Thursday, March 14th
sounds of New York
Tim Berne (alto saxophone, composition) with Herb Robertson (trumpet), Marc Ducret (guitar), Joey Baron (drums), et al., live, New York (TV show), c. 1990
No one fired up this pianist—one of the most influential in the history of jazz—like this drummer.
Bill Evans Trio (BE [1929-1980], piano; Philly Joe Jones [1923-1985], drums; Marc Johnson [1953-], bass), “Nardis” (M. Davis), live, Italy (Umbria), 1978
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lagniappe
reading table
How many poems have gotten so much attention with so few words?
so much depends
upona red wheel
barrowglazed with rain
waterbeside the white
chickens—William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), “The Red Wheelbarrow”
what’s new
The Pedrito Martinez Group (PM, percussion, lead vocals; Sebastian Natal, electric bass, vocals; Jhair Sala, percussion, vocals; Issac Delgado Jr., keyboards, vocals), “Tuvé Una Revelación,” live, Washington, D.C., 2/20/19
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lagniappe
random sights
Oak Park, Ill, this morning
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random thoughts
March!
Here, rehearsing, is the most influential pianist in jazz of the last fifty years.
Bill Evans (piano, 1929-1980), Eddie Gomez (bass), Alex Riel (drums), live, Denmark (Copenhagen), 1966
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
The ‘open’ voicings that Evans used [i.e., leaving out a chord’s root note] were not new . . . . They had been there in ‘classical’ music since the early part of the century, since Bartok and Stravinsky. But they were new to jazz, and they opened up melody and flow in new ways.
—Martin Williams, The Jazz Tradition (2d ed. 1983)
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Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall.
—Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography (with Quincy Troupe, 1989)
sounds of New York
Tim Berne (alto saxophone), Michael Formanek (bass) Andrew Cyrille (drums), live, New York, 2018
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lagniappe
reading table
One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted –
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), from 407 (Franklin)
A wonderful drummer lifts everyone.
Wolfgang Muthspiel Quintet (WM, guitar; Ambrose Akinmusire, trumpet; Brad Mehldau, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; Brian Blade, drums), “Father and Sun” (W. Muthspiel), live, Austria (Innsbruck), 2016
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (near the Art Institute)