Dinah

I've been taking a jazz history course, which involves watching lot of the Ken Burns Jazz documentary, which reminded me how much I love hearing Wynton Marsalis talk, which led me to an interview with him and Burns on Charlie Rose, which led me to this classic recording. Like the man say, he's Mr. Armstrong, and they're going to swing one of the good old favorites for you. Then he swings it. He swings it good. Want to know how good? Then you should listen to Wynton Marsalis explain just how he swings it, 24 minutes into the video.

I like the frenetic tapping feet of the hot seven, and the hilarious audience reaction shots. They love when the man swing it.

For playing what you heard him play, Dinah is the song of the day

Love Me Or Leave Me

The town of Tryon, North Carolina were so impressed by Eunice Waymon's skill at the piano they chipped in to buy her lessons - taking her all the way to Juilliard.

She grew up into Nina Simone and recorded Love Me Or Leave Me on her 1966 album "Let It All Out."

It was money well spent, because I think Love Me Or Leave Me features the greatest piano solo ever recorded. Sorry, Thelonious.

Let It All Out is an incredible album. It has Mood Indigo, Little Girl Blue, the dirty dirty Chauffeur and the devastating Images

She does not know

Her beauty,

She thinks her brown body

Has no glory.

If she could dance

Naked,

Under palm trees

And see her image in the river

She would know.

But there are no palm trees

On the street,

And dishwater gives back no images.

For being like Bach but with Soul, Love Me Or Leave Me is my song of the week.

One (remix)

First of all, since I don't own the album, I don't know if there exists a "One (not remix)." I assume so. But I've never heard it.

I just find myself listening to this song again and again. Perhaps it's that he calls Paul Wolfowitz a motherfucker in a really satisfying manner. I never get tired of that.

He is Immortal Technique, the album (which as I mentioned, I haven't heard in full) is Revolution, vol 2. Does there exist a Revolution, vol 1? I could look up both these questions on the internet, but I prefer the mystery.

I've found myself in the mood for radical hip-hop recently. Specifically, I've been really enjoying Dead Prez who are delightful mix of revolutionary and adorable. It makes me feel mostly fantastic and energized, but a little bit like Jon Stewart's pedantic character. You know the guy with the whiny voice who puts up one finger to make his quibble. Well, that's how radical hip hop makes me feel. I love Black Star
"Still mo' blacks is dyin, kids ain't livin they tryin
"How to Make a Slave" by Willie Lynch is still applyin"
but um... excuse me... did you know Willie Lynch is an internet hoax?
I love Dead Prez... but the fbi aren't really listening to you through your radio... I love immortal technique, but Bush didn't actually orchestrate 9/11.

You know the feeling? There's some great links in the above paragraph. I'm not sure how I feel about the youtube. On the one hand, it's so easy. And it's a great method of exploration. Like I just listened to a bunch of black ice on def jam from that above link. On the other hand, you end up with bizarre videos like the vegan dancing to Dead Prez. Or awful videos like the text of the lyrics on One. And then I want to comment on the videos. So I guess I feel it adds something, and detracts something, from the purity of my blog. Ha ha, I'm worried about the purity of my blog.

I got distracted. For going out to Mumia, One is the Song of the Week.

But I Feel Good

Groove Armada are one of those bands which I'd like to be too much of a snob to love. But alas, Love Box is one of my favorite albums. It has some wailing guitars, crowd pleasing beats, cute british rapping, and it tops it all off with a deliciously upbeat dancehall-lite final track "But I Feel Good"

Other great tracks from Love Box include "groove is on" (life is slow when the groove is on,) "hands of time," "purple haze," (it all made sense until the shrooms and the purple haze), "madder" (great example of how adorable the british are when they rap), and "final shakedown" featuring none other than Mr Red Rat, who is the height of class in Jamaican music.

I do like to think the track "But I Feel Good" has a slight edge to it because of that "but." It's, y'know, this cheerful song about feeling good and feeling high. But "but" what? It's never explained. It sounds to me like everyone was having a great time, only to have the carpet pulled out from under them. Like mum just came home and turned off the music. "Aw, but I feel good, but I feel high." Or maybe it's a comment on the miserable fucking state of the world, life, and existence. The human condition sucks goat balls... but I feel good, but I feel high.

For that, But I Feel Good is my song of the week

You Can't Go Home Again

I'm minding my own business in 2002, when someone walks in with dj shadow's 2nd album (2nd and a half, if you count unkle) "The Private Press," says "you have to hear this song" and plays You Can't Go Home Again, a phat retake on El Condor Pasa.

Believe it or not, that was the less cheesy of the videos I found for El Condor Pasa. I recommend just not looking. It makes it look like a song about condors or something. Also, apparently every Peruvian on youtube considers it their patriotic mission post that this song is not, infact, Bolivian. Er, go Peru! (warning: Llamas) Anyways, it's one of those songs which is beautiful if you can forget how cheesy it is. Don't think about pan pipes.

