Hip-Hop; Good Stuff!

Big Frank has always of the opinion that nobody should dismiss any entire genre of music out of hand.  That's a full stop on that one.  It seems, in Big Frank's experience that the two genre's that are most follow the statement, "I like all kinds of music except _______"  are country and hip-hop.  So Big Frank is out to show ya'll that hip-hop is not to be dismissed.  I have included a couple of artists that Big Frank admires - Jay-Z, below and Theophilus London - way below.  Big Frank was turned on to Theophilus London by his daughter - thanks, Gina; he's terrific.  So, listen and acknowledge - this is good stuff.  Country comes next.




Here is the great Theophilus London (don't you just love that name 'Theophilus'.  The only other time Big Frank ever heard of that name was the novel 'Theophilus North' by Thorton Wilder.  Wonder if there is a connection there somewhere?

Bon Iver

Bon Iver is one of Big Frank's favorite musicians now. He has put out some beautiful haunting CD's recently: "For Emma, Forever Ago" and "Bon Iver". He has a distinctive voice, melodies that lift, musical brilliance in how he orchestrates his music, and lyrics that are truly poetic - not just in their resonant fullness, but also in the musical way that he plays with the sounds of words to create from them their own accompanying harmony. Here are some examples (say the words and listen to the way they sing).

Here from the above song, "Flume", the maroon/flume goes right to the moon.

"Only love is all maroon
Gluey feathers on a flume
Sky is womb and she's the moon ...

Lapping lakes like leery loons
Leaving rope burns, reddish ruse"

Here from "Re: Stacks"

"On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks of your load
In the back with your racks and you're un-stacking your load"

Here, from the song "Calgary" a beautiful poetic passage.

"So itʼs storming on the lake
Little waves our bodies break

There's a fire going out,
But there's really nothing to the south

Swollen orange and light let through
Your one piece swimmer stuck to you

Sold, I'm ever
Open ears and open eyes
Wake up to your starboard bride
Who goes in and then stays inside
Oh the demons come, they can subside"

And here he is in full production:

Time For Some Tunes!

Big Frank has been listening to a lot of music lately and he has one very big recommendation for all you listeners out there (listen to Big Frank, he's talking like he was on the radio or something). Well, as Big Frank was saying - good tunes are hard to find. By that Big Frank means that music aplenty abides but we would all be a lot better off if some of it did not. Sifting through the derivatively and annoying along with the hours and hours and song after song - -leaves Big Frank, and he assumes, you also, gentle listener/reader, is hard work, but someone has to do it. After all that - what up? KASKADE! That's what. Kaskade was born Ryan Raddon and is a dj and record producer. He released his first single in 2001, and every release since then has just gotten better and better. Big Frank recommends his 2006 release entitled: LOVE MYSTERIOUS! Check out a couple of songs from it here: Be Still and (in a slightly more subdued version than what is played on the CD) 4 AM. Listen and you'll be hooked - no other outcome possible - so say Big Frank.

Coldplay

Big Frank has been listening to a lot of Coldplay lately. Especially three CDs: "Parachutes", "A Rush of Blood to the Head", and Viva La Vida". All are excellent - worth listening to many times and then many more. So Big Frank took a closer look at the lyrics of all the songs on these CDs to see how they stand up without the music. Short answer: not so well. Long answer: there are some good bits here and there. However, remember, this is a band, and their lyrics without their music is like, well, it's like a painting in the dark, or someting like that.

So first of all listen to one of their best songs: "Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love", off of "Viva La Vida". Big Frank, having spent considerable time in the land of the sliding doors especially like the lines:

"Tonight maybe we're gonna run/Dreaming of the Osaka sun . . . Dreaming of when the morning comes."

Here are the other lines that Big Frank likes - not full lyrics - just the best lines (the prevailing theme here is one is loss):

Off of "Viva La Vida"

Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love
Lovers keep on the road you're on
Runners, until the race is run
Soldiers, you've go to soldier on
Sometimes even right is wrong

42
You thought you might be a ghost
You thought you might be a ghost
You didn't get to heaven but you made it close
You didn't get to heaven but you made it close

Violet Hill
I took my love down to violet hill
There we sat in snow
All that time she was silent still
So if you love me
Won't you let me know?

