Bob's Bird

Chasing The Bird

The sun sets unevenly and the people
go to bed.

The night has a thousand eyes.
The clouds are low, overhead.

Every night it is a little bit
more difficult, a little

harder. My mind
to me a mangle is.





- Robert Creeley

The Music Where Our Mouth Is

This is a playlist from a early morning broadcast on KDVS in Davis. I went on the air at about 5 minutes after 3 and was off by 6. All though there were no mistakes I felt that towards the end, due to some extra bookkeeping at the request of BMI, my timing was a little off. I would have liked to have played the 1946 duets by Ellington, Strayhorn (on the same piano!) and something from Sterling Brown. The purpose of playing the poetry along with the jazz is not a mere hip contrivance. In fact, as those who have followed this blog know, it is meant to illuminate the deeper and perhaps more subtle meanings of the music itself. I look at the show in its entirety as a single composition and just as a color or a shape in painting "brings out" a color or a shape in proximity so does a clarinet, a drum, a turn of the phrase. The most successful of these sequences in this particular broadcast, I believe, were as follows;

Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis Larkins playing My One & Only, followed by Duke Ellington's Orchestra playing Snibor

Margaret Walker (pictured above) reading For My People, followed by Johnny Hodges playing Day Dream

Snibor & Day Dream are, of course, compositions by Billy Staryhorn, which, I think, speaks to the depth of his genius and intuitive response to African-American culture in general and Jazz in particular.

I would have also liked to have spent more time on the small groups lead by Ellington sidemen. Perhaps in a future broadcast that's all I will play!


Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis Larkins - Someone To Watch Over Me
Ella Fitzgerald & Ellis Larkins - My One & Only
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - Snibor
Langston Hughes - I Have Known Rivers
Langston Hughes - I, Too
Bud Powell - Blue Pearl
Bud Powell - Reets & I
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra featuring Lil Greenwood - Walkin' & Singing The Blues
Abbey Lincoln - Long As Your Living
Lee Morgan - All At Once You Love Her
Louis Smith - Tunesmith (excerpt)
Louis Smith - Au Privave
Herbie Nichols - Argumentative Variation
Herbie Nichols - Riff Primatiff
Countee Cullen - Heritage
Barney Bigard & His Orchestra - Brown Suede
Barney Bigard & His Orchestra - Noir Bleu
Barney Bigard & His Orchestra - "C" Blues
Barney Bigard & His Orchestra - June
Anita O'Day - I Didn't Know What Time It Was
Anita O'Day - The Very Thought Of You
Anita O'Day - Anita's Blues '76
Kenny Burrell Septet - I Never Knew
Ella Fitzgerald - I'm Just A Lucky So & So
Margaret Walker - For My People
Johnny Hodges & His Orchestra - Day Dream
Johnny Hodges & His Orchestra - Good Queen Bess
Johnny Hodges & His Orchestra - That's The Blues Old Man
Johnny Hodges & His Orchestra - Junior Hop
Claude McKay - If We Must Die (Introduction)
Claude McKay - If We Must Die
Miles Davis Sextet - Milestones (Miles)
Bill Evans Trio - Milestones (Miles)
Miles Davis Quintet - Milestones (Miles)
Gwendolyn Brooks - Kitchenette
Abbey Lincoln - Afro-Blue
Abbey Lincoln - Lonely House
Abbey Lincoln - Let Up
Bill Evans Trio - Solar

Carter G. Woodson, September 9, 1915

Perhaps no field of study is more crucial to the understanding of jazz than that of the African-American, or Black Studies. Carter G. Woodson, often considered to be the father of Black History, founded on this day in 1915 the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. It behooves us to be responsible for our own education. As Malcom X said, "If you don't know, learn. If you do know, teach." The name of the organization Woodson founded has changed. It is now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. But its mission stays the same. The crisis in access to education continues, see Cecil Brown's Dude, Where's My Black Studies Department?. The fight that began with Woodson, and continued with people such as Nathan Hare, who founded the first Black Studies Department, to tell our own story, continues to this day. Therefore, it is imperative that we not only honor Woodson and his example but also honor ourselves. Ours is a story of dignity and triumph, best told by us.

On The Air This Sunday Morning Thinking About Sonny Rollins

Here is a recent playlist from a broadcast on KDVS. The occasion was, among other things, the birthday of Sonny Rollins. For those of you interested in Rollins, the man and his music, the most insightful short reading to date can be found in Ishmael Reed's new collection of essays, Mixing It Up (DeCapo).

