A collection of tunes that have been giving me goosebumps recently. I have also written a little bit about why I think they are special. The list is made with great love and gratitude for all you Myxomatapesians, and for music and its perennial capacity to lift, affirm and bind us.
Stop Bajon is bizarrely irresistible. It’s a total anomaly on this list but possibly my favourite entry. Nothing like a bit of Italo disco to kick proceedings off.
I have always been a fan of art things that do what they say on the tin and do it bloody well. As a teenager I admired Breakestra for their enthusiastic sculpting of broad, pulsing, intelligent orchestral breaks that make you want to move until you sweat. By chance and with great pleasure I have come back to them during the past month or so. Their more recent music has lost none of that pulse and thrust but seems to have found a more reflective and self-disclosing element; an element in rich evidence here with Hiding.
Oh man The Last Time. Oh shit the fucking bed The Last Time. This rendering of the well known Spiritual rolls so deep; from its lavish, lilting false beginning to its haunting, lingering, ancient feeling final harmony. The main section is pure juice: deepest, fullest vocal harmonies (yes that bass did just kick you in the perineum – and his name is Trae Pierce) are perfectly complemented by the stripped back kit work; limited cymbal use, thrown off snare ripples and penetrating rim shots anchored by a super simple kick pulse all serve to create a feel of skin, bone and toil. The decision to intermittently superimpose a louche, sumptuous major blues over something so raw is brilliantly wrong-footing. My reading of why this works so well is that through its irreverence it is reflecting the scope of human experience; that it is possible to feel extreme elation and hilarity at moments of deep sadness and tragedy, and vice versa. It’s just so strong, and so true. On a side note The Blind Boys of Alabama are well worth digging into if you haven’t already.
Breakfast Feud is perfect music to make and eat breakfast too, and would I think probably also be brilliant music to feud to. This is joyous stuff brought together by one of the progenitors of jazz guitar, Charlie Christian.
Portrait Of Mahalia Jackson is all about power because Mahalia has one of the most powerful voices in the history of music (in evidence later in this list – I will return to Mahalia). And who better to do justice to the sheer size and feeling of such a voice than Duke Ellington, the master musical distiller of vast feelings and ideas. Portrait is lofty, processional and benevolent, pointing to Mahalia’s love of God, her status, her joy, her civil rights work and her profound belief in music’s capacity to better the world.
It also feels like the sister tune to Such Sweet Thunder (Cleo), recorded 13 years earlier, which is technically The Duke’s tribute to Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, but is really his tribute to Cleopatra herself. It is directly inspired by the famous speech uttered by Anthony’s dear friend and fellow soldier Enobarbus as he recounts the first time he saw the notorious Queen of The Nile. The speech is a lavish account of synaesthetic sensuality and opulence, the full force of which we feel through the pressing, lush, dense orchestration and ecstatic crescendos. The real genius of the tune for me though lies in its ability to evoke Cleopatra’s charm and seductiveness alongside her changeability and capacity for cruelty: the main horn line feels wilful, volatile and domineering but will then open out into passages of artful stateliness and wit, before, inevitably, that tyrannical opening line crashes back in. The overall effect is one of fearsome majesty. It also swings like hell.
N.B: The original speech contains the line “the poop was beaten gold”, which I think we can all agree is very silly.
I feel like Medeski Scofield Martin and Wood (sometimes just Medeski Martin and Wood) are the modern age’s answer to The Meters, which automatically makes them delicious. Supreme musicianship, relatively simple, groove-based structuring and a ridiculous dose of swaggering funkiness. I also love the way they interlock; their recordings feel like live jams because they are listening so closely to one another and are so used to playing with one another. Their comfort and ease is our comfort and ease. Little Walter Rides Again is quintessential MSM&W.
So to Aretha. The Queen of Soul who lives no more. She shares a quality with Mahalia Jackson and many others who started their musical careers in the church in that she often sounds like she really is in direct communication with some sort of divine entity when she sings. I find this particularly applies if you listen to their live performances, as we will hear with Mahalia’s tune later in the list. With Pullin’ (not live) we’re back to doing what it says on the tin; this is a tune that grabs you by the belt buckle, pulls you close and doesn’t let go. Its ecstatic final section is straight up gospel and possibly the way that all songs should end, maybe the way all conversations should end, certainly the way all arguments should end.
No fucking about from Aretha’s second. From the first note she sings, she soars. Good to Me as I am to You is one of my favourite Aretha tunes because it is such a great example of her making the vocally ridiculous sound easy. Have a listen and feel the sheer majesty of its climactic moment (2.51) rip shivers down your curling spine.
Out of one vocal tour de force and into another, Mahalia’s vocal in this live recording of How I Got Over is just as outrageous. Her technique is totally ridiculous; a voice that feels designed to bridge the gap between heaven and earth.
Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac provides timely counterbalance to all this gospel earnestness. It subverts the well known Spiritual with wit, dexterity and glee. It wants to make mischief and play. It hangs out, has a chat, makes some sweet noises, simmers, then explodes into life with 1960’s equivalent of a huge drop.
Elizabeth Cotton’s Shake Sugaree is a gorgeous tune. The singer on it is her 12-year-old granddaughter, whose voice is disarmingly unadorned, simple, direct, honest, plaintive and really quite mesmerising.
Bei Mir Bist Du Schon (“to me you are beautiful”) is a romping toccata to close proceedings. Very fancy pianist Dick Hyman absolutely annihilates the popular Yiddish song.
Blessings, hugs and kisses.