Strawberry Swing
People leaving all the time
Inside
A perfectly straight line
Don't you wanna curve away
It's such
It's such a perfect day
It's such a perfect day

Off of "Parachutes"

Yellow
So then I took my time
Oh what a thing to've done

Trouble
Oh no, what's this?
A spider web, and I'm caught in the middle,
So turned to run,
The thought of all the stupid things I've done

Off of "A Rush of Blood to the Head"

Amsterdam
You can say what you mean
But it won't change a thing
I'm sick of the secrets
Stood on the edge, tied to the noose
And you came along and you cut me loose

Politik
Look at earth from outer space
Everyone must find a place
Give me time and give me space
Give me real, don't give me fake
Give me strength, reserve control
Give me heart and give me soul
Give me time, give us a kiss
Tell me your own politik

Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Just open up your eyes

The Scientist
Come up to meet ya, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need ya
And tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets, and nurse me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start

A Whisper
Night turns to day and I still have thse questions
You just won't break, should I go forwards or backwards
Night turns to day and I've still got not answers

Just a whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper

David Bowie Rocks

Ok, Big Frank has been told that he needs to clean up his links a little better. Evidently, his HTML skills are not very good. In fact they are wrong. So he's gone to school - online that is, and thinks that he now has it right. That means that when you click on a link it should open up within this page and then when you close it you are still on "What it is!". This means that you don't have to be going back and forth. Big Frank thinks that he has it right now. If not - let him know.

And what better way to try this out than with a video of a real rocker - David Bowie, singing (what Big Frank thinks is) his all-time best rock-n-roll tune: Suffragette City. And if that really turned you on and you'd like a very strange video with some very cool dancing in a woman's clothing store - then click this out. The cool thing about that last video is that there is this guy just positively rocking out and all the customers and clerks are absolutely oblivious to his dancing: "Ow, Hit me!"

Unusual partners in music

The grammy for the best album of the year went to Robert Plant and Allison Kraus - not exactly a musical couple that immediately springs to mind when you think of musical partners, but the product of their collaboration is magic: listen to "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) - that's the producer T-Bone Burnett playing guitar on the video. As a result, Big Frank got to thinking about other unlikely pairs. One that he has been listening to a lot lately is Eddie Harris and John Scofield. Harris is probably best known as the saxophonist who first plugged in his sax! He is the funk master, and I guess when you think of him in this way it perhaps makes sense for him to play with Scofield - one of the trinity of GREAT jazz guitarist along with Pat Methany and Bill Frisell. Here's probably the best cut off that their CD "Hand Jive": I"ll Take Les. I defy anyone to listen to this and not bite their lower lip or bob their head. Big Frank has always been a big fan of Eddie Harris. His first Eddie Harris album, put out in 1970, and now only available in the used vinyl bins - is Come On Down. It was recorded in Miami; hence the big orange in place of Harris' head on the cover.

Other unusual but successful pairs? How about Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello - try a listen to "Painted From Memory". Then why not add Bill Frissel to the mix playing the above two's songs from that CD with Costello, Casandra Wilson and add Allison Krauss' brother Victor Krauss in "The Sweetest Punch". By the way, who else has ever taken someone else's album and recorded every song on it? But - that's a different question for a different time, isn't it? Let's not get distracted. And those previous combinations was getting a little incestuous, so how about something completely different: Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler playing some great finger picking stuff (listen to "I'll See You In My Dreams") on "Neck and Neck". Listen to them play Lennon's Imagine on this youtube clip.

If anyone out there would like to suggest their own unusual partners - have at it.

Wheels up for Arizona

Big Frank is heading south - to Arizona for a few days in the sun.

