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The "Red Hot + ..." series, which supports AIDS research, has been one of the most successful music-based benefit projects---and a great artistic success as well. The "Red Hot + Rhapsody" release from 1998 celebrated the work of George and Ira Gershwin and featured this cool collaboration on "Summertime" by the trip-hop band Morcheeba and jazz flutist Hubert Laws. (FYI--a second edition of "Red Hot + Rio" is being released on June 28.)
Here's to hoping your summer will be as sultry as Bird's version of the George Gershwin/DuBose Heyward classic. That's Ray Brown on bass, Buddy Rich on drums and, get this, Mitch Miller on oboe. Recorded in November, 1949.
It's the first day of summer so let's mark the occasion with a few versions of this Gershwin classic. In my previous post, I wrote about the first time a song defined summer for me. My older brother, Rudy, who exposed me to so much of this music, suggested Billy Stewart's "Summertime" as another seasonal hallmark.
Stewart, originally from Washington DC, had a short but spectacular career, crossing paths with everyone from Don Covay to Marvin Gaye to Bo Diddley, who introduced the singer to Chess Records. His 1966 take on "Summertime" showcases his distinct style of scat singing.
He died in 1970 when the car he was driving plunged into a river, killing him and three band members. He was 32.
Summer, 1968. I was 10 years old and we had just moved from our home on the South side of San Antonio to what was then the Southwest outskirts of town, right between two air force bases. I was separated from my old friends and wouldn't make many new ones 'til starting a new school in September, so I spent a lot of time alone that summer. I noticed a new soundscape: from Kelly AFB we could hear huge cargo planes as they took off for Vietnam; and most mornings I'd awaken to rat-a-tat-tat from the firing range at Lackland AFB where war-bound troops were being trained. And in the evening we were serenaded by an army of cicadas.
Our new neighborhood had something I had been unfamiliar with: fast food restaurants. My dad and older brother, Rudy, were gone a lot and my mom sometimes didn't want to cook dinner for just the two of us. On those occasions she'd hand over a couple of bucks and on the way home from Burger Chef I'd spend the change on baseball cards at yet another new revelation: a convenience store! Rudy worked at HemisFair, a scaled-down World's Fair held in San Antonio that year, which meant we had free access. Our family didn't take vacations, so the fair was the next best thing. I was fascinated by Los Voladores--a troupe of Mexican Indians who tied ropes to their ankles and spun to the ground from the top of a tall pole. But really I was mesmerized by the fake sacrifice, which provided a brief glimpse at the bare breasts of the female "victim." My world opened up that summer and this song was the soundtrack. I begged Rudy to take me to a record store to buy this 45. It was the first time that a song defined summer for me. It still does.
(Trivia: playing guitar on this song was Bruce Langhorne, who had been part of the folk scene in Greenwich Village, and who reportedly inspired Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man.")
Download 06 Grazing in the Grass
Every year about this time I make a summer mixtape. Haven't given the 2011 edition much thought yet, but I know it'll begin, as it does every year, with "One Of Those Summers" by George Clinton's P-Funk All-Stars. It's got a perfectly lazy, hazy summer groove and, best of all, it features a cameo by Sly Stewart. This is from 1983, back when a Sly comeback still seemed possible. It is said that hope springs eternal, but we've already waited an eternity for Sly. His occasional live shows in recent years have reportedly been disappointing and his long-promised new music hasn't materialized. Nevertheless, here's to having hot fun in the summertime:
Download 01 One Of Those Summers
On June 4th, David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez, two-fifths of Los Lobos and one-half of the Latin Playboys, performed a benefit for my wife's theater company, About Productions. Louie is collaborating with the company on its next show: "Evangeline, the Queen of Make Believe" (premiering in Spring, 2012). "Evangeline," of course, is a song from "How Will the Wolf Survive?"--the band's 1984 major label album debut. It's just one of the many brilliant songs written by this duo, who are marking 40 years of their artistic partnership. (They met and started writing together in high school.)
For the past few years they've been celebrating their songbook in a stripped down concert that is usually just the two of them and a couple of accompanists. On this night, the first time they'd performed the show in L.A., they were backed by one of David's two talented sons, Vincent, and the Lobos mighty drummer, Cougar Estrada. It wasn't exactly an unplugged evening. In fact, having sat in direct earshot of David's amp, I'd swear that his knobs go up to 11. David's guitar playing and his plaintive vocals were, well, sublime. And Louie provided the night's emotional highlight with a rare solo turn on "Tony y María" (from "Good Morning Aztlán").
They performed songs from throughout their career and a few tunes from "The Long Goodbye," a collection of previously unreleased compositions (available through iTunes and from www.latinplayboys.org, which also offers a vinyl version and a lyric booklet with illustrations by Louie). My favorite cut from that album is "When Love Fails," which reflects their country influences. Do yourself a favor: add this to your collection.
(concert photo by Paul Redmond)
Even though a brass band from the Mexican Army made a big splash at the 1884 World's Fair in New Orleans, and some of its members stayed and became music teachers there, Mexican culture has historically had little presence in New Orleans. Musically, the city was influenced by the Caribbean rhythms that came to the city via Havana, and later many Hondurans made the city their home when New Orleans was the major port through which bananas were imported. It's odd, almost as if Mexicans stopped migrating east at the Texas-Louisiana border. (Until post-Katrina, when Mexican laborers poured into the state.) But every once in a while I come across the odd Mexican reference in New Orleans music, as in this Dr. John oddity, or in this song by pianist Champion Jack Dupree (pictured). Hadn't thought about it until now, but "La Cucaracha" really is a rumba. The roots of the song apparently go back to 15th Century Spain, but the Mexican version popularized during the Revolution has the same Caribbean rhythms that traveled the triangle between Havana, New Orleans and Veracruz. And that's where Dupree's version comes from.
Download 26 Mexican Reminiscences