sounds of New York
Vijay Iyer Sextet,* live, New York, 2015
*****
lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), Palisades, N.J., 1958
***
*VI, piano, compositions; Graham Haynes, cornet; Steve Lehman, alto saxophone; Mark Shim, tenor saxophone; Matt Brewer, bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums.
American in Paris
Steve Lacy Trio, live, Paris, 1982
*****
lagniappe
musical thoughts
‘Make the drummer sound good.’
—Steve Lacy, recalling Thelonious Monk’s advice (Robin D. G. Kelly, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original [2009]])
only rock ‘n’ roll
Building a Broken Mousetrap (2006), concert film of The Ex
sweet soul music
Curtis Mayfield (1942-1999), “Move On Up” (C. Mayfield), live (Master Henry Gibson [1942-2002], hand drums), Netherlands (The Hague), 1987
only rock ‘n’ roll
Joy Division, live (“Digital,” “New Dawn Fades,” “Colony,” “Autosuggestion”), Netherlands, 1980
Uneasy sounds for an uneasy world.
Iancu Dumitrescu (1944-), