One of Lax’s most beloved pieces of advice is to put yourself “in a place where grace can flow to you.” Rather than a physical space, I think he meant a way of being, a spirit of receptivity, an orientation toward the living God. By putting ourselves in such a place, we open ourselves to unseen love, the energy of the universe, and the possibility of fortuities. The question, of course, is how to do that. Through prayer? Patience? Meditation? Charity? All of these are worthy ways to access grace. But I believe the main way, for Lax, is right there in one of his poems: not so much finding // a path in the woods // as finding // a rhythm to walk in -- Michael N. McGregor (https://robertlax.com/)
"Alliyiah's Band is the first album by the Argentinian group Alliyiah's Band, a musical experiment that unites different African sounds, candombe sounds and trumpets."
"PRISM was founded by students of the renowned Donald Sinta at the University of Michigan in 1984. discography is extensive, with over 30 releases on scores of labels. The members are Timothy McAllister, Taimur Sullivan, Matthew Levy (arranger on this cut), and Zachary Shemon"
Texting conversation with my friend Michael about the success of Lakisha Benjamin, and I invoke Vi Redd (1928=2022), trying to imagine her place in a world today…completely apart from the invisibility she probably suffered in her time. She is bad ass. Her grandson posted a video from 1968...Vi with Count Basie in Paris. See link
Time:
4:19
Comment:
"Her bio on Spotify says: Over the past decade, Toronto-based pianist Cheryl Duvall has established herself as one of Canada's foremost contemporary music interpreters. Further, she can often be heard performing with the Thin Edge New Music, and in 2021 was named artistic director of the Camber Music Society of Mississauga. "
I was gathered with some other people recently, stood to share a few thoughts about binoculars & my search for a good hand lens...desire to bring what is far away closer in; to become intimate with what is under my feet. As we broke up, a woman -- a stranger -- came to me and asked if I knew Robert Lax. Said he'd come into her mind as I spoke. She told me about how she'd gone to Greece in search of him... to Patmos, a remote island, and how she was guided to his door by various strangers she met along the way. So it seems right I, too, go in search o Lax, and I bring him to you today. Here's what written, and you can find more on-line, including a YouTube doc that I hope to soon watch. Click link. Robert Lax (1915-2000) was a poet with a singular vision and style whose quest to live an authentic life as both an artist and a spiritual seeker inspired Thomas Merton, Jack Kerouac, William Maxwell and countless others. Known in the U.S. primarily as Merton’s best friend and in Europe as a daringly original avant-garde poet, Lax lived a life of simplicity, humility and grace that continues to encourage and motivate readers and followers. The doc was made by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel
The Blackbyrds are an American rhythm and blues and jazz-funk fusion group, formed in Washington, D.C., in 1973 and reformed in 2012 by Keith Killgo. They still perform…a world tour last year celebrated their 50th anniversary with original members Killgo and Keith Killgo and Joe Hall.
This collection is a companion piece to my solo album ‘Telyn Rawn’ AMGEN 001 (2020). I have invited some of my favorite musicians to respond to the eighteen improvised pieces on ‘Telyn Rawn’. I asked each contributor to imagine that the musical material improvised in 2020 was an ancient musical form that had fully existed in the medieval period, and, that each of their responses were to have happened centuries after the imagined formation of the ‘Telyn Rawn’ pieces. This album therefore proposes a new imagined repertoire that emerges from an already speculatively built instrument and equally re-imagined repertoire. As guitarist C Joynes comments, these creative responses offer a kind of ‘speculative fiction’ approach to the source material. At the point where this music reaches you, it has been filtered through imagined passages of time, various musical languages and histories, and channeled through the fictional ecologies of musicians, locations and instrumentation. The title given to this album of imaginary musical histories, ‘Creiriau y Dely Rawn’ or ‘Relics of the Horsehair harp’, is inspired by the title Edward Jones gave to his manuscript ‘Musical, Poetical, and Historical Relicks of the Welsh Bards and Druids’ (1802), a title I have always loved. - Rhodri Davies, Abertawe (liner notes)
New Zealander Buhne's notes on Bandcamp: ary Poppins’ is one of my all time favorite movies and in it there are these cute little ’Chimney Sweepers’ that dance and sing. Until Blake’s poem I had been unaware of this sad and cruel practice where orphan children, and some sold by their parents at a very young age of three, four and 5 years old to Masters that forced them to work as Chimney Sweepers. Due to their small size they would have to crawl up flues and scrub them clean. Many got hurt on the job, and others would eventually perish from health conditions and complications. This practice had been going on for a few centuries and was eventually banned sometime in the late 1800’s.