And now for something completely different: here's a song that will
touch your heart. This is John Lennon singing that classic "Stand By Me". Many have done it, but he does a great job and I would imagine that most do not link Lennon with this song; he recorded it on his 1975 album "Rock 'n' Roll". The original goes back to a gospel tune written in 1905 by Charles Tindley. But it has been covered by a whole slew of people, including The Staple Singers, Muhammad Ali, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Rye Cooder, and Seal - among others. According to the BMI it is the 4th most played song of the 20th century (the top three in order are "You've Lost That Lovin Feelin", "Never My Love" and "Yesterday"). Have a listen and enjoy. The chord progression in this song (I vi IV V) actually came to be called the 50s progression or 'Stand By Me' changes.

An Ambulance Can Only Go So Fast

Neil Young put out "On The Beach" in 1974 - right on the heals of his megahit "Harvest". However, this was a dark follow-up, but a brilliant one. No song on the album is better than "Ambulance Blues". Here are some of Big Franks's favorite lines from that song.

"Oh, Mother Goose, she's on the skids

Shoe ain't happy, neither are the kids. "

"It's hard to say the meaning of this song.

An ambulance can only go so fast

It's easy to get buried in the past

When you try to make a good thing last."

"With your stomach pump and

your hook and ladder dreams

We could get together

for some scenes."

"I never knew a man

could tell so many lies

He had a different story

for every set of eyes.

How can he remember

who he's talkin' to?"

Cause I know it ain't me,
and I hope it isn't you.

Check out all the lyrics in full here. Then here's Neil singing it live.

What is the meaning of this song. It's an experience - like poetry - it means what you experience. Aside from the great lyrics the chords in this tune are haunting and the harmonica pulls you through - a great song.

What It Is: the CD

Stephen Bruton has a CD called, what else?, What It Is. With a title like that how could you go wrong, and you won't with this. It doesn't actually have any song entitled "What It Is", well there is one called "It Is What It Is" - and that was actually recorded by that great old country western group - The Highwaymen - (listen to their version of that great tune by Willie - "Always On My Mind". I'm sure you recognized them in the clip: Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings. However - back to Bruton - he has written a number of great country songs. The song to listen to on "What It Is" is "Too Many Memories" gorgeous tune that is sure to touch your heart just as it touched Big Frank's.

What It Is - the song!

Big Frank has been collecting What it is's - there are songs, books, and other stuff by this name. Today it's one song by this title - there are more! This is a great song written and performed by Mark Knopfler. (Click on the title to hear the song - it's a good one!). That's what it is!

What It Is

The drinking dens are spilling out
There's staggering in the square
There's lads and lasses falling about
And a crackling in the air
Down around the dungeon doors
The shelters in the queues
Everybody's looking for
Somebody's arms to fall into
And it's what it is
It's what it is now

There's frost on the graves and the monuments
But the taverns are warm in town
People curse the government
And shovel hot food down
The lights are out in city hall
The castle and the keep
The moon shines down upon it all
The legless and asleep

And it's cold on a tollgate
With the wagons creeping through
Cold on a tollgate
God knows what i could do with you
And it's what it is
It's what it is now

The garrison sleeps and the citadel
With the ghosts and the ancient stones
High on a parapet
A scottish piper stands alone
And high on the wind
The highland drums begin to roll
And something from the past just comes
And stares into my soul

And it's cold on a tollgate
Where the caledonian blues
Cold on a tollgate
God knows what i could do with you
And it's what it is
It's what it is now
What it is
It's what it is now

There's a chink of light
There's a burning wick
There's a lantern in the tower
Wee willie winkie with a candlestick
Still writing songs in the wee wee hours
On charlotte street i take
A walking stick from my hotel
The ghost of dirty dick
Is still in search of little nell
And it's what it is
It's what it is now
Oh it's what it is
What it is now

From lute to heart

You don't see too many lutes these days. However, it is a very romantic instrument, and supremely appropriate for the holiday season. Here's a good example of the sound. Big Frank does not think that there is a better instrument with which to accompany the melodic content of a poetically sung tune. By the way, Big Frank doesn't own a lute - yet. A song, when thus accompanied, in the poet's imagination, takes flight and goes beyond from the strings of the lute to the strings of the beloved's desire. Here's Wallace Stevens' XVI from "The Little Blue Book". "Beyond the song's content" - in the imagination the song radiates warmly into the receptive vision of his beloved.

