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Month: December, 2015

2015

Thursday, December 31st

more

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Goldberg Variations
Andras Schiff (piano), live


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lagniappe

radio

WKCR‘s Bach Festival concludes at midnight.

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reading table

Nobody does letters to the editor like the Brits. Here, for instance, is how one begins in the December 17th issue of the London Review of Books:

I hesitate to disagree with my brother, David Matthews, about the order of the middle movements of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, but we have long held opposing views, mine being that the scherzo should come third (Letters, 3 December). . . .

Colin Matthews

London SW 11

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random sights

yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)

FullSizeRender (44)

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To all who’ve dropped by this year (from, I’m told, 120 countries): May you have a happy and peaceful new year.

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2015

Wednesday, December 30th

never enough

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin
Kristóf Baráti (1979-), live, Moscow, 2008

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#2

 

I wouldn’t mind dying if I knew I could listen to this all day.

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lagniappe

radio

The Bach Festival at WKCR (Columbia University)—all Bach, all the time—continues through midnight, New Year’s Eve.

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2015

Tuesday, December 29th

This guy takes me places no one else does.

Tim Berne’s Snakeoil (TB, alto saxophone; Oscar Noriega, clarinet; Matt Mitchell, piano; Ches Smith, drums, vibraphone), “Small World in a Small Town” (T. Berne), live, Brazil (Sao Paulo), 2015


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art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago

Joan Mitchell (1925-1992), City Landscape, 1955

Joan_Mitchell_City_Landscape

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2015

Monday, December 28th

Close your eyes . . .

John Luther Adams (1953-), . . . and bells remembered . . . (2005)
Callithumpian Consort, 2011

 

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reading table

aware of the sun
setting, the butterfly
flits away

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

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2015

Sunday, December 27th

more

Mighty Clouds of Joy (feat. Joe Ligon, lead vocals), “I Know I’ve Been Changed,” live, South Carolina (Charleston), mid-1990s

 

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lagniappe

reading table

most end up
stuck in mud . . .
cherry blossoms

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

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2015

Saturday, December 26th

sounds of Kinshasa*

Mbongwana Star, “Kala,” 2015


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Birds, plants, music—one of the most astonishing things about this most astonishing world is its variousness.

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*Democratic Republic of Congo.

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2015

Friday, December 25th

Merry Christmas

Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Christmas Eve Blues,” 1928


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Victoria Spivey (with Lonnie Johnson, guitar), “Christmas Morning Blues,” 1928


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Bessie Smith (with Joe Smith, cornet; Charlie Green, trombone; Fletcher Henderson, piano), “At the Christmas Ball,” 1925


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Leroy Carr, “Christmas In Jail—Ain’t That A Pain,” 1929


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Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers (feat. Charles Brown, vocals, keyboards), “Merry Christmas, Baby,” 1947


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Lowell Fulson, “Lonesome Christmas (I & II),” 1950


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Sonny Boy Williamson II, “Sonny Boy’s Christmas Blues,” 1951


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John Lee Hooker, “Blues For Christmas,” 1959

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2015

Thursday, December 24th

Feel like floating?

Steve Reich (1936-), Six Marimbas (1986); Undergraduate Recital (Colin Van de Reep, Noam Bierstone, Sandro Valiante, Mark Morton, Ben Reimer, Ben Duinker), McGill University, Montreal, 2011


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reading table

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

—Simone Weil (1909-1943; quoted at Orange Crate Art)

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2015

Wednesday, December 23rd

sounds of Chicago

Hamid Drake (drums, percussion, voice), live, Sardinia, 2013


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lagniappe

radio

One of the year’s great musical events has begun: the annual Bach Festival on WKCR (Columbia University)—all Bach, all the time, through New Year’s Eve.

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musical thoughts

How lucky to be alive in a world of sound.

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2015

Tuesday, December 22nd

The only thing hard about listening to this is letting go of everything else.

John Luther Adams (1953-), Dream in White on White (1992); Virtuoso String Orchestra (Joaquin Valdepenas, cond.), Sanya Eng (harp), live, Toronto, 2014


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lagniappe

reading table

Barn’s burnt down—
now
I can see the moon.

—Mizuta Masahide, 1657-1723 (translated from Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto)

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