Time:
4:46
Artist:
Richard Dobson [Maruerite Duras adapted by Richard Jobson]
Originally released as TWI 129 in February 1983, '10.30 On A Summer Night' is Richard's own adaption of texts from the classic novel by French author Marguerite Duras. On this 1982 recording he is accompanied by Belgian pianist Cécile Bruynoghe
Brothers Hagai (trumpet, horns, etc) & Itai (bass, strings, etc)… from MetalJazz.com: Brothers play together with an understanding beyond thought. Taking that intuition to the next level, Hagai's rehab became a source of new nourishment for the Maetar trio's perennial jams -- 17 of the 20 tracks on this double album are almost entirely improvised, or _direct transmissions,_ as the band puts it. You can hear the grooves and melodies fall together without hesitation, because the group listening is so acute; the music seems to flow like breath in a shared dream...aetar don't really make things work, though; they position their skills so that the music can coalesce. You feel it happening! You're clicking down the line with God, sharing the air. -- see link for full article.
Recalling how he and Jerry Garcia obsessed over and analyzed the music of the Rev. Gary Davis, Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead guitarist and singer, described the blind Reverend this way: “He had a Bachian sense of music which transcended any common notion of a bluesman.”....Blind since he was a young boy, he recorded a set of plaintive spiritual songs in 1935; two years later, he became an ordained minister. He’d started out playing on street corners in his native South Carolina, and after that first recording, began doing the same thing in other towns on the East Coast. He became one of the “guitar evangelists” (others included Blind Joe Taggart and Blind Willie Johnson)... -- Thom Moon, EchoLocater (Substack)
"Baum lives in Brooklyn. Here, she's plaing flute and alto flute with Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet; Sam Sadigursky on alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet; Chris Komer, French horn; Brad Shepik, guitar; Luis Perdomo, piano and Fender Rhodes; Ricky Rodriguez on bass and electric bass; Jeff Hirshfield on drums; and, on three selections, Keita Ogawa on percussion. "
"John Arnold Griffin III (1928-2008) was born in Chicago. Nicknamed _the Little Giant_ for his short stature and forceful playing, Griffin's career began in the mid-1940s and continued until the month of his death. A pioneering figure in hard bop, Griffin recorded prolifically as a bandleader in addition to stints with pianist Thelonious Monk, drummer Art Blakey, in partnership with fellow tenor Eddie _Lockjaw_ Davis and as a member of the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band after he moved to Europe in the 1960s. Originally an alto player, he switched to tenor after encouragement by Lionel Hampton early on (he'd started playing with Hampton's band when he was just 17). In 1995, Griffin was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music - wiki"
Time:
5:19
Artist:
Helen Merrill ["Lew Brown, Charles Tobias and Sam H. Stept"]
"This tune is a 1939 jazz standard, introduced by Judy Canova (1913-1983) who was starring in the Broadway show Yokel Boy. Canova also hosted popular radio show for 1943-1955). Hank Jones on the piano; Milt Hinton, bass; Sol Gubin, Drums, Barry Galbriath, Guitar & the Richard Hayman Orchestra"
"Walt Dickerson (vibraphone), Andrew Hill (piano), George Tucker (bass), Andrew Cyrille (drums). Dickerson (1928-2008) was a Philly born artist who worked for a time with Sun Ra (see wiki link)."