XVI

He sang, and in her heart, the sound

Took form beyond the song's content.

She saw divinely, and she felt

With visionary blandishment.

Desire went deeper than his lute.

She saw her image, sweet and pale,

Invite her to simplicity,

Far off, in some relinquished vale.

---- Wallace Stevens

Great Melodic Jazz

Big Frank has a few recommendations for you jazz lovers. He is going to bundle this into a group of musicians/bands that to seem to fit together to Big Frank. Big Frank hesitates to categorize them under easy listening or soft jazz, rather let's call them smooth, lyrical, unabrasive, and tight without taking away from the rigors of the jazz medium. This is the kind of music that you can put on towards evening when you are winding down from a tough day and not have to worry about it jarring your nerves, or pushing you out of your evening funk. This is not sentimental, nor does it eschew solo stand outs by the musicians, but by and large the bands keep lid on their stretchings out. All three of these albums are real keepers: tunes that you will turn to again and again. This is music entering the realm of meditation, but not in any way new age music.

The Tord Gustavsen Trio: The Ground

This Norwegian Trio is amazing. Gustavsen plays piano in this classic jazz trio of piano, bass, and drums. The melodies in all cases are lyrical, but not sentimental in any way. Listen and feel the stress evaporate - a wonderful album.

Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band: Season of Changes

Brian Blade is a great drummer. This mix of songs is emotionally evocative; fairly slow but very full- in all senses of the word. Kurt Rosenwinkel plays guitar in this six-piece band. Heres' a place you can hear one of the better cuts: Stoner Hill.

Charlie Haden: Nocturne

Here is Charlie Haden's tribute to Cuban jazz ballads. He is assisted by Gonzalo Rubalcaba on piano, Pat Methany on guitar, along with, among others, Joe Lovano and David Sanchez on tenor sax. This is an album for the ages. Certainly one that Big Frank plays over and over. It will sooth the most jangled of nerves and is capable of inducing a calm most welcoming: absolutely beautiful music in every way. Here's the first cut off the album En la Orilla del Mundo (At the Edge of the World).

Lou Reed

Big Frank has returned to Lou Reed. His (Big Franks's not Lou's) blogging buddy, Magne, lent him some of his music. Why did Big Frank neglect this music. The last CD of Lou's that Big Frank bought was his tribute to Andy Warhol entitled - "Songs for Drella". Drella was what Lou called Warhol - it's a combination of Dracula and Cinderella: go figure (whatever that means). Lou Reed is a one-of-a-kind musician. His lyrics come right out of the common speech of everyday life ( Delmore Schwartz encouraged him to write that way in the Reed early years.) But beyond that his songs - especially the later ones have a power an empathetic power that touches the listener. He has a unique way of singing where it sounds as though he talking directly to you; and his raucous guitar was light years ahead of his time. So - here are a couple of clips. Listen especially to Forever Changed with his old buddy from the Velvet Underground: John Cale - very powerful song, with the hypnotically repetitive piano rhythm of Cale and the haunting driving guitar of Reed. Only two of them, but what a full sound they generate! The Berlin tune is a more wistful Lou - nice song.

Fado (upon returning)

Big Frank is back. He slid in on the back of the setting sun, and with wheels on the ground and bags unpacked, now it is as though he had never left. Except he did; and with trips there are the joys of seeing people long missed; there are partings; and there are returns and adjustments that come with that (hope - often unjustified - riding back with the traveler). Trips often end with some nostalgia, for the end of the trip, for the empty homecoming, and for the combination of hopes (met and dashed) that accompany journeys (coming and going). Last November Konrad and Big Frank went to Portugal and they both fell in love with Fado, a kind of Portugues blues that started in the early 19th century in . Fado means destiny or fate and and is typically linked to the nostagia felt missing someone. Here is a beautiful clip of Mariza (those who have her music are lucky and rare - at least in this country) singing one of her most beautiful and, for Big Frank, appropriate songs: Chuva ("Rain"). (The photo on the left is of Mariza.) The nostalgia comes through whether or not you understand Portuguese and if that still bothers you, just think of what the rain says to you when you think of what it is that you have lost in your life. The tune will stay with you forever.

