music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Month: August, 2014

Sunday, August 31st

sounds of Chicago

Victory Travelers, live, Chicago, 2013


**********

lagniappe

art beat

Lee Friedlander (1934-), Chicago, 1968

CRI_149428

Saturday, August 30th

alone

Crazy what you happen upon in the middle of the night.

King Buzzo (AKA Buzz Osborne), “Boris,” “Ballad of Dwight Fry,” “Suicide In Progress,” live, Baltimore (Ottobar), 7/17/14

What I’m doing, it’s not folk music, it’s not heavy metal. It’s ‘molk,’ how ’bout that?

King Buzzo

Friday, August 29th

Drums, voice, piano—who needs more?

Fiona Apple, “Hot Knife,” 2013 (video)

Thursday, August 28th

never enough

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor (“The Tempest”); Daniel Barenboim (piano), live, Berlin, 2005

I went decades without listening to Beethoven. Now I can’t imagine life without him. No matter what kind of day I’m having, no matter what my mood, his music makes life seem richer, and deeper, and more worth living.

Wednesday, August 27th

sounds of Chicago & Norway & the Netherlands

Who needs coffee?

Lean Left (Ken Vandermark, reeds [Chicago]; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums [Norway]; Andy Moers & Terrie Hessels, guitars [Netherlands]), live, Belgium (Brussels), 2014

#1


#2


#3


#4


**********

lagniappe

musical (& other) thoughts

Ken Vandermark has a lot of interesting things to say about improvised music and life as a musician, about politics and movies and journalism and New York, as you can hear in this podcast-interview.

Tuesday, August 26th

sounds of Norway

Maja S. K. Ratkje, live (music begins at 1:40), Norway (Punkt Festival, Kristiansand), 2013


**********

lagniappe

reading table

A Prison gets to be a friend —
Between its Ponderous face
And Ours — a Kinsmanship express —
And in its narrow Eyes —

We come to look with gratitude
For the appointed Beam
It deal us — stated as Our food —
And hungered for — the same —

We learn to know the Planks —
That answer to Our feet —
So miserable a sound — at first —
Nor ever now — so sweet —

As plashing in the Pools —
When Memory was a Boy —
But a Demurer Circuit —
A Geometric Joy —

The Posture of the Key
That interrupt the Day
To Our Endeavor — Not so real
The Check of Liberty —

As this Phantasm Steel —
Whose features — Day and Night —
Are present to us — as Our Own —
And as escapeless — quite —

The narrow Round — the Stint —
The slow exchange of Hope —
For something passiver — Content
Too steep for looking up —

The Liberty we knew
Avoided — like a Dream —
Too wide for any night but Heaven —
If That — indeed — redeem —

—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886; Franklin #456)

Monday, August 25th

Why not begin the week with something beautiful?

Lou Harrison (1917-2003), Second Symphony (“Elegiac,” 1988); BBC National Orchestra of Wales

**********

lagniappe

reading table

never growing old
Mr. and Mrs.
Butterfly

—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)

Sunday, August 24th

four takes

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”

Isaiah, live, Chicago, 2014


***

Albert Ayler, recording, 1964


***

Parliament Funkadelic (“Swing Down, Sweet Chariot”), live Houston, 1976


***

Fisk University Jubilee Quartet, recording, 1909

Saturday, August 23rd

voices I miss

Albert Collins (1932-1993), “Cold, Cold Feeling,” live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1979


Nobody sounds like this guy, whose 1978 album Ice Pickin’, recorded at Curtis Mayfield’s studio in Chicago and nominated for a Grammy, I’m happy to say I co-produced.

**********

lagniappe

art beat

Bruce Davidson (1933-), Birmingham, Ala., 1963

Bruce-Davidson-001

Friday, August 22nd

only rock ’n’ roll

Spoon, live (studio performance), Seattle, 7/24/14

%d bloggers like this: