music clip of the day

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Month: December, 2013

2013

Saturday, December 21st

never enough

Johann Sebastian Bach, Goldberg Variations (excerpts); Glenn Gould (piano), live, 1964


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lagniappe

radio: Bach Festival 2013

If, like me, you can’t get enough Bach, you’re in luck. Tonight through New Year’s Eve, it’s all Bach all the time at WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

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reading table

One, seven, three, five—
Nothing to rely on in this or any world;
Nighttime falls and the water is flooded with moonlight.
Here in the Dragon’s jaws:
Many exquisite jewels.

—Setcho Juken (980-1052)

 

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2013

Friday, December 20th

alone

Bill Frisell (guitar), “Nowhere Man,” “In My Life,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” live, Washington, D.C., 2012


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lagniappe

random thoughts

Of this I am sure: The longer I live the more mysterious—the more unknowable—is life.

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2013

Thursday, December 19th

Heaven isn’t somewhere else. It’s right here, right now. Don’t believe me? Put on a pair of headphones. Close your eyes. Listen. 

Johann Sebastian Bach, Suite No. 5 in C minor for Unaccompanied Cello; Anner Bylsma, live, Germany (Dornheim), 2000

#1

#2 (ends at 9:15)

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art beat

Lee Friedlander (1934-), Kyoto, 1984

2. Kyoto, 1984

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2013

Wednesday, December 18th

what’s new

Glasser, live, London (Boiler Room), 2013

“Forge”


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“Dissect”


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“Landscape”

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2013

Tuesday, December 17th

sounds of Chicago

Tonight these guys, who play all over the world, will be at a little club on the city’s northwest side, the Hideout, as will I.

DKV Trio (Hamid Drake, drums; Kent Kessler, bass; Ken Vandermark, reeds), live, Italy (Sant’Anna Arresi Jazz Festival), 2008


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Joy—no one gives me more than Hamid Drake.

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lagniappe

reading table

God keep me from ever completing anything.

—Herman Melville (1819-1891), Moby-Dick

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2013

Monday, December 16th

Something beautiful to begin the week.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, excerpt (2nd movt., Adagio); Hélène Grimaud (piano), Bavarian Radio Chamber Orchestra

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world and at peace with myself.

—Nelson Mandela (July 18, 1918-December 5, 2013)

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2013

Sunday, December 15th

two takes

The Caravans (feat. Cassietta George), “Walk Around Heaven All Day”

Live


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Recording, 1964


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reading table

Interview of Alice Munro, last month

It’s hard to imagine a male writer, having just won the Nobel Prize in Literature, being so direct, so natural, so down to earth.

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2013

Saturday, December 14th

two takes

This is, to these ears, exhilarating.

Tim Berne’s Snakeoil,* “Cornered (Duck)”

Live, New York (The Stone), 5/8/13


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Live, Washington, D.C (Atlas Performing Arts Center), 10/9/13


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Music should be no more complex than it needs to be. And no matter how complicated it may actually be, it should never seem that way to the listener. If it does, immediacy has deteriorated into abstraction.

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*TB, alto saxophone; Oscar Noriega, bass clarinet, clarinet; Matt Mitchell, piano; Ches Smith, percussion.

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2013

Friday, December 13th

only rock ’n’ roll

Superchunk, “Void” (2013)


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lagniappe

reading table

Cormac McCarthy, particularly in a book like Blood Meridian, is writing an English very remote from our own. It’s more like the King James Bible on acid, right?

—David Foster Wallace (1962-2008), in Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace & Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing (2013)

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2013

Thursday, December 12th

passings

Jim Hall, guitarist, December 4, 1930-December 10, 2013

With Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone), “In a Sentimental Mood” (D. Ellington), live, Italy (Umbria Jazz Festival), 1996


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With Bill Evans (piano), Undercurrent (“My Funny Valentine,” “I Hear a Rhapsody,” “Dream Gypsy,” “Romain,” “Skating in Central Park,” “Darn that Dream,” “Stairway to the Stars,” “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You”), 1962


When I was in college in the early ’70s, this album was a frequent late-night companion. Since then I’ve listened to it more times than I could count. It never grows old.

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