In regard to ownership, I don’t feel I personally have any real claim over my songs. I feel they belong equally to those who love them. These songs have urgent work to do. I send them out into the world, bright emissaries of the spirit, to travel where they are needed, collecting souls as they go – to the joyful and the disheartened, the sick and the well, the grievers and those yet to grieve, the lost and the found, the good and the bad and the somewhere in-between. They become a great whirling conga-line of souls, in all their despicable beauty, frugging to ‘Stagger Lee’ or shedding a tear to ‘Ghosteen,’ all the way into the sun. — Nick Cave

Inspiration: Leonard Bernstein

You can sit there, tense and worried, freezing the creative energies, or you can start writing something. It doesn’t matter what. In five or ten minutes, the imagination will heat, the tightness will fade, and a certain spirit and rhythm will take over.
— Leonard Bernstein

Zoh Amba: Bhakti

Hank Shteamer’s New York Times piece on Zoh Amba was my introduction to her and I’ve since been enjoying her playing quite a bit. She’s covering a lot of territory with her improvisations, and each piece on Bhakti is its own kind of trip.

Abdul Wadud Survey

via Avant Music News

“This survey of the life and music of cellist Abdul Wadud (1947-2022, born Ronald DeVaughn) aired on ‘The Brewing Luminous,’ WCSB Cleveland 89.3 FM on August 17, 2022. It is the first or two parts, produced and hosted by Tom Orange. This low-fi (64 kbps mp3) archived version is intended for educational purposes only.”

New Freedom Sound 2xLP

New Freedom Sound’s Eight Freedoms (45RPM 2xLP) was released on Friday. It marks the culmination of roughly a full year of work and shepherding and if you bought a copy, thank you and I hope you’re enjoying it.

If you haven’t bought a copy, there’s still a few left, at Dischord or Stickfigure here in the US, or via Arctic Rodeo Recordings in Europe.

Download purchase and streaming is available at Bandcamp, and the album is streaming on all streaming platforms.

Upcoming Jawbox Shows

This is a friendly reminder that we’re playing here in New York City at Le Poisson Rouge on July 20-22 and then in D.C. at The Black Cat on July 23. You can click on the venue links for tickets and info. The NYC shows are kind of survey of our catalog, each night emphasizing a certain era of our time together. We’re not playing complete albums but we did pull out a bunch of stuff just for these shows. Here’s a clip from a recent rehearsal to whet your whistle.

We also recorded some new versions of two songs from our first album and a Wire cover. You can buy them via Bandcamp.

I hope you enjoy it all and look forward to seeing you next week.