What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
MY LAI VET SAYS: HERE IT
COMES AGAIN IN IRAQ
Tony Swindell
recalls "Butcher's Brigade" in '69; says "gooks"
have now become "ragheads", every adult male is an
"insurgent" ... atrocities against Iraqi civilians
are soon going to explode in America's face; US Government's courtroom jihads against terror
stumble. Alexander Cockburn on Lodi case where Feds paid $250,000
to man who "saw" world's three top terrorists at mosque.
As neocons
and Israel lobby howl for US to bomb Teheran, an Iranian outlines
simple path to peace. CounterPunch
Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember,
we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition
of CounterPunch. Please
support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter,
which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or
by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
The Hot Fives and the Sevens
were arguably the greatest jazz bands ever assembled: Armstrong
on trumpet, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Kid Ory on trombone, Lonnie
Johnson on guitar, Earl Hines on piano, Johnny St. Cyr on banjo,
Pete Briggs on tuba and Baby Dodds on drums. Armstrong's astonishing
solo on "Struttin' with Some Barbecue" is, for me,
the essence of the New Orleans sound.
Bechet ranks with Bolden, Jelly
Roll Morton, Armstrong, and Fats Domino as one of the most accomplished
and inventive musicians to emerge from the Crescent City. His
eerie, twirling soprano sax still sounds both ancient and futuristic.
This session, featuring the hot-playing Wild Bill Davison on
cornet, was recorded for Blue Note in 1950 as bebop was beginning
to lay waste to all that came before it. But here Bechet demostrates
that the master of Dixieland still had a thing or two to teach
the revolutionary upstarts. Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble, indeed.
Post-modern zydeco backed by
a funk band that rivals Mandrill in its heyday. When you find
your feet dancing against your will to a song titled "A
Pot Full of Neckbones", you'll know that you've been inescapably
hooked.
Blanchard's hard bop tribute
to the city of his birth is one of the freshest jazz recordings
of the 90s. Aided by Branford Marsalis, Dave Holland and the
underrated pianist Edward Simon, Blanchard cruises through ballads,
blues, and deeply grooved swings. This is swamp bop at its most
inventive.
X-rated zydeco from the roadhouses
near Bayou Teche, performed by one of the legends of the accordian
and backed by a band that lays down the kind of raunchy grooves
the Stones were aiming for in Exile on Main Street but
never quite achieved.
Chenier said that his friend
Lightnin' Hopkins gave zydeco its name, which translates as "snap
bean" and means: if you can't dance to this you must
be white. But more than anyone else, Chenier defined its modern
sound: an electric, funk-edged blues fronted by an accordian,
riding on top of African-Caribbean polyrhythms and lyrics that
slide from Cajun to Creole to English. Zydeco Sont Pas Sale
("Salt Free Snap Beans") probably isn't Chenier's greatest
album, but it has a much more primal sound than the more highly
praised Bogalusa Boogie, as if capturing a new music at
the precise moment of invention.
Fats as prankster, ripping
up the British Invasion. Worth it for a 29 different reasons--each
told in a song--but how could you possibly pass up on the chance
to hear the Fat Man's cover of "Everybody's Got Something
to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey"? Revenge never sounded
so good.
Jeffrey St. Clair's music writings (as well as CPers Ron
Jacobs, David Vest and Daniel Wolff) can be found in Serpents
in the Garden. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net.
Recorded a few years before
Katrina, in a studio that would later be destroyed by the flood,
Fats Domino's comeback album may never have seen the Light of
day had Fats himself not almost perished in the chaos. What a
tragedy that would have been, because this CD is no exercise
in nostalgia but a near masterpiece. His powers somehow undiminished
by time, Fats is in strong voice and good spirits, and he plays
some mind-blowing piano. In fact, he sounds just like you'd want
him to. As for the songs, they're the best we've heard from him
since the period of his great hits faded away in the early Sixties.
When he sings, "You're gonna reap just what you sow,"
for "telling all those lies," you feel that he could
be singing to FEMA, Bush and the whole gang of them, all tied
together in a gunny sack.
Typically, Fats donated the
proceeds from this album to the Tipitina's Foundation. What other
artist would have spent all the capital of his big comeback moment
on anything other than himself? The reason is clear: Fats, and
all the other New Orleans greats, don't intend to let their city
and its culture perish.
The odds against them are incalculable.
When I think about the roar that will go up when Fats takes the
stage to close the New Orleans Jazz Fest on May 7, I wonder,
what percentage of the people traveling to New Orleans for the
music will spend a few hours helping somebody rebuild a house,
while they're down there?
