Bach cello festival (day one)
Suppose you had twenty-four hours to live. What would you want to hear? These six cello suites, which I’ve been listening to for over forty years, are where I might turn. (Why not go out dancing?)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 1 in G major; Denise Djokic (cello), live, Canada (Winnipeg), 2012
Prelude
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Minuets 1 and 2
Gigue
old school
Sensational Nightingales (feat. Julius Cheeks, lead vocals), “I Want To Go,” 1961
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lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), New York (Harlem), c. 1966
two takes
Need a lift?
Charles Ives (1874-1954), Ragtime Dance No. 4 (1904)
Alarm Will Sound, live, New York, 2013
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Orchestra New England, recording, 1990
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
As I remember some of the dances as a boy, and also from father’s description of some of the old dancing and fiddle playing, there was more variety of tempo than in the present-day dances. In some parts of the hall a group would be dancing in polka, while in another, a waltz. Some of the players in the band would, in an impromptu way, pick up with the polka, and some with the waltz, and some with a march. Often the piccolo or cornet would throw in asides. Sometimes a change in tempo, or a mixed rhythm would be caused by a fiddler who, after playing three or four hours steadily, was getting a little sleepy. Or maybe another player was seated too near the hard cider barrel. Whatever the reason for these changes and simultaneous playing of things, I remember distinctly catching a kind of music that was natural and interesting and which was decidedly missed when everybody came down ‘blimp’ on the same beat again.
—Charles Ives
only rock ‘n’ roll
Ajax, live, Boston, 2014
sounds of New York (day three)
If this life of ours isn’t easy, why should our music be?
Alex Mincek (1975-), String Quartet No. 3; Mivos Quartet, live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
By Emily Dickinson (1830-1886; Franklin 384)
It dont sound so terrible—quite—as it did—
I run it over—”Dead”, Brain—”Dead”.
Put it in Latin—left of my school—
Seems it don’t shriek so—under rule.Turn it, a little—full in the face
A Trouble looks bitterest—
Shift it—just—
Say “When Tomorrow comes this way—
I shall have waded down one Day” .I suppose it will interrupt me some
Till I get accustomed—but then the Tomb
Like other new Things—shows largest—then—
And smaller, by Habit—It’s shrewder then
Put the Thought in advance—a Year—
How like “a fit”—then—
Murder—wear!
sounds of New York (day two)
Here, as in the city itself, density and spaciousness coexist.
Tim Berne’s Cornered,* “Embraceable Me,” live, New York, 10/12/14
*TB, alto saxophone; Oscar Noriega, clarinets; Ryan Ferreira, guitar; Matt Mitchell, piano; Michael Formanek, bass; Ches Smith, drums, vibraphone.
sounds of New York (day one)
Tamio Shiraishi, live, New York, 10/12/14
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lagniappe
reading table
Even in Kyoto—
hearing the cuckoo’s cry—
I long for Kyoto.—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694; translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
If I wanted to listen in on a conversation in a language I already know, I could go to Starbucks.
Christian Wolff (1934-), Pulse (1998); Jens Bracher (trumpet) & Julian Belli (percussion), live, Germany (Mannheim), 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
The Idea
by Mark Strand (April 11, 1934-November 29, 2014)For us, too, there was a wish to possess
Something beyond the world we knew, beyond ourselves,
Beyond our power to imagine, something nevertheless
In which we might see ourselves; and this desire
Came always in passing, in waning light, and in such cold
That ice on the valley’s lakes cracked and rolled,
And blowing snow covered what earth we saw,
And scenes from the past, when they surfaced again,
Looked not as they had, but ghostly and white
Among false curves and hidden erasures;
And never once did we feel we were close
Until the night wind said, “Why do this,
Especially now? Go back to the place you belong;”
And there appeared , with its windows glowing, small,
In the distance, in the frozen reaches, a cabin;
And we stood before it, amazed at its being there,
And would have gone forward and opened the door,
And stepped into the glow and warmed ourselves there,
But that it was ours by not being ours,
And should remain empty. That was the idea.
music clip of the day 