Wednesday, 1/11/12
Imagine what life would be like if people talked the way he played. Clear. Coherent. Concise. No wasted words. Or even syllables.
Hank Jones, “Willow Weep For Me,” live, New York (Carnegie Hall), 1994
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Month: January, 2012
2012
Tuesday, 1/10/12
What you want, sometimes, is to lose yourself, even if only briefly, in beauty.
Leo Janacek (1854-1928), String Quartet No. 1, “The Kreutzer Sonata,” excerpt (arr. Tognetti), Australian Chamber Orchestra
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lagniappe
random thoughts
When you’re young you want to find yourself; when you’re old you want to lose yourself.
*****
reading table
Variations for Two Pianos
for Thomas Higgins, pianist
by Donald Justice
There is no music now in all of Arkansas.
Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.
Movers dismantled the instruments, away
Sped the vans. The first detour untuned the strings.
There is no music now in all of Arkansas.
Up Main Street, past the cold shopfronts of Conway,
The brash, self-important brick of the college,
Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.
Warm evenings, the windows open, he would play
Something of Mozart’s for his pupils, the birds.
There is no music now in all of Arkansas.
How shall the mockingbird mend her trill, the jay
His eccentric attack, lacking a teacher?
Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.
There is no music now in all of Arkansas.
2012
Monday, 1/9/12
What 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
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lagniappe
art beat: more from Thursday’s stop at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)
Mark Rothko, Painting (1953-54)
2012
Sunday, 1/8/12
Let’s head back to Newark, to the church we visited last Sunday, this time to hear one of Dionne’s cousins, back when she was a young girl.
Whitney Houston, New Hope Baptist Church, Newark, New Jersey, 1970s
*****
what takes your breath away
It’s not the way she pulls out all the stops—lots of singers do that.
It’s how she pulls back (2:00-2:35, 3:00-3:20, etc.).
Whitney Houston, with mother Cissy Houston (Ann Drinkard Moss’s sister, Dionne Warwick’s aunt) nearby, “A Quiet Place,” TV broadcast
(Second clip originally posted 7/25/10.)
2012
Saturday, 1/7/12
Roy Hargrove Quintet,* “Strasbourg/Saint Denis,” live, Paris, 2008
What better way to begin the new year than with live music, which is what I did last Sunday (with my wife Suzanne and older son Alex), catching these guys at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase, where they played an ebullient set for the overflow crowd.
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lagniappe
reading table
In January baseball lives in the imagination.
Now he was stuck at this ramshackle ballpark between a junkyard and an adult bookstore on the interstate outside Peoria.
***
“The shortstop is a source of stillness at the center of the defense. He projects this stillness and his teammates respond.”
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When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see?
—Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding (2011)
*****
*RH, trumpet; Justin Robinson, alto saxophone; Gerald Clayton, piano; Danton Boller, bass; Montez Coleman, drums
2012
Friday, 1/6/12
two 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
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Recording
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When I first began, the kind of music I was recording was so unorthodox. It was like nothing else that was being played on radio at the time, and most people said, ‘Well, she won’t be around that long.’
—Dionne Warwick, 2011 Interview
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)
Franz Kline, Painting (1952)
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Jasper Johns, Corpse and Mirror II (1974-75)
(Some folks duck into a church in the noon hour—this is my church.)
2012
Thursday, 1/5/12
three takes
Salif Keita (with Cesaria Evora, takes 1 & 2), “Yamore”
Luciano remix, 2006
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Original recording & video, 2002
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Live, London, 2002
More? Here.
2012
Wednesday, 1/4/12
Forget the weird press—she can sing.
Sinead O’Connor, “Paddy’s Lament” (trad.)
TV broadcast (Ireland), 12/19/11
*****
How many other pop stars have made so many stunning contributions as a guest artist?
With Shane MacGowan, “Haunted”
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With the Chieftains, “The Foggy Dew”
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With Willie Nelson, “Don’t Give Up”
(Last three clips originally posted 3/3/10.)
2012
Tuesday, 1/3/12
the other night
Just a week after hearing vibist Jason Adasiewicz’s Sun Rooms trio there, my older son Alex (home for the holidays) and I went back to the Hideout, a small club on Chicago’s north side, to hear these guys.
DKV Trio (Hamid Drake, drums; Kent Kessler, bass; Ken Vandermark, reeds), live, Chicago (Hideout), 12/28/11
2012
Monday, 1/2/12
what you’d be listening to if you were 20*
Lupe Fiasco, “The End of the World” (sampling M83, “Midnight City”), 2011
*****
Adele, “Rolling in the Deep,” Jamie xx Remix, feat. Childish Gambino, 2011
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Hip-hop is jazz’s great grandson.
*****
found words
Don’t Die with your Teeth in a Glass.
—Billboard, Chicago Ave. at LaSalle St., Chicago
(Dr. Irfan [Ivan] Atcha, “Chicago’s #1 provider for Teeth-In-A-Day & Teeth-In-An Hour Dental Implants”)
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*Based on a sample of one—my son Luke. What a treat to have a pair of 20-year-old ears back in the house (and car) over the holidays.
music clip of the day 