[You can listen to Damon’s latest music here and here.]
Keep your mind free is a phrase that stays ringing in my head. I orchestrated an evening of online performance and an image promoting decarceration with the same phrase. Thinking not only of those late nights when the weight of the new alternate pandemic lockdown dimension we found ourselves in pressed heavy but thinking of the people without my options. My students at Stateville Correctional Center remain in my brain while structuring correspondence classes as creative outlets, as escape, with the theme of liberation in the time of covid-19, inside of prisons, hoping to help them keep their minds free as the virus spreads. I purchased one new album in the first 2 months of the pandemic which served as a beautiful dream state inside a state of shock before the deaths of more Black people caused us to realize we never left our same racist dimension that we have always been in. Pandemic or no, the time is way overdue for structural change. Here are some records that are relevant to me some right now and some always. Thank you for reading. Love, Damon
Little Dragon’s new record is called, New Me, Same Us. This record just sat on my stereo getting flipped over and over. I am not sure where the magic of this record comes from, it just is. I paid for this record online and biked to the shop and picked it up curbside. It was a thrill to buy a record after a couple months.
Jeff Parker’s Suite For Max Brown is great. A sonic companion to his last record. Jeff’s concert was the last show I saw before the pandemic became the reality. It was a great show and it is a great record.
The Black Fairy is a record I have been looking for for a long time. I bought it a couple months ago after a long irl search. It is the songs from a theater piece done in the early 70s in Chicago about a Black fairy who loses her confidence because a little boy tells her fairies never help Black people and she has no power to make change. This is the story of how she regains herself.
He’s A Black Man, Volume 1 is one part of a volume of records (a friend has another from the series). It is a series of radio spots illuminating the achievements of Black people. It was made in Chicago and paid for by Sears. It’s amazing.
Sit-In Songs w/ booklet. An instruction guide for sit-ins. See how the notes on the staff are stools? Come on!
Bernice Johnson Reagon is one of my inspirations. She was a member of The Freedom Singers who would perform at SNCC events in the height of the Civil Rights Era. The Freedom Singers set the template for how many singers I wanted in Black Monument. She later formed Sweet Honey In The Rock. This solo record uses the voice and her gospel training to address political issues. It’s a great record, very past, present, and future.
New Playlist
Day’s Plays Guest Post: Jesse Pires
I have spent so much of my life seeking out and enjoying interesting and sometimes challenging music. I’ve found that I practically have a song for every mood and a new favorite record almost monthly. When entering this period of social isolation months ago I was never more grateful for a house full of records. No matter how bleak the outside world feels I can almost always find a record to bring a little bit of joy and plenty of healing. Some recent favorites:
I so dearly miss going to record stores and I hope some of my favorite spots weather this current storm. My last few visits to Philadelphia’s Long in the Tooth and Beautiful World Syndicate turned up a bunch of Elvin Jones records I hadn’t heard before. This still sealed copy of Time Capsule was the first of several discs from Jones’ 70s output that I picked up. Elvin is in fine form but the late Ryo Kawasaki along with Bunky Green are the true stars here.
I’m never sure how to define “acid folk” but I would certainly offer this Pentangle record as a fine example of the genre. That double bass gets me every time.
This lovely reissue of McDonald and Giles always brings me joy, a timeless classic if there ever was one.
Some of Don Cherry’s best work is still relatively hard to find on vinyl, though it’s been getting reissued here and there. I’m familiar with the Black Sweat label for some of the more ambient stuff they’ve put out recently so I jumped on this thinking it would be more in the vein of Cherry’s Brown Rice. Instead it’s some of the most ferocious music I’ve heard in a long time. A special record for special occasions.
I hadn’t really paid attention to Bitchin Bajas until they released a record with Will Oldham. I ended up catching them together when they toured which ultimately sold me on their retro synth-y stylings. This is another one that needs to be listened to with great attention.
— Jesse Pires, 6/4/20
My Day’s Plays
Yesterday was a scheduled record-reshelving day, meaning there were the twin joys of cleaning up and finding some forgotten treasures among the heavy-rotation titles. It brought some respite from our greater unrest, loss, tragedy, protest, and pandemic, and for those of us who might have some time to spend listening to music, I thought I’d make this post.
The Tony Allen set is a solid survey of his drumming. These sides are mostly background inspiration for me, keep me on track with their deep 4/4 grooves, regardless of the task at hand. I bought this one at Earwax in Williamsburg.
I forgot I had this Hypnotic Brass Ensemble record and have no idea when or where I picked it up. A fascinating group to which I was first introduced by curator and former-record-shopping-companion Jesse Pires via a CD-R many years ago. The CD-R is gone but I’m pleased to report that Mr. Pires is doing well and by all available accounts, so is the HBE, whose rollicking jazz-informed, marching band/funk band hybrid is, indeed, hypnotic.
I’m not sure how to categorize Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun. Ben LaMar Gay has a lot on his mind and the lexical command of soul music and collage to render it in music. This is beautiful, intentional stuff, by turns jazzy, noisy, groovy, harmonious, cacophonous.
I know almost nothing about Dudu Pakwana or Diamond Express except that I picked this up a few years ago in Philadelphia at Long in the Tooth and that it is a remarkably energetic set. Most Arista Freedom releases are worth a listen, so when I saw this one, I was intrigued for musical reasons and by the apparently rodent-inflicted destruction of the jacket’s upper left corner. When I inquired about a discount for the missing portion, the clerk replied, “That’s some definite chompage. We can discount for that.”
I’ve been thinking about Alphonse Mouzon since McCoy Tyner’s passing, revisiting Tyner’s quartet with him on drums. I’m not sure The Essence of Mystery is a milestone exactly, but it typifies certain aspirations of its era with cosmological vigor and ample talent. I bought this record while shopping at Reckless Records with musician Wayne Montana.
Another Philly find, I picked up guitarist George Freeman’s Birth Sign at Beautiful World Syndicate because it was a Delmark release and because Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre was on the session. Unlike McIntyre-led work, however, this record strikes a familiar note of funky, bluesy, guitar-led jazz. A very satisfying album.
RIP Henry Grimes and Giuseppe Logan
Two more victims of COVID-19: Giuseppe Logan and Henry Grimes, both of whom had extended musical trials and disappearances followed by later-life public resurgences. Included in this post are Mr. Logan’s quartet LP from 1965, and Mr. Grimes performing on Marc Ribot’s 2005 Albert Ayler tribute, Spiritual Unity. Both men strike me as characteristically New York improvisers, a bit more introverted than their Chicago-based peers, for example, somehow more aggressive in their spiritual stance.
RIP Lee Konitz
New Freedom/Inspiration: Living Through the Sequel
New Freedom/Inspiration
Inspiration: Keth Jarrett
