I was all over the map yesterday, and today’s action-packed, so am simply using a time-honored method to bring order to my musical wandering:

Ain’t That the Way / Gorbza – Hardcore holdouts wailing against the dying of the light. Like a cattle prod in these dead-meat times.

At the Finger Palace/ Evan Parker – Not your gramma’s “Fingerprints, Pt. 1 & 2.” Parker’s intense repetitions on this solo sax record can produce micromelodic hallucinations.

Bags and Trane / Milt Jackson & John Coltrane – Just discovered they teamed up; would seem oddly matched–but then there is the blues.

I Remember Harlem / Roy Eldridge – Absolutely poured-gold trumpeting from Little Jazz’s prime–and he wasn’t a bad singer, either.

“Kalenda” / Lost Bayou Ramblers (w / Spider Stacey and Dickie Landry) – The Ramblers proving once again that Cajun music is fairly adaptable, with a Pogue and an avant garde saxophonist not just present, but integrated.

Let It Bleed / The Rolling Stones – I say this for my pal Whitney Shroyer, who only needs to hear me say it (his mind and ears are right): aside from the performances being titanic, this record is a marvel of rock and roll sound engineering, crisp but full-bodied, clean but magnificently, malevolently dirty, balanced but highly defined in its finest parts. Damn.

“Needed Time” / Lightnin’ Hopkins – An addendum to the New York Times’ recent kumbaya story.

NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert / Hurray for the Riff Raff – This ain’t my meat and taters, but Alynda Segarra doesn’t take no for an answer, and that’s a stance I admire.

Top of the Mountain / Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers – It’s pronounced DOOP-see, baby, and it’s remarkable how durable the Creole take on r&b has proven to be. Inevitable: the above Hendrix cover.