Delaunay’s Jazz - I’m Confessin’ (That I Love You)

More adventures in recently acquired music…

I just bought a four-disc box set that includes a ton of Django Reinhardt’s best music from 1934 to 1952. The recording I posted here comes from the first session of the famed quintet that soon became known as the Quintette du Hot Club de France. In this early instance, they recorded under the name Delaunay’s Jazz. Here’s the classic lineup:

Django Reinhardt (lead guitar), Django’s brother Joseph Reinhardt (rhythm guitar), Roger Chaput (rhythm guitar), Stéphane Grappelli (violin), and Louis Vola (bass).

The Quintette brought variety to the big band era as a rare jazz combo featuring onlystring instruments. The two rhythm guitarists often filled the role of percussion. And even though Django seems to get all the love, Grappelli was no slouch on jazz violin (let that sink in… freakin’ jazz violin!). Enjoy.

The Specials - Rat Race

The Specials started off hot and this, their 4th single, maintained that momentum in 1980. This also counts as an experience in recently-acquired music, since I bought The 2-Tone Collection: A Checkered Past within the last week.

I worked a late shift tonight and I figure this will catch most of you regular work-week 9-5ers before you leave for your Monday. Have a good week everyone!

Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)

I don’t know if anyone can outdo Pete Shelley’s bitchin’ falsetto, but here’s yet another punk song that spawned many, many tributes.

From 1978’s Love Bites.

Clifford T. Ward - Jigsaw Girl

Clifford T. Ward was never one for interviewing and promoting…  He just liked to write, compose, and record from his own home, and let the music speak for itself.  Ward did appear once on Top of the Pops, but really preferred to be out of the spotlight, just making music that made him— and his fans— happy.

In fact, Ward has been hailed as one of Britain’s preeminent songwriters… that few people have really even heard of.  (Although surprisingly, there have been Clifford T. Ward conventions held even as recently as 2002, attended by a small group of his most ardent fans, and even by Ward himself, until his death in 2001.)

“Jigsaw Girl” was one of the minor hits from his 1975 album Escalator.  There’s nothing groundbreaking here, just a really well crafted pop tune.

I think Ward falls into that category of gifted pop singer/songwriters (along the likes of Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Carole King, etc.), and it’s evident— and refreshing— to see someone who was just creating music because he liked it, and was quite good at it.

Let me also note that Clifford T. Ward was probably pop music’s nicest nice guy: married his high school sweetheart, wrote songs that referenced The Hobbit, and has an official fan club called The Friends of Clifford T. Ward.

Awww.

Polaris - Waiting for October

This song wraps around my heart like a flannel shirt (or spaceman sweatshirt, if you’re up on your Adventures of Pete & Pete minutia).

Polaris, it seems, was formed solely to record the soundtrack for the aforementioned (epic!) kids’ series… in fact, their only full length album was called Music from the Adventures of Pete & Pete.  (That’s the actual band in the opening credits, performing their song, “Hey Sandy.”)  At the end of almost any given Pete & Pete episode, you could count on hearing this song, “Waiting for October,” or the much slower, “She Is Staggering.”

Most of this song is either unintelligible, or possibly outright gibberish (a lot of Polaris’ songs were… which is sort of in the spirit of Pete & Pete, really).  But I could probably live by the words:

Waiting for October,
I cross my fingers,
Cross my heart,
And hope to die.

It’s that kind of angsty, nostalgic sentiment that makes me love the 90’s so hard.

Lucy Michelle and The Velvet Lapelles - Special Party Time for Everybody

I went to the CD release party for Lucy Michelle and The Velvet Lapelles’ second CD last night. Most of the songs came from the new album, called Special Party Time for Everybody. I saw the band in Madison in May opening for Pale Young Gentleman and they were pretty good. Last night they were fucking fantastic! I haven’t had time to digest the album in full so I just chose the title track to post here. In an interview in City Pages last year Lucy Michelle said the best description they had heard of the band’s sound was ‘gypsy mountain folk rock punk jazz’. It’s hard not to like these guys!

Please reblog this if you like it. More people need to hear them. They are ready for their big break.

Morphine - Super Sex

Let’s say there’s a spectrum of lechery.  If Leonard Cohen’s “Memories” occupies one side, where lusting after a girl is met with a slow-motion choral slap in the face, where does Morphine’s “Super Sex” fall?

Let’s just say that I wouldn’t kick this song out of bed in the morning.

“Super Sex” can be found on the aptly titled 1995 album, Yes.

Yes indeed.

Jaymay - See Green, See Blue

Usually, a song like this reminds me that inside I am an empty, dark void of a human being. But instead, the acoustic sound, loving lyrics, and soothing humming make me feel a little warm and humble inside.

ABBA - Waterloo

I admit it.  I wouldn’t even like this song, if not for its inclusion in the greatest unromantic comedy of all time, Muriel’s Wedding.

One of these days, I want to have a movie marathon of Awesome Song & Dance Scenes in Movies That Aren’t Musicals.  Along with this scene of Muriel and Rhonda sticking it to their snotty high school nemeses, the marathon would also include:

• The Full Monty (for greatest use of a Tom Jones song)
• Reservoir Dogs (for best torture song)
• A Clockwork Orange (for every scene with music in it)