Baroque and Hungry on the Al Compas del Mundo Show
Jim Haas invited me to guest DJ on Jim Haas’s Al Compas Del
Mundo 1-hr Internet Radio Show, and I did. How can I call this out? Let’s call
it Baroque and Hungry! My hit list is included:
|
List Al compás del
mundo 241, 7-9-26 -
guest DJ Jack Vaughan 01 Pete
Seeger - Living in the Country (USA) 02 Afrocubism
- Mali-Cuba (Mali, Cuba) 03 Jordi
Savall - The Lancashire Pipes-Pigges of Rumsey-Kate of Bardie (España) 04 Chatham
Baroque – Fandango (USA) 05 The Staple
Singers - Uncloudy Day (USA) 06 Leroy Carr
- (In the Evening) When the Sun Goes Down
(USA) 07 The
Supremes - Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart (USA) 08 Xavier Cugat - Night Must Fall (Mexico) 09 Miriam
Makeba - Pata Pata (Sudafrica)
12 The Lilly
Brothers - Little Annie (USA)
16 Little
Willie John - Need Your Love So Bad (USA) |
Late Spring, 1972, fresh off the road, Jim came in to
tell me that the music room at the UW library had an amazing version of "I
Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes"—I thought it was Fred McDowell and his
wife, but maybe it was Blind Willie Johnson and Fred’s wife. Joke! I ran to the
library in minutes. Listening in awe to those deep blues intonations, I knew:
Jim’s word was The Word. That’s the spirit I’ve taken into programming this
slate: Man, you gotta hear this!
WHY? Jim Haas and I have had a musical conversation going
for umpteen years. Compas del Mundo describes Jim. He is of all kinds of music.
My vast horizon pales vs. his [so much ‘USA”]. But I gave it the old Badger
try. Picture Jim plays something – Jack plays something. With the paean : Man,
you gotta hear this!
I chose Pete Seeger’s Living in the Country as
lead-in because I believe it was a lead-in to a radio show back in the day — maybe
the WTMJ Hootenanny or the Studs Terkel show from Chicago – nah, that
was Midnight Special. Pete Seeger saw music as global.
Then:
Mali Cuba by Afrocubism: [There’s an idea whose time
has come!] Between the birds of Mali and Cuba a combination was bred that is
loping beat of happy sway.
Pigges of Rumsey-Kate of Bardie – Said to be of the English
"lyra viol," style known for its emanation in the form of a drone.
Which will pop up again in this musical show. I’ve learned in my later years
that Baroque had a deep, transatlantic blending. Way before Telstar! Personally, I’ve
been a fan of Baroque since the Yardbirds released "For Your Love."
A Fandango – a Spanish dance form typically driven by guitars or castanets. With castanets in hand above, dancers looking back and downward. Fandango finds echoes in Son Jarocho, a style from Veracruz. It surfaced in "La Bamba," as performed by Los Angelino Richie Valen in 1958 hit. On American Bandstand, a rolling dance which my sister - unable to dance - loved so dearly.
Uncloudy Day – Mavis Staples in trance on Pops
Staples tremolo drone. She visualizes a better world out there. This was played
in the manner of ‘maybe Spanish Monk Chant would be too too.’ “Uncloudy Day” I
found first in a street merchant’s bin on Commonwealth Avenue. If there were no
Pops Staples there be no Creedence Clearwater Revival.
In the Evening – A nod to early days of radio, tho
this was probably mostly heard on Victrolas. It is of mournful, morningless and
of the night timbre, which pops up again in this musical show. Leroy Carr shows
what I mean if I say ‘deep blues intonations.’
Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart – This extended
version of the Supremes hit has gained a place in my cannon. Motown and
Supremes were just background to me until I heard this song motoring on Rapids
Drive. This is stereo but it captures the feel of original mono. Ah, the low-wattage,
single-speaker car radio, on the sodium-light lit highway at night - a drum
corps march. As long as this is playing, the world is in rotation. Keeps me
turning. Keeps me burning. See contextual Itching/Satisfaction in footnotes.
