Sunday at Bob's #40 - Such Is Life: An Absence

Good morning,
Good afternoon,
Good night

And that whether

You are sleeping,
Watching cartoons,
Or getting back on track

From hangover

Some days are bright
Some days are dark
Some days the only thing to do

Is to listen to these tracks

Some days cloudy
Some days in mist
Some days made sunny

By your ears on my playlist

Some days we laugh
Some days we cry
Such is life

Such is life

Welcome back, once again
For your bi-weekly experience
Ten songs under one song

The story, the tale of an absence

The story of a melody
That made it in
Then made it out

For the sake of harmony

Harmonious but not flat

However, a tribute is made
Through the title
It is only a see you again, big guy

Not a long goodbye

Maybe in two weeks?
Regardless
Now is now

Le temps presse

Let us begin
Let us start
Let the music play its part

While I learn rhyming

It is Joshua Redman’s hand
That invites us first
And in all our thirst

We grab it, after all

We’re only human
And we know we can trust
The drums waiting

Around the corner, on the grass

Ready to hit
The coup de grâce
To pour us like we pour

Liquor through the point of non-retour

Caught
Delivered without ransom
To a mysterious voice

Mysterious but not random

Ungraspable
But not immaterial
Similar to fumes

Is the music of Alabaster Deplume

Sometimes dreaming of going away
Leaving friends
Knowing they’ll be okay

Other times doing it anyway

Sometimes looking back
Realising only once it vanished
The things we presently lack

And not coming back

Dancing to forget
Dancing to remember
Dancing to the songs

Of our ancestors

Dancing, dancing
Here is a great album to dance
It might even put you in a trance

The Imaginary Soundtrack to a Brazilian Western Movie

And from Brazil to Cap-Vert
An imaginary bridge
Very much there

Very much there

Kept safe by musicians
Guarded by musics
Preserved by guardians

In peculiar tunics

The Cachupa Psicadelicas
Let us cross
Like boss

And we cross back

All the way to LA
What can we say?
We would be so lonely

Without Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

Then we have Jeff Parker
Right after
With a banger

From his album Suite for Max Brown

And then we have a song
Aman aman
Then we have a song

From a great duo

Amongst which is a friend of mine
And a fascinating human being
Just listen to them playing

Yet another bridge

Towards the end you can hear
The guitar switching
To this caracteristic rythm

And the oud following

What a thrill

It only made sense
To pursue this quest
And to enhance

To re-invite an old guest

Aşık Veysel
We heard him here before
We wanted to hear some more

And to close this circle

Without taking a risk
We have the giant Kyria Politissa
And her Den me toumbaris

And Spyros, with his bouzouki!

Opa! Dig those sweet fingers playing the bouzouki!
Gia sou, Spyro, with your bouzouki, gia sou!*

I will stop rhyming for a second
To urge you with serious
To go and purchase this album with its super interesting booklet.

You won’t regret

The last song is a bonus track
Sent to me by a dear friend
Of someone we talked about a while back

Mohamed Lamouri

We talked about him playing
In Paris’ subway
And a friend hearing him

On his way to school, as a kid, everyday

This very friend saw him again
And had the reflex
Of recording a piece

Of music in context

This is it for today
I hope you enjoyed
The music, the rhymes the playlist

Check out time remains 10h30
The receptionist

*Marika Politissa - All Parts Dark. Released by Olvido Records and Mississippi Records in 2020
OLV-009 / MRI-124. English Translations by Tony Klein

Playlist:

1. Joshua Redman - Mantra #5
2. Alabaster Deplume - Going Away/The Lucky Ones
3. Camarão - Camarão No Oriente
4. Cachupa Psicadelica - Ca Mistid Mentira
5. Ariel Pink - Life In La
6. Jeff Parker - Fusion Swirl
7. dahaW ⅃ꓘ - 1st is 0
8. Aşık Veysel - Sazım
9. Marika Politissa - Den me toumbaris
10. Mohamed Lamouri - Subway Recording

Sunday at Bob's #39 - Twenty Twenty

Hello everybody and welcome back
Before anything, happy new year
May this one be better
May it provide for what the last one lacked

