Sunday at Bob's #49 - Ain't Nobody's Business, If I Don’t

Hello everyone and welcome back this sunday to spend once again a musical hour at Bob’s! I’m not gonna lie these days are strange, I don’t know if you can feel it. But you know we make it go, as my father says « jm3a koulchi ou goul 7amdoullah! ». I guess it is always important to be thankfull for what we have, straight after complaining for what we miss. You will notice today that not only do we have three different versions of the same song, but that this song gave its name to today’s playlist. It ain’t nobody’s business, what we do. On this note, let us begin.

We begin with the first take on the above mentioned song, by american self-thaught jazz pianist, vocalist, composer, and bandleader Jay McShann. Something that always amazes me is when people are able to learn how to play music by obervation, as Jay McShann alledgedly learned by watching his sister's piano lessons and trying to copy songs he was hearing on the radio. At age 15 (!) he was already performing professionally. I personally was taking piano lessons for years as a teenager and wasn't able to make this instrument sing, not even speak, let alone burp or fart. But it does remind me that as a kid I destroyed countless comic books by holding them agains the window, with a sheet of paper on top on which I would copy the drawings revealed by the sunlight. Still, what skills I had achieved with that method by the time I reached 15 years old could have never allowed me to make a living. Anyway, we can only witness and appreciate what people like Jay McShann built and left behind for us, comprehension is probably too much to ask.

We go on with a beautiful guitar piece by Duck Baker, which I found on a compilation by one of my idols Bert Jansch.The compilation is called Acoustic Routes (Music from the Television Documentary) and is a soundtrack to a 1992 documentary of the same name, as you might have guessed from the title if you are paying close attention. I haven't watched the documentary but am eager to now that I have listened to the soundtrack countless times.

Then we have two very cool Colombian songs to warm us up in this cold winter (at least here in Switzerland, I noticed we have visitors from allover the world–that or a lot of VPN users). The first one is from Baranquilla born Anibal Velasquez, also known by his well deserved nicknames El Mago (The Magician) and El Rey de la Guaracha (The King of the Guaracha). For a little over two minutes he will prevent us from getting cold by playing an extremely dancable song called Los Vecinos. After that comes one of the greatest finds from the previous weeks, namely the immense Aries Vigoth. A very good friend from Colombia came over for lunch recently and as I told her about The King of the Guaracha, she showed me some songs that reminded her of his music. One of them was Aries Vigoth's Predestinación. Oh my God, such power is contained in this song, it is like I don't understand the lyrics but I feel the pain. The words are sung in a rather fast pace underlying a sort of poetic urge to vomit what the heart carries. And I mean vomit as in the world of Art making, it can be a very positive word. The harp (is it a harp?) is following the speed and becoming a second voice, backing up each statement like a magical being following the poet in his adventures. But wait until you watch the clip, rudimentary at first sight although made out of very interesting compositions, to whom takes the time to observe. Each scene is presented to us at the manner of a moving painting and they sometimes fade in and out into each other. One scene caught my attention, where the singer is facing us reciting his powerfull poetry (powerfull in the sense of the intense urge to live driving an injured wild animal) while a couple is dancing in the horizon. It made me reflect on how sometimes when I spend days painting and doing not much else, I feel I am missing out on life itself and therefore painting something I am not sure I know much about. The singer singing to us describing something that is happening behind his back (literally of course, because we can assume the couple dancing is in fact him and his lost love) looked to me as illustrating that feeling. Who lives the life, who paints it, who sings it? I took many screenshots and will most likely use this clip in my painterly practice. However when I saw the song was counting over 12 millions views on YouTube I figured it might be one of these songs I am the only idiot who doesn't know about. And so I decided to put another cool one in today's playlist.

We continue with a bagnificent Brazilian song (we need one in each playlist don't we?) by Dona Edith Do Prato, Marinheiro Só. It is followed by another one of my great discoveries of the past weeks, Bana from Cape Verde, called the King of Morna, he was a singer and performer of the morna style, the plaintive, melodic lament which is a staple musical style of the country. I strongly recommend you dig more on him if you weren't familiar with his music. I stumbled upon him while looking back my old favourite abums from the giant Cesaria Evora to whom I won't make the insult of introducing.

We go on with the second version of today's theme song, this time by the great american blues singer Otis Spann. In fact this is the first version I know of this song. To be accurate the first one is from a live performance avaiable here. It used to be one of my favourite songs and I must have listened to it tousands of times in my teenagehood. I even think I have made drawings and paintings after stills from the video. There is something about the cigarette consuming on the piano while Otis Spann is delivering a painfully spot on performance of the song that cannot leave you indifferent.

We go on with a song from the Greek master Manolis Hiotis, here accompanied by the magnificent voice of Mariana Hatzopoulou. After that we enter a more contemporary area of music with Margate based Guinean musician Falle Nioke whose voice we heard two weeks ago on Pigeon's song War if I'm not mistaken. After him comes a very nice song by Finnish musician Jaakko Eino Kalevi who I was introduced to years ago in my early days in Amsterdam, at a time I would ask every person I'd meet to tell me names of musicians from their region. Then we have a song from Geneva based lorraine92 who once was my neighbour (I swear) from her latest release you can find here on Bandcamp and I highly recommend. Another friend comes after, Jason Daskalakis who we heard here before, and a song from his recently released new album. If you enjoyed his subtle guitar playing you will love the development he made including singing in his new compositions. Here is the link to his album.

We close this week's session with a very beautiful and deep song by Jan Garbarek, Charlie Haden and Egberto Gismonti from their album Folk Songs. And, of course, with our third version of Ain't Nobody's Business What I Do, this time by Davy Graham who I dont reckon I need to expand on since it is far from the first time we hear his voice in here.

That is all for today I hope you enjoyed as much as I did, I see you in two weeks and in the meantime, take care!
The check out time is 10h30, and it will remain as such until the end of times.

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Jay McShann - 'Tain't Nobody's Biz'ness If I Do
2. Duck Baker - The Blood of the Lamb
3. Anibal Velasquez - Los Vecinos
4. Aries Vigoth - Yo Tambien Critico el Robo
5. Dona Edith Do Prato - Marinheiro Só
6. Bana - Consolo di nha Vida
7. Otis Spann - Ain’t Nobody’s Business
8. Manolis Hiotis, Mariana Hatzopoulou - Dakria
9. Falle Nioke - Love
10. Jaakko Eino Kalevi - Macho
11.  lorraine92 - Recreational
12. Jason Daskalakis - Just Playful
13. Jan Garbarek, Charlie Haden, Egberto Gismonti - Folk Song
14. Davy Graham - Ain't Nobody's Business What I Do