We’ve always believed in singing, in expressing ourselves.
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Sometimes a song . . . is just as great as a sermon.
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A hurricane starts off slowly . . . and when she gets a certain speed, that’s when she’s dangerous. Most preachers . . . get their power going up . . . . [M]ost of my power is given by coming down, down, after I’ve gone up.
—Rev. Johnny L. Jones
Rev. Johnny L. Jones, live, Atlanta The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta (Dust-To-Digital 2010)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
. . . music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.
Here—with a shout-out to my brother Don, with whom (at the age of 15) I saw the MC5 in Chicago’s Lincoln Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention (when nobody outside the Detroit/Ann Arbor area [including us] knew who they were)—is an awfully good cover, from what might seem an unlikely source, of one of their “greatest hits.”
Jeff Buckley, “Kick Out The Jams,” live, Chicago, 1995
And here, courtesy, apparently, of the Department of Defense, is (silent) footage of the scene in Lincoln Park on August 25, 1968—the day the MC5 (who appear here fleetingly) played.
(Originally posted 9/7/09.)
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lagniappe
on the road
Last night, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I’ve been since Sunday, I heard a concert, on the Harvard campus, of contemporary music featuring two different groups (Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble and Ensemble SurPlus) and works by six different composers, including Morton Feldman and John Luther Adams (who was present). Virtually every time I hear live music—last night was no exception—I leave thinking that I really need to do this more often. I love recordings, but live music breathes.
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Tonight, in Boston, I’ll be in the front row for this production of Merchant of Venice. Tomorrow I’m seeing a series of short works by Samuel Beckett, directed by the legendary Peter Brook. So that’s three straight days of live music. (What’s theater, after all, if not musical speech?)
music clip of the day 