Thad Jones - Something To Remember You By
Waring Cuney (read by James Earl Jones) - No Images
Lou Donaldson - The Things We Did Last Summer
Julian "Cannonball" Adderley - Alison's Uncle
Beverly Kenney - If I Were A Bell
Beverly Kenney - Do It Again
Beverly Kenney - A Woman's Intuition
Beverly Kenney - You're My Boy
Sonny Rollins - Without A Song
Sonny Rollins - Come, Gone
Jayne Cortez - Solo
Betty Carter - Do Something
Betty Carter - Everytime We Say Goodbye
Betty Carter - My Shining Hour
Kenny Dorham - Jazz-Classic
Ernie Henry - Free Flight
Jack Kerouac - Lucien Midnight: The Sounds Of The Universe In My Window Part 2
Ralph Burns - Lover Come Back To Me
Thelonious Monk - Brilliant Corners
Sterling Brown (read by James Earl Jones & Moses Gunn) - Ol' Lem
Bennie Green - Soul Stirrin'
Charles Mingus - Fables Of Faubus
Kenneth Patchen - Do The Dead Know What Time It Is?
Annie Ross - This Time The Dream's On Me
Chet Baker - Mythe
Chet Baker - Not So Slow
Sarah Vaughn & Billy Eckstine - I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
Billy Eckstine - All Of My Life
Sonny Rollins - Reflections
Beverly Kenney - Why Try To Change Me Now?
Beverly Kenney - A Summer Romance
Woody Herman & His Orchestra - Summer Sequence (Parts 1,2 & 3)
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - On A Turquoise Cloud
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - New York City Blues
Sonny Rollins - Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise

As ever, these selections were played from vinyl only.

The Poetry of Sun Ra

Freedom From Freedom


Freedom from freedom
From the liberty
Of the land
Where destruction's light
Is the land.

Freedom from the decree of freedom
From the liberty
Of the land of destruction
Is the decree
That can truly save
Those whose freedom
Is a burden and a shame
What price freedom that despairs?
What price freedom that destroys?





by Sun Ra

published in The Immeasurable Equation, The Collected Poetry & Prose of Sun Ra

A taste of Candy from Lee Morgan

The great pianist Sonny Clark, heir to Bud Powell, once said that he enjoyed accompanying improvisations as much as performing them himself. Nowhere is this pleasure so evident than on the Lee Morgan date Candy. In fact, Candy is distinguished in a number of respects, not the least of which is the fact that it is Morgan's only album on which he appears as the sole horn at the session. The selection of material is also unusually satisfying, inclusive and original. For fans of Morgan it is likely the ballads, Since I Fell For You and All The Way, that really stand out. The simple grandeur of Morgan's treatment of Since I Fell For You lifts the tune to a romantic plateau few jazzmen have scaled. So thoughtful and honest in its blues, it'll bring you, if not to tears, than to the memory of the last time you cried them. Clark's introduction is absolutely heartbreaking and it sets the tone. All The Way is no less romantic in its perfection. Made famous by Frank Sinatra sometime prior to this recording, Morgan builds this tale of heartfelt commitment into a rhapsody. So profound are the emotions imparted that one cannot escape a sense of urgent beauty in its call to embrace your lover, all the way. The title track, Candy, contains some of Clark's best work in this period and demonstrates that this album really is as much his as it is Morgans. In fact, Clark's storytelling ability has never been so fully on display. Just within the space of this album alone, Clark seems to impart a vast array of human experience and, of course, a heaping amount of the blues. For Clark always puts a little blues, not unlike the aforementioned Powell, on just about everything he plays. The A side concludes with what was at the time a recent composition by the great, and too little recognized composer-saxman, Jimmy Heath, brother of drummer, Albert, and bassist, Percy. The tune, C.T.A. had been recorded a few years earlier by Miles Davis and, according to Davis, the title takes its name from the initials of a young Chinese-American woman Heath was dating at the time. It's a real rouser and clocks in as the most uptempo piece at the session. Ardent fans of Morgan's famed pyrotechnics will not be let down with this one, it is pregnant with the spiritual mysteries of classic bebop. Also included in this set are Irving Berlin's Who Do You Love, I Hope and the evergreen Personality. Both display what are to my ears some of the very finest examples to be heard anywhere of modern jazz trumpet improvisation. Morgan is more than on top of his game, he is on top of the world, climbing higher and taking us with him! The power and control with which he approaches the theme laid out by Berlin is nothing short of astounding. As in the best of the jazz tradition, Morgan takes a relatively obscure work and breathes a new and exciting life into it, resurrecting the creative forces that gave it birth while simultaneously charting a new course. Personality has been for many the stand out track. The wit and humor of a sly, even cryptic, lyricism makes itself known here through contributions from each member of the band (Art Taylor, drums & Doug Watkins, bass.) Taken at a medium tempo there is plenty of room to stretch out, and that room is exploited to the fullest in some of Morgan's most unique phrasing on records. While long valued as a collectors item, because of it's originally small release and limited distribution, Candy is now reissued on both CD and vinyl, audiophile and standard.

Cecil Taylor on Boulez, Stockhausen, Pousseur, Ligeti and electronic music

"One of the things that turned me off European music is that I'd get the scores by Boulez, Stockhausen, Pousseur, and Ligeti and I would look at them and say, 'My, this is interesting.' And I'd listen to the music and it didn't sound particularly good. I don't listen to artists who only want to create something that is interesting. To feel is perhaps the most terrifying thing in this society. This is one of the reasons I'm not too interested in electronic music: it divorces itself from human energy, it substitutes another kind of force as the determinate agent for its continuance."

Quoted from an interview by Gary Giddins,Village Voice, 1975