Fever (Peggy Lee Cover) / Deja Rene Carr
Wow, this girl can sing!
Thoroughly epic song and video from hip new band Grave Babies. Dig it.
Grave Babies - Fuck Off
This is the opening track of their EP Gothdammit out on Hardly Art.
Song With Orange / Charles Mingus
Absolute perfection.
Yusef Lateef - The Plum Blossom (1961)
Yusef Lateef’s exploration of Indian modes color this unmistakably beautiful offering, featuring Barry Harris at his most understated and effective on piano and Lex Humphries’ ultra-feathery brush work.
Dig that oboe.
Killa Bees Live / Wudos Band
Two of my favorite groups, Wu-Tang Clan and The Budos Band, collaborate on this groovy, 70s-funk-inspired track Killa Bees Live. To get more information about the rest of this compilation, titled “The Wudos Band Mixtape”, click on this link.
Visions of Excess (Wet Version) / Co La
From the great Friends Records Compilation (released last November) comes this 6-minute chillwave/ afro-beat/ fusion masterpiece. Enjoy, and be prepared for one fabulous, seriously out-there musical mind-trip.
A creative, beautifully rhythmic version of Jobim’s classic Aguas De Março from the always innovative Rosa Passos. Enjoy!
Rosa Passos - Aguas De Março (Putumayo Presents : Brasileiro, 1999)
Satisfy your angry chic rock craving with this excellent cover of “I Want You” by Tashaki Miyaki.
tashaki miyaki - “i want you (the troggs cover)”
Oh, this is perfection.
Narrative Lyricism: Memory As Community Agency in Music and Beloved
Image: The Blues by Romare Bearden
In both Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved and traditional and contemporary black music, memory and improvisation act as dual lenses in which to see, express, experience, and often reveal hidden stories and secrets to both receptive and sheltered communities. For this project, I chose to construct a music compilation that would shine light on the power reflection and storytelling hold in generating dialogue around painful and uplifting personal experiences in music. Selecting charts from the musical genres of jazz, hip-hop, spoken word, R&B, and gospel, I incorporated music into this mixtape that, like the role of memory in Beloved, use mediums of self-expression to voice the common experiences attached to a collective black history of white-perpetuated oppression, discrimination, and abuse. Within the novel, the character Beloved, like improvisation, drives the process of confession and conversation among many of the other characters. In effect, the music I chose for this mixtape works to mirror the intuitive rhythmic pattern of black music while illustrating the theme of narrative lyricism and improvisation visible in Toni Morrsion’s Beloved.
To download mixtape, click on the image or click here.
DISC 1
1. Perezuán / Esperanza Spalding
2. Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting / Charles Mingus
3. Rugged Ruff / Bahamadia
4. Travelin’ Light / Billie Holiday
5. A Letter / Blu & Exile
6. Madness In Great Ones (Hamlet) / Duke Ellington
7. La Femme Fatal / Digable Planets
8. Winter In America (live) / Gil Scott-Heron
9. Yesterdays / Art Blakey
10. Tell Him / Lauryn Hill
11. Amnesia (Remind) / Blu
DISC 2
1. Resolution / John Coltrane
2. Flyin’ Home / Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Buddy Rich, Roy Eldridge, and others
3. Man’s Final Frontier / Arrested Development
4. ALL CAPS / Madvillain
5. Bossa Beguine / Oscar Peterson
6. Ain’t Got No (I Got Life) / Nina Simone
7. No Private Income Blues / Charles Mingus
8. Excursions / A Tribe Called Quest
9. St. Louis Blues (Live At The Crescendo) / Ella Fitzgerald
A beautiful, ethereal collaboration between talented musicians Vincent Segal and Ballaké Sissoko to enjoy on this sunny, lazy Sunday.
(Esperanza + Black History Month Shout-Out) x Funk = Perfection.
Meditations On Integration / Charles Mingus
MLK Day vibes.
“It is a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue”- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
New Orleans jivin’.
Produced by Mark Ronson, “A La Modeliste” is the Jazz track for RE:GENERATION featuring Erykah Badu, Trombone Shorty, Mos Def, Zigaboo Modeliste, and Members of The Dap Kings.
Useless Landscape (Inutil Paisagem) / Esperanza Spalding & Gretchen Parlato
Whoa. This is beyond brilliant.
Mavis never disappoints.
(via Paste Magazine)
Wilco, Nick Lowe, and Mavis Staples - The Weight (The Band cover)
Beautiful. Happy Friday!
This is a good thing for your ears. Wilco, Nick Lowe, and Mavis Staples rehearse “The Weight” backstage at Chicago’s Civic Opera House.