Autumn Wonder

This time of the year is Big Frank’s favorite. The beautiful colors of the leaves, the harvest, the palpable feel of change, the chilling night air, all the memories that fall brings, etc. etc. It is an apt time for wonder. And it is, not surprisingly, a topic that has been written about voluminously by poets. It is interesting to note the common themes that accompany poetry on autumn: loss, melancholy, change, harvest, and the beauty of the changing leaves. Robert Frost’s well-known poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” well captures the melancholy change of autumn. It accents the inevitability of change and the ephemeral nature of life. This is the predominant take of poets. However, there are still quite a few who accent the ripening, colorful, joyful time of autumn (see "Merry Autumn" by Paul Laurence Dunbar). Richard Wilbur has written an amazing poem that balances all the above to an extraordinary way. His title, “The Beautiful Changes”, sums up the poem very well. It starts with an autumn scene and shows how the change of the season makes the scenes more beautiful. Then it moves to the person in that scene and by analogy shows how that person’s memory of someone “valleys” his mind in “fabulous blue”. The beautiful changes: here “changes” is not only a noun, but a verb as well. The beauty that surrounds you, that you live through changes you too. You absorb like a chameleon. What loss there is a kind one and takes you “back to wonder.”

The Beautiful Changes
by Richard Wilbur

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

_________
Finally, the greatest version of the greatest autumn song, "Autumn Leaves", from Cannonball Adderely's album "Somethin' Else". Performed by Cannonball Adderely, Miles Davis, Hank Jones, Art Blakey, and Sam Jones. This song pulls all the disparate feelings of autumn together in breathtakingly beautiful way.

Just For Today

Good Morning Friday, October 24. Funny, it seems like a pretty ordinary one at that. It's the upside of the downside and the other end of another as well as the first of the rest. The inside of that outside, and left of the right - OK, enough of that. To be frank (and what else can I be) this day was long in coming behind all those that preceded it built it and built me and we are a perfect match in every way. Big Frank takes this day with all that preceded it, embraces it, and will not turn away from it with backward glances nor with forward ones. He embraces the gap between now and then as between now and yet to be; living in the pause between two breaths. Big Frank knows that's a tall order, but he's not called Big for nothing - yeah, right. So, join Big Frank: take a deep breath . . . (are you there :) . . . now exhale. That's all there is to it.

Here is the song for the day Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man : one of his best.

Sade

Sade (pronounced “shah-day”) has given the world some amazing music. What a voice, what great songs, and . . . where is she now, and what is she doing? That’s hard to know. What we do know is that she was born Helen Folasade Adu in Ibadon, Nigeria to a Nigerian father and a British mother. Her parents separated when she was 4 and she moved to England where she grew up listening to soul singers Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mafield, and Donny Hathaway. She studied fashion and was recruited as a temporary vocalist in a local band. The rest is history – especially after she wrote and performed her first breakthrough hit “Smooth Operator”, after which she started her own group and went on to put out a series of great albums. She has sold close to 40 million albums worldwide, and has received a number of Grammy Awards including Best New Artist for 1985. Her last album was “Lovers Rock” released in November 2000. When will she give us a new album?

Here’s her discography:

1984: Diamond Life
1985: Promise
1988: Stronger Than Pride
1992: Love Deluxe
1994: The Best of Sade
1999: Remix Deluxe
2000: Lovers Rock
2002: Lovers Live CD
2002: Lovers Live DVD
2003: Lovers Rock/Lovers Live DVD - Combo Pack

If you like her albums you will love watching her perform live. This is a link to her performing “Kiss of Life” – enjoy!

