music clip of the day

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Category: art beat

2013

Thursday, August 15th

Strangeness, in today’s musical world, is sadly undervalued.

Daniel Higgs (vocals, banjo), live, London (Cafe Oto), 2011

#1


#2


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lagniappe

art beat: Tuesday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Cranes at Umezawa Manor in Sagami Province (from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji)

katsushika-hokusai-cranes-nearby-mount-fuji

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reading table

Speaking of insomnia, last night I came upon this.

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.

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

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2013

Thursday, June 20th

In a world this fast what you need, sometimes, is something this slow.

Shirley Horn (1934-2005), “Summer (Estate)” (B. Martino & B. Brighetti), live, Switzerland (Bern), 1990


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Space is a valuable commodity in music. Too many musicians rush through everything with too many notes. I need time to take the picture. A ballad should be a ballad. It’s important to understand what the song is saying, and learn how to tell the story. It takes time. I can’t rush it. I really can’t rush it.

—Shirley Horn

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art beat: more from the other day at the Art Institute of Chicago 

Statuette of a Female Figure
Cycladic, probably from the island of Keros
Early Bronze Age, 2600/2400 B.C.

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2013

Tuesday, June 18th

two takes

Music for Airports, “1/1” (B. Eno, R. Davies, R. Wyatt)

Bang on a Can All-Stars, live, Düsseldorf Airport (Germany), 2011


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Brian Eno, recording, 1978


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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (while waiting for the jury in my federal bribery-conspiracy trial to return a verdict, which, alas, they did)

Bowl, 150/50 B.C.
Greek, Hellenistic, Eastern Mediterranean
Glass, mosaic technique

189855_1534287

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2013

Monday, May 20th

two takes

“Take Five” (P. Desmond)

Ceramic Dog (Marc Ribot, guitar; Shahzad Ismaily, bass & percussion; Ches Smith, drums), live, Netherlands (Amsterdam), 2013


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Dave Brubeck Quartet (DB, piano; Paul Desmond, alto saxophone; Eugene Wright, bass; Joe Morello, drums), live, Germany, 1966


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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Bullfinch and Weeping Cherry Tree, 1834

0032_s

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2013

Sunday, April 21st

Once I start listening to this I don’t want to stop, ever.

The Original Gospel Harmonettes (featuring MCOTD Hall of Famer Dorothy Love Coates), “He’s Calling Me,” 1955


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lagniappe

art beat: Tuesday at the Chicago Cultural Center

Hale Woodruff (1900-1980), Old Farmhouse in Beauce Valley, 1928 (featured, through June 16th, in Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College)

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random thoughts

It seems to be difficult, if not impossible, for me to grasp the apparent fact that the distance between, say, 2010 and 1960, when I was eight years old, is just as great as that between 1960 and 1910.

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2013

Wednesday, April 17th

late yesterday afternoon

After a court hearing and a client meeting, I stopped at the Chicago Cultural Center, where this piece—on a scale many times larger than this—is installed through May 5th. One-word review: go.

Shawn Decker, Prairie

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As with an outdoor prairie, what the current installation looks like—and sounds like—depends on where you’re situated. Here’s one view:

Shawn-Decker-Prairie-wide-600x393

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2012

Thursday, 12/13/12

 passings

Ravi Shankar, sitarist and composer, April 7, 1920-December 11, 2012

With Ali Akbar Khan (sarod), et al., “Bangla Dhun,” New York (The Concert for Bengladesh), 1971

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lagniappe

art beat: Art Institute of Chicago 

Here’s my one-word review of the newly opened gallery of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, where, Tuesday morning (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building), sunlight was streaming through the windows: stunning.

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2012

Wednesday, 11/7/12

post-election special

Weary of words?

John Luther Adams, The Light That Fills the World (chamber version, revised 2001), excerpt

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lagniappe

art beat: Saturday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Paul Strand, The Court, New York (1924)
Film and Photo in New York (through 11/25/12)

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2012

Monday, 11/5/12

The body knows things the mind will never understand.

D’Angelo (with Jesse Johnson, guitar; Pino Palladino, bass; Chris “Daddy” Dave, drums, et al.), “Chicken Grease,” live, Switzerland (Zurich), 2012

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lagniappe

art beat: Saturday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Morris Engel, Harlem Merchant (1936)
Film and Photo in New York (through 11/25/12)

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2012

Sunday, 11/4/12

three takes

“Move On Up A Little Higher” (W. Herbert Brewster)

Mahalia Jackson, radio broadcast, early 1950s

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Brother Joe May, live, early 1950s

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Rev. Timothy Flemming Sr., live, Atlanta, 1976

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (with my son Alex)

Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, James Agee, In the Street (1948), featured in the exhibit Film and Photo in New York (through 11/25/12)

(For better quality go to the “Settings” icon [lower right] and select 480p.)

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random thoughts

Sixty years ago today Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected the thirty-fourth President of the United States and, closer to home, my parents’ second son was born. What’s it like turning sixty? Surprising. But no more surprising, I suppose, than finding oneself entwined, in perpetuity, with Ike.

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