Music

Saxophonist Dexter Gordon saunters off a Holland street and onto a small club's stage, where he wryly introduces and then performs a sizzling "Night in Tunisia." Gordon's is just one of the mesmerizing performances captured on the second series of seriously wonderful Jazz Icons DVDs released by Reelin' in the Years Productions and Naxos Records. The seven new volumes are devoted to John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Sarah Vaughan, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Wes Montgomery, in addition to Gordon, and were filmed in Europe between 1958 and 1966. Much of this footage has never been seen before; most of the albums include a few different dates, sometimes filmed years apart; and all were shot in vintage black and white. Even the liner notes are better than average. Who wouldn't want to read Pat Metheny on Wes Montgomery? Or Darius Brubeck on his father, Dave?

Every volume suggests historical import. In Germany in 1960, Coltrane was playing, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, with Miles Davis's quintet sans Miles; a year later, Coltrane returned with his own band and genius in full flight. From the "Black and Tan Fantasy" that opens Duke Ellington's 80-minute 1958 Copenhagen concert to the 11-minute "Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue" that closes it, both audience and band seem tuned into the same exuberant vibe (stick around after the credits and watch the band members pack up their instruments at show's end). And Wes Montgomery comes off as an immensely patient leader as he banters genially and teaches his material to three different, fresh rhythm sections in 1965. It's long been a cliché that American jazz stars received more love in Europe than at home. The Jazz Icons series almost proves it.

Tom Petty's version of Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'" (listen here) is part of Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino, due out Tuesday. John Lennon, Elton John, Dr. John, Neil Young, Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams, and others perform Domino's bumptious R&B on a double-CD set benefiting the Tipitina's Foundation, which purchases instruments for New Orleans school children and funds other community programs.

Joni Mitchell reworks "Big Yellow Taxi" for Shine, her first release since 2002's Travelogue. Mitchell's 1970 hit fits her politically engaged new album perfectly, and you can hear it here.

Michael Jackson's famous "Thriller" video, directed by John Landis, was great creepy fun when it hit MTV in 1983, and many still consider it the best video ever. But you're in for a shock if you still haven't seen the version performed by inmates of the Cebu Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines, which has been racking up millions of views on YouTube. The inmates have also performed "Sister Act" and "Jailhouse Rock," but "Thriller" is their masterpiece. Watch and read more about it here.

Grateful Dead fans will swoon over this intimate onstage seven-minute version of "Dark Star" from 1970.

Listening to Easy Living this morning while running reminded me how much I love the quintessential cool playing of saxophonist Paul Desmond. Watch him perform his beautiful ballad "Emily" at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1975.

Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin comes up with an amazing roundup of "YouTubes to make your Mexican grandmother cry." It's both a terrific musical roundup and a history lesson, as informed commenters explain, for example, how the Toña La Negra's bolero "Alma de Veracruz" relates to Cuban music. In addition to other clips by Toña, Xeni points to Lucha Reyes singing "Que Lindo Es Mi Gringo" (How Handsome Is My Gringo) in 1939, moody ranchera singer Lola Beltran's dreamy "La Cigarra," Costa Rican-born (and openly lesbian) ranchera singer Chavela Vargas performing in Madrid at age 81. Deeply emotional stuff.

One of the increasingly popular forms of YouTube amusement is to create videos out of re-edited movies. One user created a disturbingly perfect music video of the Arcade Fire's "My Body Is a Cage" using images borrowed from Sergio Leone's spaghetti-Western masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West. Rated V for violence involving harmonicas.

James Brown, Little Richard, and Weird Al Yancovic play "Wheel of Fortune" for charity in 1994. James and Richard, oddly, are playing as a team. [via Bedazzled]

Paul McCartney has a new album and David Frost has a weekly show on Al Jazeera English, as I learned last week in my Morocco hotel room. Enjoy younger versions of both of them in this 1964 interview, where a top-of-the-world McCartney discusses maybe retiring in a couple of years. And here's Macca three years later, when everything is completely different.

