
"really, we don't want people twiddling their goatees over our stuff." -radiohead
thelonious monk's middle name: sphere
#1 song on the white album (tie): long long long, happiness is a warm gun
"the only word is love." -john lennon
"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." -johnny cash
"i could even find it in my heart to love mike love." -belle & sebastian
"the moon is clear, the sky is bright, i'm happy as the horse's shite." -the pogues
"i hope that you all out there, young, old, tall, short, fat or thin, quick or slow, no matter what kind or color or shape or person you are, if you like to make music, why, go ahead.” -pete seeger
"chuck berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's nothing mere about it. say rather that unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports chuck berry as well as it does marcel proust, we might as well trash it." -robert christgau
mashable.com says about us: "you can expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy." 33 1/3 says: "it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction." others say: "pulitzer."
download albums, see album covers, photos, posters, quotes & 'staches
the olden days: 2008 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2009 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2010 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2011 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2012 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o.
make a tumblr!
this weekend the radio station wkcr 89.9 fm, one of the truly great things in new york city, is playing 100 hours of teddy wilson, who was born 100 years ago saturday. coleman hawkins and i were both born on november 21, but its not our centennials, yet. so far tonight wkcr has played 1930s benny goodman quartets with lionel hampton on vibraphones that sound like ribbons of felt and gene krupa playing drums like he’s this big and benny being much more beautiful than i knew. the fourth instrument, teddy wilson’s piano, will lift your feet and furniture and pets from the ground and send everything slowly floating up into the room. happy birthday, mr. wilson.
#958: allen toussaint - hey little girl and professor longhair lessons (1980s)
it’s true that allen toussaint arranged all the horns on the band’s last waltz, produced dr. john’s best album and history’s most romantic song about rain, wrote the nation’s happiest song about working in a coal mine, wrote otis redding’s most painful song about pain, was single-handed responsibly for the meters (his old house band), handled a&r for the beautiful minit record label, and made from a whisper to a scream in his spare time, but the real reason we should bow down is his speaking voice. his is the only adam’s apple with its own mustache.
art garfunkel: second only to art tatum, art farmer, fine art, art pepper, the performing arts, art blakey, art for art’s sake, art spiegelman, performance art, and paul simon.
now that spring’s sprung, remember to listen to charlie parker with strings really late at night and then again in the morning, every day, and don’t forget to study the album cover too. surely you’ve been told what happens to the nicest part of the year when you don’t.
#931: frank sinatra and quincy jones - until the real things comes along (1984)
almost certainly the best sweater-on-sweater action of 1984, quincy jones in red and sinatra in blue. it was probably filmed the same day as footage of quincy messing around with herbie hancock’s new synthesizers, just after taking off his sweater and switching spectacles.
#928: naini diabaté - r.t.m. (1988)
what if i told you that r.t.m. stands for office de radiodiffusion-télévision du mali, and that this clip is a recording of vibraphones and two guitars and a woman naimed naini singing like someone on fire about that malian television station? and then that the video itself is actually from a malian tv station? and then your brain explodes all over your bedroom or office walls and radiodiffusion-télévision du mali is held responsible for manslaughter?
charles mingus albums named “charles mingus” in ascending order: mingus moves, mingus plays piano, mingus mingus mingus mingus mingus, mingus dynasty, mingus ah um, charles mingus presents charles mingus
today would have been charles mingus’ 90th birthday, and so phil schaap on kcrw 89.9 fm is playing his music all rainy day long. phil schaap is my spirit animal.
#922: jimmy witherspoon - it’s a low dirty shame (1962, frankly jazz)
a violent burst of mid-april new york city sunshine is almost exactly like a jimmy witherspoon’s finger snap, except jimmy witherspoon’s snapping was cooler.
“now there’s the black cross, the green cross, the white cross, the double cross, the criss-cross, and the lost cross. and the cross gets awful heavy at different times, but one is supposed to keep on going on and carrying the cross on his shoulder, because you ain’t supposed to let no cross cross you up. you’re supposed to let a cross help you get across. and if you let a cross help you get across, you won’t get crossed up but you’ll be on the cross ‘cause you done got across on the cross. so if you can remember this, you won’t get lost on the cross while you’re trying to get across. so we’re just here to let you know about it. i know that you knew already, ‘cause y’all the hippest people in the world, hip black and white. but you still know that you got a cross you must deal with. so when it crosses you up, go on and deal with it, and leave it alone.”
- rahsaan roland kirk, giving the most important speech since harry nilsson’s the point
learning it’s not r-a-s-h-a-a-n roland kirk but rahsaan roland kirk makes you feel like a real ass. good thing he doesn’t come up very often in conversation. i do however know how to properly say boogie-woogie string along for real, and i recommend it for this sunday. and every day.
#902: gerry mulligan & ben webster - go home and who’s got rhythm (1962)
“my mother said the midwife told her that after i was born and was dried off a little bit, they laid me down on the floor and i lifted my head and looked around. she loved that,” gerry mulligan says in the oral autobiography whose addiction section i found this weekend—and i now see there’s a full transcript that ends with his “sheepdog” method for meeting women and starts with his birth. ”i took a look around and decided to try to get back in. i’ve tried to get back in all my life.”
the gerry mulligan page on the website brainy quote is the horse e books of jazz. “new york is still where i live most of the time,” gerry mulligan once said, it claims. “i’ve appeared on some other people’s albums,” he reportedly stated another time.
because gerry mulligan played the baritone saxophone like an ice pick, an ice pick made out of ice (especially on mainstream of jazz), one can only assume he had much profounder things to say. in fact—after writing that sentence i’ve found a recording of his oral autobiography about being a scratch-your-eyes-out drug addict, on the library of congress’ website. it’s about the “one time when we gave artificial respiration for about eight hours straight to keep a guy going.”
“after gail and i split up,” he says, “i started to get back into my old habits with heroin. not ever to the extent that i had been involved in new york, but still enough that it was an ongoing thing, and it was time-consuming and constant.” in other words, gerry mulligan’s period after splitting up with whomever gail was of constant heroin use was somehow not as horrible as another period in new york city. to imagine what could possibly have made that other period worse provides a small peak into the misery of the word “habits.”
update: and so does the story about whitney houston’s death on the cover of the times.