Doing lists is supremely tedious… I am going to just blast
through the rest.
Night Must Fall – Unlike a lot of these songs, I
found this put out on Trash Day on the sidewalk. I picture Xavier and his
Waldorf Astoria
Pata Pata – How joyous, the international hit.
No Moon at All – I recommend also listening to Doris
Day’s original version.
Night Train – Thinking about my departed drinking
buddy and sax man, Gordon B. who claimed the Guiness Book of Records Title for
number of performances of this song.
Little Annie - Discovered I did in San Francisco. Yet, they
played for years not far from my Boston home.
Charlie Parker - A Night in Tunisia – Jim gave me this
record upon seeing the tremendously bad Pickwick Charlie Parker record I had.
October Jam No. 1 - Boston Tea Party. 1969. Included to prove the
Velvet Underground were not the only one.
Time is on My Side – A good fit!
I chose as the outro Little Willie John doing I Need Your
Love So Bad. That song has been around since the 50s. I sort of re-found it
on the soundtrack for Wonder Boys. That vocal, piano and guitar astounding and
the song envelope as one. Analog recording had reached an acme. Tragic Willie,
who died in jail - his feeling is so genuine and aching and the combo just
floats.
This mix is composed of MP3s I bought one by one over 20
years. For me, the downloadable era was great because you could suddenly find
things you’d never find in a hundred years of flea markets and if you heard
something of jazz, classical, blues or rock you could nab it. The LP era seldom
produced full fledged masterpieces. The
singles era was efficient, and returned with the downloadable era . You pick up
the good stuff WITHOUT BUYING THE WHOLE LP.
The Internet era set me back, not in money – set me back in
time. The shift—from the physical alignment of magnetic domains on a substrate
to the digital manipulation of bits in cyberspace—is a latent feature in the transition
to the full frontal information age, my AI sage told me. Digitization showed me
A flying rug, and I took a seat.
Remember Be sure to tune in: Jim Haas’s Al Compas Del Mundo
1-hr Internet Radio Show. It’s on Radioactiva TX, broadcast out of Mexico.
Thursdays and Saturdays at 3pm Mexican Central Time.
https://www.radioactivatx.org/
References Haq, I. U., & Kumar, S. (2014).
Analysis of the formation of magnetic transition in digital magnetic recording
system. International Journal of Engineering Research, 3(2),
83–87. https://doi.org/10.29015/0900/2014
Europeana. (n.d.). Magnetic & digital medium. https://www.europeana.eu/en/exhibitions/recording-and-playing-machines/magnetic-digital-medium
Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording. (n.d.). Beginnings.
https://museumofmagneticsoundrecording.org/Beginnings.htm
==
An incessant itch to research and analyze led me to test the
theory that the Stones based 'Satisfaction' on what they were hearing from
Motown, and conversely, that Motown based 'Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart'
on what it heard in 'Satisfaction.' It’s a drone—it always comes back to the drone. See the
contextual table below, which positions key Motown output in relation to the
Rolling Stones’ '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.' File under musical research
and analysis: An incessant itch.
|
Artist |
Song |
Recording Date |
Release Date |
|
Martha and the Vandellas |
Dancing in the Street |
June 19, 1964 |
July 31, 1964 |
|
Martha and the Vandellas |
Nowhere to Run |
October 21, 1964 |
February 10, 1965 |
|
The Rolling Stones |
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction |
May 12, 1965 |
June 6, 1965 |
|
The Supremes |
Love is Like an Itching in My Heart |
June 1965 |
April 8, 1966 |
==
Overset
But radio – eventually Internet radio – was my compass. At the start, Radio waves, and glowing tubes. Beaming from a Nashville R&B station that Jim Chones told me about. Amazing to me but I remember the room I was in when I heard Freddie King do The Sky is Crying in 1972 on 50,000 Watt WLAC from Nashville.Now - Music Humming on some server on the cloud. Great to turn the knobs, the dials. Jump eras and genres. And this Potpourri is meant to play to that. Across the mixture – a beat, a drone, a heart crying out, all in the night, and alchemy if lucky. Hey, listen here!
Comments