Friendly spirits haunt sixty-four-year-old Paul McCartney as he sings "Dance Tonight" (from his upcoming Memory Almost Full) in this bittersweet video directed by Michael Gondry. Natalie Portman plays a ghost delivered to McCartney in a mandolin box. Consisting mainly of the phrases "everybody's gonna dance tonight, everybody's gonna feel alright tonight" repeated over a jaunty folk riff, "Dance" could easily have been recorded for the former Wings bassist's homemade 1971 solo debut, McCartney. Without alluding to anyone in particular, Gondry's video suggests that McCartney is carrying around a lot of emotional baggage. In other news, for example, he's postponing his world tour until his divorce from Heather Mills is done.

Bassist Jack Bruce will set aside his well-documented differences with drummer Ginger Baker for at least a couple more Cream reunion shows this year. Eric Clapton, meanwhile, reunited with former Blind Faith bandmate Steve Winwood at the latter's May 19 show at the Countryside Rocks Festival at Highclere Castle near Newbury, England. You can watch them perform "Presence of the Lord," "Can't Find My Way Home," "Crossroads," and "Had to Cry Today" here (Clapton appears about fifteen minutes in). Compare and contrast with how the original superdupergroup looked and sounded in 1971.

Art Garfunkel joined Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo to perform "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" Wednesday in Washington D.C. The occasion was the Library of Congress's presentation of its first Gershwin Award (recognizing a major contribution to the popular song as an art form) to Simon. Seems like only yesterday they were trading quips with David Letterman prior to performing "The Boxer."

Clark Terry, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Mulgrew Miller, Jimmy Heath, and Marian McPartland, are among the cast of dozens who will pay tribute to eighty-one-year-old piano giant Oscar Peterson at Carnegie Hall on July 8. If you won't be in town, check out Swiss Radio Days, Vol. 16, which finds him in excellent company (Barney Kessel! Ray Brown! Lester Young! Gene Krupa!) in Switzerland in 1953.

1. Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed play a smooth country version of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice It's Alright."

2. Gospel legends the Five Blind Boys of Alabama tear up "Something's Got a Hold on Me" in the early sixties.

3. Footage used originally for a "Lady Madonna" promo film turns out to be the well-dressed Beatles recording "Hey Bulldog."

4. British jazz-rock singer Julie Driscoll wanders through a forest of Marcel Duchamp bicycle wheels in this surreal late-sixties clip of the Brian Auger & the Trinity's version of Dylan's "This Wheel's on Fire." (Driscoll also sang it as the theme song to great "Absoutely Fabulous" BBC TV show.)

5. The late Robert Altman directed this Scopitone film featuring Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass's "Bittersweet Samba."

6. Country guitar gods Chet Atkins, Albert Lee, and James Burton play a suave instrumental version of Ray Charles's "I Got a Woman" together in the atrium of the Opryland Hotel.

Turns out that "Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry is a big Stephen Sondheim fan. Cherry created a video tribute involving the show's cast naming their favorite Sondheim tunes for the composer's seventy-fifth birthday, celebrated with a concert at Los Angeles's Hollywood Bowl on July 8, 2005. [via Blogway Baby]

In 1960, the great American experimental composer John Cage (of "4'33" of silence fame) appeared on the TV game show "I've Got a Secret." They skip the game, alas, but Cage performed a whimsical composition titled "Water Walk" using a water pitcher, bottle of wine, ice cubes, mechanical fish, rubber duck, and tape recorder, among other utensils. "Inevitably, Mr. Cage," warns host Gary Moore, "these are nice people, but some of them are going to laugh. Is that alright?" "Of course," Cage replies. "I consider laughter preferable to tears."

Three years later, a twenty-two-year-old, mustache-less Frank Zappa played a bicycle on "The Steve Allen Show." "How long have you been playing bike, Frank?" Allen asks him. "About two weeks," Zappa replies. Allen devotes about fifteen minutes of airtime to Zappa's cacophonous shenanigans, which can be seen in two parts, and seems to be having a blast.