A former Green Party elected
official in Oregon (she served as Water Commissioner in Tualatin),
Lisa Mann offers an authentic Working Woman's Blues on her debut
CD. "She ain't nothing to you, but she's a real live woman
to me," she sings on the opening track, and you won't find
a more politically-charged album from a better singer (and terrific
bass player, by the way). Whether asking "How did my oil
get under your soil?" to the sound of a steel drum band,
or singing about George W. Bush and his "Chemicals,"
she goes for the throat. If you can relate to a woman singing,
"my health care plan is don't get sick," check out
"Bentonville
Blues" on Lisa's web.
Disclosure: Lisa invited me
to play piano on a couple of tracks ("Chemicals" and
"Bentonville Blues"), and having heard the CD, I can
only say I'm damned glad I agreed to do it. I was so tired I
can hardly remember being in the studio, but judging by the sound
of it, I must have had a great time.
Abyssinia Infinite, featuring
Ejigajehu "Gigi" Shibabaw, Zion
Roots (World
Network)
I heard this CD at the Blue
Nile Ethiopian restaurant in Esquimalt. I plan to like this music
for a long time. It's a fabulous, ever so faintly modern affair,
with producer Bill Laswell devising an elegant setting for his
wife Gigi's vocals, blending traditional instruments with modern
electronic production that for once actually enhances the music.
With songs like "It Just
Ain't There For Me No More" and "You Ought To Be With
Me When I'm Alone", from the artist who gave us "Tramp
On Your Street," it really is.
Pilot Scott Tracy, Any
City (Alternative Tentacles)
About as far as you can go
in the other direction from anywhere, and strangely appealing.
The band apparently contains a member of Man... or Astroman.
And I didn't expect to hear a dead-on perfect cover of Four Jacks
and A Jill's psychotic erotic classic, "(You're a very strange
man, aren't you) Master Jack".
While I'm waiting for the Leon
Russell revival to begin, I'm listening to:
Various Artists: "Urban
Blues, Blues Uptown Vol. 1" Imperial Legendary Masters Series
LP
I found this at a little shop
in St. John's, Oregon called "Vinyl Resting Place."
The liner notes (by Pete Welding) say this collection is from
1968 and gives credits to Bob Hite and Henry Vestine of Canned
Heat for "Inspiration" and "Final Selection Approval"
and to Hite "for the loan of his priceless originals."
Almost none of these tunes
were hits, but that just don't matter none, nohow. Tunes by Fats
Domino from1953 and "c.1951-53," from Smiley Lewis,
Roosevelt Sykes, T-Bone Walker and someone named Mercy Dee (Walton)
who, it turns out, wrote "One Room Country Shack" while
living in Fresno.
The gems are a tune by Big
Joe Turner recorded with Dave Bartholomew's band in 1950, a previously
unissued (remember this was 1968) Joe Turner/Wynonie Harris duet,
and the most sublime version ever recorded of "Mother Fuyer."
It's by Nelson Wilborn who recorded it under the name "Dirty
Red."
Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk "Live at Jazzfest 2005".
CD
Aaron's son has taken over
as the number one funkiest Neville of them all. He was a big
part of all that new energy on the last Neville Brothers' recording
and leads this band which, along with Papa Grows Funk just may
keep the funk alive till New Orleans gets itself together again
and the musicians come back from Austin, or Memphis or wherever
they've gone (and where they're making more dough playing than
they ever did in New Orleans).
Ivan's got two bass players
on this gig (which I saw from the audience) on the Accura Stage
last year. Also sitting in is bonist Mark Mullins from Bonerama.
Ivan has matured. He isn't
the kid anymore. He's the man.
Listening to it now, it seems
like things were so much more innocent at last year's Fest. Nobody
knew what was coming. It was the final year of Jazzfest and New
Orleans as we knew them.
Various Artists "The
Now Sound of Brazil 2" Ziriguiboom CD
Ziriguiboom is a label. Don't
let anybody tell you Brazilian music isn't just as happening
now as it ever was. This collection came out last year and it's
got everything you'd ever want out of Brazilian music: rhythm,
beauty and the sexiest signing (literally) in the world. Nobody
ever had to learn Portuguese to appreciate this stuff.
Bebel Gilberto is the best
known singer on this, but it's been a lot of fun to discover
the others on here: Cibelle, Celo Fonesca, Zuco 103, Bosscucanova,
and Apollo Nove. See? Even their names are sexy.
Somebody took a lot of trouble
to sequence the tunes. I can't get enough of this.
Paul Motian Trio "At
The Village Vanguard" CD
From 1995, with Joe Lovano
and Bill Frisell. Frisell's the chameleon, Lovano the Lion and
Motian the intellectual. It's easy to get swept up in who they
are rather than what they're playing, but wrapping yourself up
in the vibe here is good for ya. It might make you smarter. It
always makes me think. It's one of those recordings that provides
a jumping off point for your own brain.
