Imagine what it would’ve been like to sit in the late afternoon with a cup of tea, listening to him, in the next room, practicing. Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), piano Mozart, Sonata No. 8 in A Minor, K. 310, Recorded live in Besancon, France, 9/16/1950 More? Here. And here. ********** lagniappe As the date of his appearance [...]
Archive for the ‘art beat’ category
Saturday, 5/12/12
05/11/2012Wednesday, 5/2/12
05/02/2012Nothing hits the spot, sometimes, like a homicidal love song. The Handsome Family, “My Beautiful Bride” Live, Australia (Sydney), 2010 More? Here. ********** lagniappe art beat: Monday at the Art Institute of Chicago Utagawe Hiroshige, Autumn Moon over Tama River (from the series Eight Views of the Environs of Edo), 1837-38
Thursday, 4/26/12
04/26/2012Not even with all the fingers on all the hands of all the people in the city of Chicago could you count the possibilities offered by just three instruments. Gyorgy Ligeti, Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano (1982); Tomas Major (violin), Zora Sloka (horn), Denes Varjon (piano), 2009 Part 1 *** Part 2 ********** lagniappe art beat: [...]
Tuesday, 4/24/12
04/24/2012not for the faint of heart Phil Minton (vocals), Mats Gustafsson (baritone saxophone), John Russell (guitar), live, London (Cafe Oto), 2010 ********** lagniappe art beat: Sunday at the Art Institute of Chicago Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Seascape, 1879 Sometimes, when posting an image of a painting, I wonder: “Why bother?” No art form resists reproduction more successfully.
Monday, 4/23/12
04/23/2012Charles Mingus Quintet,* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations On Integration” (all by Mingus), live (TV show), Belgium, 1964 Mingus’s music, it seems, has everything. Call it “simple” or “complex” and you’d be both right and wrong—it’s both. Compositional elegance is balanced, exquisitely, with improvisational unruliness. Rhythmic momentum is no less—and no more—important than melodic invention. [...]
Saturday, 2/4/12
02/03/2012lighter than air, funkier than dirt Otha Turner (1907-2003) and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (with guest Luther Dickinson, guitar), “My Babe,” live, Memphis, 1990s ********** lagniappe art beat: more from Wednesday’s stop at the Art Institute of Chicago Vincent van Gogh, The Poet’s Garden (1888) ***** musical thoughts Last night, at the [...]
Thursday, 2/2/12
02/02/2012most useless label? world music indie rock free jazz The competition’s fierce. Mostly Other People Do the Killing (Moppa Elliott, bass; Peter Evans, trumpet; Jon Irabagon, alto saxophone; Kevin Shea, drums), live, London (The Vortex), 7/14/11 ********** lagniappe art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court [...]
Saturday, 1/14/12
01/14/2012If you wanted to conjure a world full of mystery, what better instrument to lead the way than one that possesses neither the brightness of the violin nor the darkness of the cello? Morton Feldman, Rothko Chapel (1971), live, Houston (Rothko Chapel), 2011; Kim Kashkashian (viola), Brian Del Signore (percussion), Sarah Rothenberg (celeste), Maureen Broy Papovich [...]
Monday, 1/9/12
01/08/2012What do you get when you combine a pianist who plays with the percussive intensity of a drummer and a drummer who plays with the melodic buoyancy of a pianist? Cecil Taylor (piano), Max Roach (drums), live New York (Columbia University), 2000 ********** lagniappe art beat: more from Thursday’s stop at the Art Institute of [...]
Friday, 1/6/12
01/06/2012two takes Here’s her first record as a solo artist. Dionne Warwick, “Don’t Make Me Over” (B. Bacharach & H. David), 1962 Billboard Hot 100 #21, R&B #5 TV broadcast *** Recording *** When I first began, the kind of music I was recording was so unorthodox. It was like nothing else that was being [...]
