I Love Her

For some reason it's Laura day today, all milk-heavy and pollen-eyed. Here goes, my amigos da musica. Buzz buzz.

Laura Smith - I'm Gonna Kill Myself
Laura Rivers - That's Alright
Laura Lee Perkins - I Just Don't Like This Kind Of Living
Laura Lee - Separation Line
Laura Cantrell - Bees
Laura Gibson - Milk-Heavy, Pollen-Eyed

Boppin' bonus tracks:

Coleman Hawkins - Laura
Don Byas - Laura

Joining The Maquis

Hey, you know me: trop civilisé et, mon dieu, trop cool... So I guess it makes sense that I'm off on a trip to gay Paree for a few days. A bientôt!

Metal Urbain - Paris Maquis
Clock DVA - Eternity In Paris
Jonathan Richman - Give Paris One More Chance
Coleman Hawkins - Under Paris Skies

Wild Weekend Vol. 9

Number 9, number 9, number 9... It´s Wild Weekend time again. Musical revolution. As an alternative to all them discjockey types polluting the airwaves out there, we´ve got the iPod on shuffle. Once more it spins an eclectic six pack of tunes for the music-hungry masses, so tune in. This just might be on your wavelength.

Have been playing a lot of Kristofferson lately. So it´s only fitting that the ghost in the machine picked one of his classic songs to start off this edition. To Beat The Devil, featuring a spoken intro dedicated to his mentor Johnny Cash, gives some sound advice to all you aspiring songwriters out there. "I ain't sayin' I beat the devil, but I drank his beer for nothing... then I stole his song." Which is followed by another songsmith par excellence, mister Tom Waits, who meets Bette Midler in a bar somewhere. Says Bette: "Your life's a dimestore novel, this town is full of guys like you..." Mutters Tom: "Ain´t that cold..." Red coincidence alert: both songs feature the line "you´ve been reading my mail". Spooky that.

Kris Kristofferson - To Beat The Devil MP3

Tom Waits - I Never Talk To Strangers MP3

Up next is a track from a cd I bought only last week: Keith Hudson´s Brand, aka The Joint. Originally from ´77, and finally re-released on the mighty Pressure Sounds label a couple of years ago, it´s one of them hard-hitting dub classics I never get tired of. Turn it up. Some typical eighties industrial postpunk up next: Adi Newton and his Clock DVA. Dark stuff from Advantage (´83), with a funky bass and screeching horns. Stood the test of time surprisingly well.

Keith Hudson - Image Dub MP3

Clock DVA - Beautiful Losers MP3

"Just a little lovin', early in the morning, that little extra something, to kinda see them through..." Some good advice from Dusty Springfield, from the still utterly amazing Dusty In Memphis. Best soul album ever to be sung by whitey, hands down. Having the Memphis Cats as her backing band and Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin in the producer´s chairs certainly helped of course. And we call it a day with the dream pairing of tenor greats Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster. Here they tackle Duke Ellington´s Don´t Get Around Much Anymore in grand style.

Dusty Springfield - Just A Little Lovin´ MP3

Coleman Hawkins & Ben Webster - Don´t Get Around Much Anymore MP3

King of the tenors

Feel like playing some jazz today, so here goes. Ben Webster has long been one of my favorite tenors. He was every inch as good as his slightly better known contemporaries Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins, the latter also being his main influence. Webster could honk with the best of them, but it´s his ballad playing that really set him apart. His rich, warm and tender tone really shines when the tempo is slow, the room is smoky and the hour gets late.

Ben Webster (born 1909 in Kansas City) started out professionally in movie theatres, playing the piano to accompany silent movies. One night he met a guy who showed him some saxophone riffs and he was hooked for life. His first real claim to fame was a stint with the Duke Ellington Band in the fourties. It proved very succesfull, but he had to leave eventually because he fell out with Duke. Invited to play a little piano with Ellington on stage, he overstayed his welcome behind the keyboard, which angered the boss. Webster retaliated by cutting up one of Duke´s best suits, and got his marching orders pronto. A couple of years later he would be back in the Ellington ranks for a spell though.

Webster recorded his best music in the fifties, often backed by pianist Oscar Peterson´s group. 53´s great King Of The Tenors (Verve) found him playing with Peterson, trumpeter Harry Edison and alto Benny Carter. The Ellington composition Don´t Get Around Much Any More is a good example of their style. The album Soulville (Verve ´57) was another classic Webster-Peterson combination. Where Are You is a piece of melancholia supreme. Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster (Verve ´59) saw Ben playing with the great baritone saxophonist. It proved another sure win, of which Sunday is a perfect illustration.

Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson (Verve ´59) was again a fine collaboration between two giants of jazz, with their interpretation of In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning being top of the bill. Frank Sinatra´s original, from his justly famous In The Wee Small Hours album (Capitol ´55), isn´t too shabby either by the way... Last but not least Webster recorded some amazing tracks between ´53 and ´59 with fellow tenor Coleman Hawkins. Eventually collected as Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster (Verve) and later as Compact Jazz (Universal, with bonus tracks), it´s one of my fave jazz albums of all time. Check out You´d Be So Nice To Come Home To to see what I mean.

Webster relocated to Copenhagen in the early sixties. His style wasn´t en vogue anymore in the States, where John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and co were mapping out new paths in jazz. In Europe he still had a large fanbase and could tour extensively. A gentle bear of a man with the reputation to be totally unpredictable when under the influence, Ben Webster died in Amsterdam in 1973. Seems like the Dutch capital is not the best destination for aging jazz cats, as Don Byas and Chet Baker breathed their last there as well.

Ben Webster - Don´t Get Around Much Any More MP3

Ben Webster - Where Are You MP3

Gerry Mulligan And Ben Webster - Sunday MP3

Ben Webster - In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning MP3

Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning MP3

Coleman Hawkins And Ben Webster - You´d Be So Nice To Come Home To MP3