You put it on, get into it,
and let whatever brain cells are still functioning take over.
Don Cherry "Multikulti
Live" DVD
Thank God there's a visual
record of Don Cherry's last band. This is from a concert in Germany
in 1991. Nobody ever said he was the greatest trumpet player
who ever lived, or the greatest composer. He projected something
more than talent (although he had it in freight car-sized amounts).
He had, oh I dunnoa goodness, a vibe of peace.
I didn't know him, although
I interviewed him for an hour at the time he was recording the
first Multikulti album. I mean, he could have been a rotten sonuvabitch
and mean as shit, but I doubt it.
I can't imagine anybody asking
him why he had people of all colors in his band. I wish every
American who travels abroad could bring what he brought to this
concert.
Why can't this DVD be an hour
longer? Don Cherry has only grown in stature since his death.
Wonder what's up with Nenah?
Nathaniel Mayer "I
Just Want To Be Loved" CD
When I was a 14, I heard a
song on the radio called "Village of Love" by somebody
named Nathanial Mayer. It was wild. I bought the single and used
to play it over and over and over, etc.
In 2004, forty-four years later
Fat Possum released this album of newly-recorded songs. Nathaniel
had stopped recording decades before and was currently, and had
been by all accounts, getting over as best he could, if you know
what I mean.
This is just as wild as "Village
of Love." Wilder. Out of control in an end-of-a-fucked-up-life
way that we've never much heard beforethe result of living the
bad life in Detroit.
There are great liner notes
which include a conversation with Mayer. He was calling for money.
He wanted a car, he wanted clothes. Finally he said, "Fuck
everything. Just give me 20 dollars so I can get my dick sucked."
He sings like a thief and a
pimp. Not the commercial 50 Cent kind, but in the most transparently
calculated way. He's the kind of Black Man who White Folks never
understand. And he wants to keep it that way.
his was recorded with a very
rough, funky Detroit band.
I like to drive around oh-so-polite
Portland, Oregon and play this real loud with the windows down.
Nathaniel would like that.
Wayne Horvitz The Four Plus One Ensemble "Sweeter Than
The Day"
Not the funky Wayne of Zony
Mash, not the outside Wayne of Pigpen, but the sweet, acoustic
Wayne. Julian Priester is on here, Reggie Watts, Tucker Martine,
Eyvind Kang on viola and violin, and the underrated Skerik, from
New Orleans on bari sax.
He wrote these tunes in the
middle of a night when he couldn't sleep. He was living in a
little town in Central Italy for a few months.
This album brings ya round.
It's narcotic in the good way. It hugs you. It's a slow dissolve
in a jump-cut world.
Horvitz and I have the best
hats in the NW.
Louis Prima Keely Smith
with Sam Butera and The Witnesses "Las Vegas Prima Style"
LP
On the front cover it says,
"Recorded Live at the Sahara Hotel" (underline theirs).
On the back cover it says, "At 12:30 (a.m.)Louis Prima issues
the call that summons the faithful. From now until six in the
morning, Las Vegas belongs to Louis Prima."
I know he became a Lounge icon
to the hipsters of the late 1990s but I've always loved Louie
(underline mine). He's all over the place with volume and coolness
and excitement. Imagine Tiger Rag, White Cliffs of Dover, Should
I, Holiday For Strings and O Sole Mio all done al la Louie.
The thing about Louie and Sam
and the band is that, besides being "The Wildest" (which
they were), they could PLAY.
George Harrison and friends
"The Concert For Bangladesh" DVD
I rented this to see how I
would react to it, 34 years after the fact, and to see Dylan.
Here's what I found:
a. What the fuck was all that
Indian religious shit about, anyway?
b. I like the Beatles only slightly better. I still nevah liked
them. So shoot me.
c. Was Eric Clapton on junk? He didn't play one good lick.
d. Did Eric Clapton have the worst haircut ever placed on the
head of man?
e. Thank God for Billy Preston, who took the concert out of the
muck of pandering to Eastern religion. Oh wait, he did a gospel
tune. I'm busted.
f. Leon Russell was so heavy that Harrison introduced him without
using Russell's last NAME.
g. Everybody on stage was smoking!
h. Dylan was king. No competition.
i. Leon Russell singing harmony with Dylan was absolutely brilliant.
Oh yeah, George sang on that song, too.
j. Yes, I listened to part of the Ravi Shankar set and skipped
the rest.
k. The naivety was positively charming.
l. Leon Russell's medley killed.
m. Did I keep pulling my hair away from my eyes every ten seconds
when my hair was a long as George's?
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.