At Sammy's at 2016 Main, on September 8, a historic jam session occurred, an impromptu reunion of many of the city of New Orleans's finest musicians. Each player who walked in the door was much more than a mere musician that night -- they were an affirmation of life. Not only did their attendance indicate that they had survived the storm, but their collective presence also indicated that their music would survive, too.

The New Birth Brass Band (and friends) tears it the hell up in downtown Houston post-Katrina. The whole show is great, but if you're short on time, parts one and three are especially smoking.
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas on Dec 14, 2008 - 3 comments

The Guardian has compiled a list of their top fifty arts videos, the majority being from either rare or obscure sources and uploaded onto YouTube.
posted by djgh on Aug 30, 2008 - 13 comments

Borrah Minevitch & His Harmonica Rascals - Harmonica Specialty and Rascal Bill McBride's vocal turn on Always In My Heart are excerpts from Borrah Minevitch & His Harmonica School--a wmv video file of a Vitaphone Short which with no surprise we find at Vitaphone Shorts, a subsection of Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans--which was first brought to our attention by the noble crunchland, albeit at another and now defunct URL, let it be noted. . [more inside]
posted by y2karl on Jan 24, 2008 - 5 comments

NickCaveFilter: Fifty years ago this very day, Nicholas Edward Cave [previously] crawled from the womb and started to plot.  At 16 he formed his first band which evolved quickly into the Boys Next Door [Shivers].  This in turn mutated into the Birthday Party (1980) who terrorised the post-punk soundscape in Australia and the UK [Release the Bats | Nick the Stripper].  The Birthday Party relocated to England and in 1984 the band imploded in an orgy of drugs and booze.  Shortly after Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were born [The Ship Song - video & solo live | The Mercy Seat - video & live | Where the Wild Roses Grow], and 23 years and 11 studio albums later (not to mention a best selling book, a great screenplay, some acting and several soundtrack projects) he is still going strong.  But, instead of sitting on his musical laurels he decided to get back to basics and, in 2006, grew a huge moustache and formed Grinderman – a four piece with a primeval hybrid Birthday Party/Bad Seeds sound [No Pussy Blues | Honey Bee].  Fellow Mefites, I ask you to raise a glass to Mr. Cave… And, especially if you are not familiar to his work, don’t forget to “look inside” for my primer on the enigma that is Nick Cave, one of the finest song-writers on the face of this miserable planet. [more inside]
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar on Sep 22, 2007 - 98 comments

Sunday Night, later named Michelob Presents Night Music, was an NBC late-night television show hosted by Jools Holland and David Sanborn which aired for two seasons between 1988 and 1990 as a showcase for jazz and eclectic musical artists. [YouTubeFilter, via] [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Sep 16, 2007 - 32 comments

Jazz dispute is billed as a heated exchange between Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Jazz not your thing? Classical music can provoke a range of emotions too. (YouTube alert)
posted by madamjujujive on May 12, 2007 - 43 comments

In light of all of the recent genre-crossing cover posts on MetaFilter [1, 2], here's another. The Puppini Sisters cover such classics as Wuthering Heights, Heart of Glass and I Will Survive in 1940s style jazz. Enjoy.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Apr 21, 2007 - 11 comments

Jazztube.com has hundreds of great jazz performances in one place
posted by petsounds on Feb 19, 2007 - 9 comments

Mahavishnu Orchestra - One Word
Weather Report - Seventh Arrow/Umbrellas
Squarepusher's 8-track [1] [2 + Buddy Rich]
Jaco Pastorius - Portrait of Tracy
Cannibal Ox - Pigeon
posted by rxrfrx on Feb 13, 2007 - 22 comments

Robot plays Coltrane (via)
posted by roll truck roll on Feb 13, 2007 - 60 comments

Here are some antique jazz novelties, obscurities and outliers:

Mae West with Duke Ellington - My Old Flame
The Hoosier Hotshots - She Broke My Heart In Three Places
Harry 'The Hipster' Gibson - Handsome Harry The Hipster
Spike Jones & His City Slickers - I Like To Sock Myself In The Face
Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears - Truckin'
Cliff Edwards - I Feel Pestamistic
Red Ingle - Nowhere
The King Cole Trio - I'm An Errand Boy for Rhythm
Jack Teagarden - The Sliphorn King of Polaroo
Reg Kehoe & His Marimba Queens - A Study In Brown
The Slim Gaillard Trio - Laguna Melody
posted by y2karl on Dec 21, 2006 - 33 comments

I've always lumped musician Eugene Chadbourne in with the likes of Wesley Willis and Daniel Johnston, but I may have been mistaken. While his songs are often absurd, experimental, and silly, he's much less eccentric than I'd always thought. In addition to having an incredible output (full discography with notes here and in-depth review here), he has worked with everyone from John Zorn to Jello Biafra, even fronting the band Camper Van Beethoven as Camper Van Chadbourne. He has also been a writer for MaximumRocknRoll and AMG and is the inventor of the electric rake (a musical instrument that would certainly annoy your neighbors). YouTube has two awesome Chadbourne finds: THIS is a 19-minute documentary about him and THIS is a cable access show he appeared on called I'm Going to Make a Drug with My Mind (if you like cable access television, this is awesome, but please note that this video is 31-minutes long, including 60 seconds of color bars. Eugene comes on a little after the 17-minute mark). [WARNING: YouTube. A lot of YouTube in this post]
posted by elr on Aug 11, 2006 - 34 comments