This is one of my favorite Waits songs and was already almost unbearably poignant and nostalgic last week; today, I defy you to listen and not get a lump in your throat. It comes from Small Change, Waits’ 1976 outing which you can find here.

While I don’t exactly wish I was in New Orleans tonight, I do have a bit of that feeling that I should be there. People with emotional ties to New York who weren’t here on September 11th 2001 said the same thing. New Orleans is one of the very few American cities I have ever wanted to live in. Some of the best and worst times of my life happened there. She owns a piece of me.

For an interesting insider perspective on current events in New Orleans, including eyewitness reports of police looting (only in N’awlins!), check out The Interdictor.

Nonesuch have finally re-released the long out-of-print classics Red and Green from Malian guitar master Ali Farka Toure. Previously available only on vinyl, these were originally put out on a small label in 1984 and 1988. This track comes from Green and is typical of the raw intensity of this music.

If you’re new to Ali Farka Toure and his brand of desert blues, this double-CD set is a great place to start; if you’re a fan, these are essential listening. You can find Red and Green here.

And oh… samplers and loop gurus take note: in this track at 3:47 there’s a hypnotic section of voice and calabash without guitar which would make a very useful loop in another context.

Here’s a 14-minute-long, rambling improvisation that also happens to be one of my favorite pieces of music I’ve ever written. It came up this morning on the random play from my iPod and somehow seemed like a good end of summer mood, so I thought I’d share.

It’s taken from my 2000 CD Shadow Economy, and features my long-time collaborator Andre Burke playing violin, myself on fretless bass, and Chris Muir on guitar. You can find more information about Shadow Economy here, and buy a copy of the CD from Amazon here, or from CD Baby here.  Buy Shadow Economy from The iTunes Store here.  And you can get this track for free anytime here.  Enjoy!

Sometimes you just need to hear all those Brazillian girls singing in unison over guitars and percussion. This track is unusual in it’s rubato feel and relative lack of groove, making it even more haunting. It comes from the sensational Afro Sambas, Baden Powell’s collaboration with poet Vinícius de Moraes. This is the 1990 re-recording of the 1966 masterpiece.

While the 1966 recording is long out-of-print and remains something of a holy grail for Brazillian music aficionados, you can find the 1990 version here. Another fantastic Baden Powell record is Seresta Brasileira which is available here.

Finally. Just when we might have given up hope of ever hearing it, The Earl has dropped his Summer Mix 2005. It seems to include the following artists, all at the same time:

Dr Alimantado / David Byrne / Zion y Lennox / The Clash / Ini Kamoze / Mashonda / Damien Marley / Leslie Winer / Erika Badu / Faye Wong / Jay-Z / Brian Eno / Massive Attack / Wong Kar Wai / Mad Professor / 50 Cent / Angelique Kijdo / Gwen Stefani / Miles Davis / Usher / M.I.A. / Robert Fripp

We featured a couple of excerpts from this mix recently, but this is the first time the whole thing has shown up anywhere. The last section which combines The Clash’s Magnificent Seven with Usher’s Burn and some M.I.A. is particularly spinworthy. This is only available right here for the time being, although it will probably show up on some torrents soon. Enjoy.

Bernard Herrmann was the greatest film score composer of the 20th Century, and Vertigo is arguably his finest score. While Hitchcock was one of the great film auteurs, his best work is unimaginable without Herrmann’s music. North By Northwest is their most exciting score, Psycho the most terrifying, and The Birds the most eerie and experimental. But Vertigo is the most haunting and psychological, giving perfect external expression to the character’s interior states.

I’m taking this from the 16-track 1995 restoration release, featuring the London Sinfonia Conducted by Muir Matheison, which features the most complete and definitive version of the original score. You can find this version here. There’s lots more information about this and other scores at The Bernard Herrmann Society.

A big welcome to those of you landing here for the first time from Soul Sides. This one’s for you.

It’s a somewhat obscure track from The J.B’s, a shifting cast of characters who have all played in James Brown’s band in various forms. This track, written by drummer Clyde Stubblefield, comes from their 2002 throwback album Bring The Funk On Down. The full title is There’s a Price to Pay to Live in Paradise, and it’s one of my favorite J.B.’s tracks. It was actually momentarily in the running to be the title track of The Wire, but we ended up using it as a throwaway in the back of Stringer’s print shop.

You can find Bring The Funk On Down here.

I’ve got a few cuts spinning in the Soul Sides Summer Songs extravaganza. If you don’t know Soul Sides, you should stop by there and stock up on some fresh tunes, served regularly with love by Mr. Oliver Wang, aka DJ O-Dub. Soul Sides is one of the towering institutions of the mp3 blogosphere, and for good reason. It was the first blog that I visited regularly for mp3s, and was one of the main inspirations for starting The Ten Thousand Things. So get on over there and get yerself some Summer Lovin’.

I’m in Los Angeles. It’s a desert. You have to drive everywhere. It’s a good idea to listen to music while you’re doing all that driving. This work by Steve Reich is some of my favorite driving music, especially when driving in the desert. Try it for yourself.

This 1985 piece was Reich’s first large work for orchestra and chorus, and was striking at the time for it’s embrace of melody, of all things. I’ve always loved everything Steve Reich did since I first heard his radical 1966 tape-loop composition Come Out, but this piece is somehow even more mesmerizing than the purely minimalist works like Come Out and Music For Eighteen Musicians, in that it takes those same rhythmic structures and overlays them with beautiful melodies.

You can find The Desert Music here. The artist has a web site here.

Just a quick post from the road, availing myself of JetBlue’s free wifi…

I don’t know of too many reggae tunes sung in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, calling for peace, but it seems like we could probably use a few more. In the meantime there’s this one from Cote d’Ivoirian wizard Alpha Blondy. Although i’ve never seen him play live, he apparently puts on a great show when he’s not too stoned to climb on to the stage.

Alpha Blondy has a new (old) album out in the US right now, Elohim, which you can find here. Jerusalem is on The Best of Alpha Blondy, which is available here.