December is the time of year we get a bunch of holiday-themed music submissions, and today we wanted to share what we received this year with you. Hope you enjoy the music, and, whatever it is you celebrate, we hope you have a happy holiday!
Mickey Free is a Baltimore based MC and with his co-producer Secret Weapon Dave, they make music that makes my neck work. Alright, so I might be the last man in Charm City to get on this band wagon, but it's still welcome company and it's not so often that I find myself this fired up about a hip hop act. I first saw Mickey Free opening for J Roddy Walston and the Business on a New Year's Eve show on the cusp of last year and was taken by Free's engaging stage presence, badass beats, and clever lyrical content alongside his impeccable flow.
His album, Last Of The Tight Wiggers, was a 2010 release with 13 tracks of which I genuinely struggled decided which one(s) to share with the Dig Nation here tonight. Uh-Oh kicks off the album with hand claps, remixed middle schoolers, fuzzed out bass, and Mickey himself. I like this track because it lays out the record's relaxed and fun approach. Read on for more from this album as well as a teaser from his current collaboration with Jenn Wasner from Wye Oak on a new project entitled Flock Of Dimes.
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Django Reinhardt (1910-1953) is one of my favorite musicians. His style is always palatable and his technique, musicianship, and virtuosity were completely enviable. He was a musical revolutionary in every sense of the word and his collaborations with violinist Stephane Grappelli lead to a career of exalted and venerable recordings.
Even after loosing the use of two of his fingers on his left hand after a fire, Django relearned the instrument and played with remarkable fluency. There really hasn't been anyone quite like him since.
The band featured on this recording of Georgia On My Mind is Stephane Grappelli on violin, Django Reinhardt on guitar, Louis Vola on bass, Freddy Taylor on vocals, and Joseph Reinhardt and Pierre Ferret also accompanying on guitar.
Django Reinhardt: Georgia On My Mind
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The Jolly-Boat Pirates were a free jazz project on Umlaut Records that lasted from 2004-2008. The ensemble was a quartet of three Swedes and one American – They were Niklas Barno on trumpet, Devin Gray on drums, Joel Grip on double bass, and Lars Ahlund on saxophones. Furthermore, their time together happened to coincide with the time of my undergraduate study at the Peabody Institute of Music where they were also studying.
The Jolly-Boat Pirates had a few years on me at the time, I suppose they still do now, but the point is that seeing them perform and hearing this kind of jazz music making felt and sounded like something I had never experienced before. It felt somehow more organic, more open to responding to itself as it created itself. Their live performances had a way of messing with my sense of time. You cannot always tap your foot along in a measured way when you listen to them, but I was engaged in the kind of way that allowed large quantities of time to slip away undetected. I found them to be completely engrossing then, and I still do today. Recently I have re-discovered the first of their two releases and have gotten hooked on their sound all over again.
The Jolly-Boat Pirates: Bro
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Released in 1960, Hank Mobley's record Soul Station boasts the cast of Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Blakey on drums in addition to his own tenor saxophone playing. Soul Station is known for being one of Mobley's most successful records but if you are not familiar with his sound, let me put it like this. Mobley was referred to as the "Middle weight champion of the tenor saxophone" by Leonard Feather because his playing was not as aggressive as John Coltrane and not as mellow as Stan Getz. For Feather, Mobley was the middle man with a balance of mood, tone, and style.
This middle approach makes the music palatable and easy to enjoy, regardless of what your musical taste may be. I personally have been waking up to this song on my alarm for a little over a month now and I have come to decide that compositionally, This I Dig Of You as a composition, has as much balance and equilibrium as any jazz song out there.
Read on and let me try to explain myself.
Hank Mobley: This I Dig Of You
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Over the past month or so, we've gotten a lot of Christmas music submissions. It seemed like an appropriate time to share some of those with you. They range from straightforward covers of classics to interesting interpretations to originals – some of which address the stressful or unpleasant aspects of the holiday. Have a listen and more importantly, have a happy holidays! Whatever it is you celebrate, all the best to you from all of us at Those Who Dig!
Lee Morgan (1938-1972) was an American jazz trumpeter whose career and life had all the hallmarks and stereotypes of a great Bop musician. He recorded prolifically, developed the genre stylistically and technically, struggled with drugs, and was ultimately shot and killed by his common law wife Helen More (Morgan) while prepping the stage for a concert.
His record The Sidewinder (1963) is one of my favorites from the artists long list of works, and is commonly considered to be part of the core curriculum for jazz listening.
Lee Morgan: The Sidewinder
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Tom Waits is one of favorite musical artists of all time and, in any genre. I would put him on a short list with Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Keith Jarrett, The Assad Brothers and a few others. But that is a blog for another time.
Something New: By now it's not breaking news that Tom Waits released a new album this week entitled Bad As Me. But if you're holding out on purchasing it, just stop it. What are you waiting for? We all know that Tom Waits has been putting out a consistantly quality product since the early 70's, and Bad As Me is no exception. The album snarles, moans, hisses, and croons. Bad As Me is badass.
Something Old: As an obsessive Tom Waits fan I was appalled to learn this week that I've missed a beat. What I learned is that in 2008 Tom Waits teamed up with the tour de force string quartet the Kronos Quartet, and bassist Greg Cohen on a collaborative album entitled Healing the Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconcilliation. This set was live a re-imagining of some Waits classics which are energized and unabashed in their creative display. I actually found myself pounding on my work desk and dancing in my office when I heard this music for the first time. I hope you have the same visercal recation. After all, Tom Waits is ineffably cool.
Tom Waits: Satisfied
Tom Waits, Kronos Quartet & Greg Cohen: Down In The Hole
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It's been a crazy summer for me. Between moving, computer issues, and some other stuff, a lot of great music sent my way has slipped by. Today I wanted to catch up with artists previously featured on Those Who Dig and share their latest music and news.
While scrolling through my itunes library it occurred to me that I have 25 different recordings of the eternal jazz standard Autumn Leaves. This is a most likely the most recorded song in my collection, but I'd have to take a real inventory to say this conclusively.
What is most interesting to me about having so many takes on the same song is cataloging the myriad of ways artists fracture, obscure, orchestrate, interpret, and perform the tune.
Is there a point in which the song is no longer its original self? Is performance precedent the be all end all to interpretation, or is there merit in belligerent originality? If I played you 25 different recordings of the same song without telling you it was the same song, how many repetitions would it take before you noticed?
Today I would like to examine three recordings of Autumn Leaves from the most straight forward to the most far out.
Bill Evans: Autumn Leaves
Oscar Peterson: Autumn Leaves
Gonzalo Rubalcaba: Autumn Leaves
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