Which brings us to your favorite dj savior. This is just one of those instantly likable bouncy tunes with a great choice of sample and it all comes together real nice. For that, it's my tune of the weekend.

Also, I had a mind blowing musical experience a month ago listening to the dj shadow essential mix. Seriously, I told like everyone about it. You can get the torrent. It's two hours long. And like the file says, it is amazing. A musical journey, if you will. And he scratches John Peel, which is cute.

Imperfectly

I once asked Rio about her favorite Ani album and I forget what she said but I was shocked it wasn't Not A Pretty Girl because to me, as an Ani noob, obviously that was the best album, what with having 32 Flavors and Not A Pretty Girl on it. Isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?

Well Rio was right and as I grew up I started appreciating the depth of Ani's catalogue more and more and I find myself settling on Imperfectly.

Imperfectly, released 1992, was Ani's third album. I was introduced to Ani in 1996, so I came to it late. For a start it has my favorite song: Fixing Her Hair. I can't find it online to link, but your should go beg, borrow or steal because Fixing Her Hair is one of those immaculate songs. Gorgeous guitar, sublime lyrics. It speaks to a feminist experience on a visceral level and asks simply "what is this beautiful woman settling for?"

The album rocks out too. Here's the classic In or Out. I didn't really love In or Out at first, it's the kinda bi-pleaser stuff she moved passed on her later albums (i.e. post Little Plastic Castle). But in the end that's exactly what I grew to love about the song, and the album, it's such classic Ani, the kinda thing we all listened to her for in the first place.

Two more tracks to mention. I think Served Faithfully is beautiful and it reminds me of the great Belle and Sebastian track You Can Take You Carriage Clock and Shove It. Finally, the opening track What If No One's Watching is an exciting and uplifting aetheist anthem. And those don't come along everyday.

For all that, and a bunch of great tracks besides, Impectly is the Ani Album of the Year.

We Love You

Here's what I love. I love bubblegum punk. It's not a very big genre. It seems to be entirely girl bands (boys just don't get the aesthetic). Ok, so I can only think of two bubblegum punk bands. One is The Rondelles. The other is Helen Love. She's from wales.

The song is "We Love You" and it's super awesome. It's from the album "Radio Hits Vol 2." You can hear it on her myspace

This song is all about the tude. It's about making your own music with your friends and it being awesome because you love music and you don't give a fuck. Incidentally, I discovered Helen Love while I was on a wiki search for the origin of the phrase 'girl power.' Helen Love coined it, before Shampoo even. Helen has a song about this boy who beats up on her friend and how her and all her friends are going to go kick the shit out of him. It's called "beat him up" because when you are punk, you don't have to be subtle (enjoy the link to the serge gainsbourg original).

On a only vaguely related note (girl power via the spice girls), I found out Simon Cowell and Simon Fuller are not the same person, despite both being British and associated with American idol and good at picking out generically-pretty-voiced-and-looking girls who will make lots of money selling mediocre albums. And they're both called Simon. I digress, and in a dramatically unpunk-rock way. I told you boys didn't get it.

Anyhow, We Love You. It's great, Julie has more fizz than a bottle of tizer, and it's my song of the week.

Lollipop

I like things that are gay and bouncy, and this tune by Mika is both.

I don't have much to say about this song except that Mika is real pretty and that also I like the part where the kid sings the "I went walking with my mama one day" verse. The whole album - life in cartoon motion, is a good one although I rarely listen to more than the first two tracks any more (this and Grace Kelly). Add Mika to the list of chirpy pop coming out of the UK recently, like Lily Allen and The Pippettes. Must be some kinda spirit of doo-wop thing going around.

This brings the number of songs which are great fun and have lollipop in the title to 3:
My Boy Lollipop by Millie Small

Lollipop by the Chordettes


So for being fun, gay, pretty, bouncy and called 'lollipop,' lollipop was the tune of a couple of weeks ago.

Express Yourself

The song of the week is Express Yourself by N.W.A. from Straight Outta Compton


The eponymous sample from this song is a great song in its own right: the soul/funk classic by Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd St Rhythm Band.

The song is something of an odd duck on the album. The vocals are Dr. Dre, leaving DJ Yella on production (Dre mostly produced the other tracks). I know this, because Dre says his own name repeatedly during the song, which is a public service the friendly fellas at nwa provide for their listeners through the album. They never said it was a bad attitude. Second, despite being a defence of their nasty lyrics, the song is just plain nice. Straight outta compton is a genius influencial album and all, but sometimes I feel like a bad feminist for enjoy that delightfully misogynistic shit. Dre even goes all nancy reagan on the ganja ("its known to give a brother brain damage") It's like when Bob sings "all them drugs gonna make you slow" on burnin' and lootin' Oh shit! Also, Dre rhymes "Yella" and "a-capella."

Sure, I'm lame and old for chosing the least gangsta n.w.a. song. But express yourself is fun, funky and positive. It also sums up the appeal and politics of the rest of this definitive album. And for that, it's my song of the week.

Charles Wright is not related to Eric 'Easy-E' Wright, although that would be a nice piece of trivia to end on, huh?