As we close another cycle
We ask the next one to bring us plenty
Plenty of tools to figure out whatever happened
In twenty twenty

So you see, we are back with poetry

At least rhymes
We do it gladly
Or we try
To pass the time

Anyhow
Let us begin
Open your eyes
Turn off your phones

Sit back now
Breath out, breath in
Then close your eyes
I’m just kidding

Here is the playlist

You should know our first guest
In here he flies first class
He sure is amongst the best
It is Majid Bekkas
With his Magic Spirit Quartet

They do us the honour
With a classic from the Gnaouas
We did hear once here before
Played by Maalem Mahmoud Guinia
Bania

With Majid, there is a twist

We are used to his jazz collaborations
We know them well
Regardless
It is always with the same fascination
That we press play
That we play press

Then comes a band
Whose beautiful story
I told times and times again
At the reception

Elia y Elizabeth

It was a succesful band
But very briefly
Between 1972 and 1973
Intense in passion

The band came to an end
Alledgedly
As I understand
For them to pursue their studies

A lesson

We go on with Sharpshooters
Discovered while watching The Wire
Still haven’t recovered
From such fire fired

Their album reminds of a song
Written by Claude MC
Talking about the fusion
That gave birth to such beauty

That is rap

Si le Jazz excèle
Le rap en est l’étincelle
Qui flambe les modes, qui sont toujours
À temps partiel

We enter the blurry zone
Of today’s playlist
Magic monsters and furry bones
In a foggy mist

That is how I see Blake Leyh’s Dreadfish

I have no clue what it refers to
It’s like a reggae song that never begins
Like a hairy snake that never ends
With no head and to tail too

On its back we travel
For around eight minutes
Towards the next musical panel
That nothing could disrupt

They are more than two tousands and I only see these two

The rain merged them, it seems
One another
While one of the best rappers
Reminds us that even the deads once were toddlers

What a gem
A few drops suffice
Of Lino’s rhymes
And we are twenty again

J’ai fait un cauchemar j’ai dû rêver que j’avais du taf

Is what you could hear if you could
dig the underground of a painting
Under the ground under the building
Under the castle of the King

Hence its follower
A song from Le Roi et L’oiseau
Mellow rêveur but bitter
Mains vers le bas, yeux vers le haut

Walking in circles

In his hand a flower
In his mind a struggle
In her arms a mumble
On their heads a bird

On the bird a castle
One tousand and one rumors
As many are possible
Sang beautifully by Peggy Seeger

What a timber!

In one the the first posts here
I said about Bill Withers
His voice is like honey to the ears
And so is hers

A very good friend of mine
Introduced me to Vincent Dumestre
And not a day goes by
Without my being thankful

It is beautiful

Though a vast repertoire
Brings joy at first
Excitement then, then désespoir
The opposite of unsatisfied thirst

How long will it take
To listen to it all? To have a complete view?
But you can’t have your cake
And it eat too

And that’s the truth

The last bit of our journey is folk
And like some folk that be
It has its own mouth to talk
Mine is not necessary

But please, before closing
Look up the story
Of The Shoals of Herring
You might even find a old show by the BBC

About it

Another cycle is closed
Time to release the tension
Time to sort out the last details
And close the reception

Not indefinitely
I will see you again for another playlist
Check out time is still 10h30
The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Majid Bekkas - Bania
2. Elia y Elizabeth - Alegría
3. Sharpshooters - Hot Buttered Rum
4. Blake Leyh - Dreadfish
5. Jeff Beal - Distance Myself
6. Ärsenik/J.P. - Dans ma ruche
7. Stanislaw Wislocki/L'orchestre symphonique de la radio et de la télévision polonaise - La bergère et le ramoneur
8. Peggy Seeger - When I Was Single
9. Vincent Dumestre/Le Poème Harmonique - Passacalle, La Folie
10. Blaze Foley - Election Day
11. Tom Rush - Urge For Going
12. Ewan McColl & Peggy Seeger - The Shoals of Herring