art beat | music clip of the day

Sunday, 8/21/11

Ever feel like, each day, you understand less and less?

Davis Sisters (with Jackie Verdell), “We’ll Understand It Better By and By,” live (TV broadcast), early 1960s

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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reading table

So long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum
in painted quiet and concentration
keeps pouring milk day after day
from the pitcher to the bowl
the World hasn’t earned
the world’s end.

—Wislawa Szymborska, “Vermeer” (trans. Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak, Here [2010])

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Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid (c. 1658)

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Speaking of Szymborska, a charter member, like Von Freeman, of the recently announced MCOTD Hall of Fame (coincidentally, they were both born in 1923), here’s something I just came across:

I am a big admirer of her [Szymborska’s] work. I have read everything she has written, and I keep coming back to it. She is a very witty poet and she has greatly helped me to enjoy life. She exactly fits my definition of an artist. Who shouldn’t only have profound insight and a sharp mind but also remember that his obligation is to entertain the reader. And this is exactly what she does.

—Woody Allen, in the documentary Sometimes Life Is Bearable (2010)

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listening room: (some of) what’s playing

• Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What (Hear Music)

• Shane MacGowan and the Popes, The Snake (ZTT [import])

• Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica (Reprise/Ada)

• The Best of Charlie Patton (Yazoo)

• Charley Patton, The Voice of the Delta (Indigo)

• The Detroiters/The Golden Echoes, Old Time Religion (Specialty)

• The Spiritualaires of Hurtsboro, Alabama, Singing Songs of Praise (CaseQuarter)

• Archie Shepp/Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio, Conversations (Delmark)

• Benny Goodman, The Complete Trios (Capitol)

• Charlie Parker, The Complete Royal Roost Live Recordings on Savoy, Vol. 3 (Savoy/Columbia [import])

• Charles Gayle, Repent (Knitting Factory)

• Steve Lacy-Roswell Rudd Quartet, School Days (hat Art)

• Wadada Leo Smith & Jack DeJohnette, America (Tzadik)

• Kenny Werner, No Beginning, No End (Half Note)

• Bach, Suites for Unaccompanied Cello/Jean-Guihen Queyras (Harmonia Mundi [import])

• Alfred Schnittke, String Quartet No. 3, Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet/
Borodin String Quartet with Ludmilla Berlinsky (Virgin Classics)

• Morton Feldman, Piano and String Quartet/Kronos Quartet with Aki Takahashi (Nonesuch)

• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa) (available as a download from Amazon for 89¢)

• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)
—Raag Aur Taal (Various, Indian music)

• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)

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2011

Saturday, 8/20/11

You may find it difficult to remember someone’s favorite foods or to recall their favorite movies. But their favorite music? Today’s my mother’s birthday; she’s been gone a long time. This guy she loved.

The King Cole Trio (Nat King Cole, piano & vocals; Oscar Moore, guitar; Johnny Miller, bass), “It is Better to Be by Yourself” (Breakfast in Hollywood, 1946)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

More? Here.

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lagniappe

art beat: more from Thursday’s stop at Chicago’s Art Institute

Hiroshi Yoshida, Three Little Islands (1930)

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2011

Friday, 8/19/11

sounds of Nigeria

Fela Kuti, live (filmed by Ginger Baker), Nigeria (Calabar), 1971

Vodpod videos no longer available.

More? Here.

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at Chicago’s Art Institute

Oda Kazuma, Catching Whitebait at Nakaumi, Izumo (1924)

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Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1953-54

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reading table

. . . life, that storm before the calm.

—Wislawa Szymborska, from “Negative” (trans. Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak, Monologue of a Dog [2006])

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2011

Saturday, 7/23/11

In his world Frederic Chopin and Professor Longhair are neighbors.