The End is the Beginning

This is not a new concept. Big Frank finds it appealing because it's familiar; it's old; it's been said by many wise people, and it is eminently psychologically satisfying. In addition, it's one of those sayings that doesn't make any sense whatsoever; yet it makes complete sense and Big Frank likes that:

The disciples said to Jesus, ‘Tell us how our end will be.’ Jesus said, ‘Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death.’
- The Gospel of Thomas 18

Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.
- Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching

We shall not cease from exploration
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
— T.S. Eliot, ‘Little Gidding’

The core of philosophy is no longer an autonomous transcendental subjectivity, to be found everywhere and nowhere: it lies in the perpetual beginning of reflection, at the point where an individual life begins to reflect on itself. Reflection is truly reflection only if it is not carried outside itself, only if it knows itself as reflection-on-an-unreflective-experience, and consequently as a change in the structure of our existence.
— Merleau-Ponty (1945, 72)

The Beatles had their own take on this: "In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make."

And if you still find this difficult to believe. If the concept that the end really is the beginning then experience it for yourself.

Remember Bill Withers! Timeless!

Big Frank has been listening to a lot of Bill Withers lately. The man can sing and what great songs he has written. It all stems from his open heart and his ability to look outside to the world. This is what Bill has to say of where he gets his inspiration from: "I write and sing about whatever I am able to understand and feel. I feel that it is healthier to look out at the world through a window than through a mirror. Otherwise, all you see is yourself and whatever is behind you." An indication of his great song writing ability is the list of performers who have done covers of his songs: Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Sting, Paul McCartney, Liza Minnelli, Aretha Franklin, Tom Jones, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Johnny Mathis, Mick Jagger, Crystal Gale, Nancy Wilson, Carmen McCrae, D'Angelo, Fiona Apple, Grace Jones, Diana Ross, and many many more. Listen to Bill Withers sing his great songs Lean On Me, Ain't No Sunshine, and Use Me. And listen to these great covers: Sting singing Ain't No Sunshine, Amy Lee playing Use Me, and Grover Washington Jr. and his band playing Just The Two Us.

Bill Frisell: the Epicentre of Modern American Music

Big Frank listens to lots of music. However, rarely does a day go by when Bill Frisell is not in the mix, and often it is only Frisell. He is a technical wizard, and genre-bending genius, a spell weaver, and able to combine (like few others) sorrow and joy in all his songs. You cannot go wrong with any of his CDs. So go pick some up and you will be hooked. My favorites are"Good Man Happy Dog", "Gone Like a Train", "East West", and "The Intercontinentals". Chris Jones in his BBC review of Bill Frisell's latest CD - "History, Mystery" hits the nail on the head: "the whole album [History, Mystery] stands as yet another testament to the man's place at the very epicentre of modern American music."

Bill Frisell has the artistic ability to capture the full range of emotion in his playing and his compositions. It is unusual to listen to music that captures in one song both the sorrow and joys of life; Bill Frisell does that. This is music that can be listened to and can feed you both when you are high and when you are low. Listen and you will see.

Here he is playing in Warsaw. He’s playing “Live To Tell (that’s right a Madonna song from her 3rd CD “True Blue”) Listen to Frisell explore this song!
July 3, 1993 Warsaw, Poland
with Kermit Driscoll-Bass,
Joey Baron-Drums http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYc2jR5yGDs&feature=related

This song is so sweet: Probability Cloud is included in his latest CD: “History, Mystery”
July 1, 2006 Salzau, Germany
with Ron Miles-Cornet, Greg Tardy-Reeds,
Tony Scherr-Bass, Kenny Wollesen-Drums
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JwZlu2mR84&feature=related

Bill Frisell really like to play 'Shenandoah", you can find it on many of his CDs.
April 4, 2004 @ The Berkeley Church, Toronto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svzv-YkUzdk&feature=related

Here Bill Frisell is playing with the Ginger Baker Trio~
'Ginger's Blues'

Yes, it is the same Ginger Baker who played in those great rock bands, Cream, and Blind Faith! The Ginger Baker Trio put out two great CDs in the mid 90s: "Falling Off the Roof" and "Going Back Home".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QulP-tmf9_Y
Sept. 29, 1995 Deutsche Jazz Festival
Frankfurt, Germany
Ginger Baker~Drums, Charlie Haden~Bass
Bill Frisell~Guitar