James Booker, December 17, 1939-November 8, 1983

“Classified,” live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1978

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Playing for friends (home video), Europe, 1978

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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art beat

Lucian Freud, December 8, 1922-July 20, 2011

Self-Portrait: Reflection (2002)

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2011

Saturday, 7/9/11

Rebirth Brass Band

Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy

Free Spirit Brass Band

Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy

Asphalt Orchestra

Pinettes Brass Band

Here’s another take on the brass band.

Ray Anderson’s Pocket Brass Band (RA, trombone; Lew Soloff, trumpet;
Matt Perrine, sousaphone; Bobby Previte, drums)

Live, Powerplay Studio, Switzerland (Maur), 5/27/10

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Live, Trondheim Jazz Festival (Norway), 5/14/10

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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art beat

Cy Twombly, April 25, 1928-July 5, 2011

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The death of Cy Twombly has an oddly catastrophic feel—oddly because he was eighty-three and a canonical master, but catastrophic because he takes with him a certain epochal, now thoroughly historical, sense of wide-open liberty in very high culture. Such was the cynosure of new art in New York sixty years ago, when Twombly had his first show of startlingly scrawly, somehow furiously languid paintings and drawings. Unlike the heroes of Abstract Expressionism and his comrades Rauschenberg and Johns, he never drove that afflatus. Rather, he took it as a routine state of mind and soul. This could seem dandyishly insolent of him: shrugging off the requirement for logical necessity in big-time avant-garde art. He made clear that he did what he felt like doing. His feeling-like-doing-it was the point, ever just a dramatic whisker short of pointlessness. Who did he think he was?

—Peter Schjeldahl, New Yorker (blog), 7/6/11

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2011

Sunday, 7/3/11

This guy I can’t get enough of.

Vernard Johnson, “Don’t Wait ’Til The Battle Is Over, Shout Now!”; live, TV broadcast (Bobby Jones Gospel)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Time for just one note? 6:23.

More? Here. And here.

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art beat

Lee Friedlander, Cherry Blossom Time in Japan (2006)

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reading table

Yesterday, opening my Emily Dickinson collection (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin) at random, I came upon this.

We do not play on Graves —
Because there isn’t Room —
Besides — it isn’t even — it slants
And People come —

And put a Flower on it —
And hang their faces so —
We’re fearing that their Hearts will drop —
And crush our pretty play —

And so we move as far
As Enemies — away —
Just looking round to see how far
It is — Occasionally —

—Emily Dickinson (#599)

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listening room: what’s playing

• Echocord Jubilee Comp. (Echocord)

• Art Ensemble of Chicago, Full Force (ECM)

• Art Ensemble of Chicago, Urban Bushmen (ECM)

• Paul Motian (with Lee Konitz, soprano & alto saxophones; Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone; Bill Frisell, guitar; Charlie Haden, bass), On Broadway Vol. 3 (Winter & Winter)

• Rebirth Brass Band, Feel Like Funkin’ It Up (Rounder)

• Marc Ribot, Silent Movies (Pi Recordings)

• Wadada Leo Smith, Kabell Years: 1971-1979 (Tzadik)

• Charles “Baron” Mingus, West Coast, 1945-49 (Uptown Jazz)

• John Alexander’s Sterling Jubilee Singers, Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb (New World Records)

• Rev. Johnny L. Jones, The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta (Dust-to-Digital)

• Elliott Carter, composer; Ursula Oppens, piano; Oppens Plays Carter (Cedille)

• Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, composers; Maurizio Pollini, piano, piano works (Schoenberg), Variations Op. 27 (Webern) (Deutsche Grammophon)

• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa)

• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Daybreak Express (Various, jazz)
—Out to Lunch (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Profiles (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Alternatives (Various, jazz)
—Morning Classical (Various, classical)
—Afternoon New Music (Various, classical and hard-to-peg)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)

• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Give The Drummer Some (Doug Schulkind, sui generis)
—Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine (soul)

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2011

Sunday, 6/19/11

Gospel, soul, blues—sometimes they seem inseparable.

Willie Banks and The Messengers, live, Mississippi (Jackson), 1990

“Things I Can’t Change”

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“God Is Still In Charge”

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lagniappe

listening room: what’s playing

• Talib Kweli, Gutter Rainbows (Javotti Media/3d)

• Art Ensemble of Chicago, Full Force (ECM)

• Anthony Braxton Quartet, (GTM) 2006 (Important Records)

• John Coltrane (with Rashied Ali), Interstellar Space (Impulse!)

• The Lester Young/Count Basie Sessions (1936-1940) (Mosaic)

• Various Artists, Ska Bonanza: The Studio One Ska Years (Heartbeat)

• Stefan Wolpe: Compositions for Piano (1920-1952), David Holzman, piano (Bridge)

• Ann Southam: Simple Lines of Enquiry, Eve Egoyan, piano (Centrediscs)

• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa); John Tilbury, piano, Morton Feldman, All Piano (London HALL)

• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Out to Lunch (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Profiles (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Alternatives (Various, jazz)
—Afternoon New Music (Various, classical and hard-to-peg)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)
—Rag Aur Taal (Various, Indian)
—Morning Ragas (Various, Indian)
—Amazing Grace (Various, gospel)
—Live Constructions (Various, hard-to-peg)

• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Give The Drummer Some (Doug Schulkind, sui generis)
—Transpacific Sound Paradise (Rob Weisberg, “popular and unpopular music from around the world”)
—Daniel Blumin (sui generis)
—Airborne Event (Dan Boodah, sui generis)
—The Push Bin with Lou (Lou Z., sui generis)

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art beat

One of the great things about having friends is that they invite you to things you’d never get to, or even know about, otherwise—like, for instance, this wonderful exhibit of illustrated architecture books (dating from 1511), something I wouldn’t have gotten to but for my friend Bob Blythe.

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2011

Sunday, 6/12/11

coming to a theater near you

Rejoice and Shout (2011)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

(Yo, Michael—thanks for the heads-up!)

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art beat

Here’s another image from the book featured yesterday.

Lee Friedlander, Kyoto, Japan, 1977

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taking a break

I’m taking a little break (my first since December)—back soon.

While I’m away, why not enjoy, oh, Amadou & Mariam and Ornette Coleman and Hound Dog Taylor and Solomon playing Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata and Solomon Burke and Del Shannon and . . . ?

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2011

Saturday, 6/11/11

What would Monday’s featured artist sound like if he’d come along a generation later?

Tyondai Braxton (Anthony’s son), “Dead Strings,” live, 2009

Part 1

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Part 2

Vodpod videos no longer available.

More? Here (with Battles, a group he’s since left).

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lagniappe

If you had to take five albums, books or DVDs on tour with you, which ones would they be, and why?

I picked 5 records and they are:

1. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra & Marin Alsop: Takemitsu: The Flock Decsends Into The Pentagonal Garden
Honestly I always take this piece and the score with me on tour everywhere I go. It’s one of my favorite pieces.

2. Fela Kuti: Underground System
This record is a force. Infectious.

3. Black Dice: Miles Of Smiles
One of my favourites from this band. The mood it creates is wholly its own.

4. Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Pierre Boulez: Boulez Conducts Varèse
Varese is where my head has been for the past couple of months. Amériques is such a mind boggling piece.

5. The Bulgarian State Radio & Television Choir: Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares 1&2
Another go-to old favorite. Stop what you’re doing and order this right now.

For DVDs, the complete Six Feet Under, The Wire and Entourage. Is any other network up to the challenge to even attempt to compete with an HBO series?

Books:

Donari Braxton: The Invisible Alphabet
New novel from my brother. It’s seriously amazing. He seems to have an inexhaustible amount of ideas and has such a great sense of control in his craft. I looked to him and his work when struggling to flesh out my own.

Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
Such an incredible book. Ross fed into my already glorified view of the 20th century composers and made them into the lead characters in one of the most compelling stories I’ve ever read.

John Adams: Hallelujah Junction
It’s great to hear a very down to earth narration of a composer who you respect.

—Tyondai Braxton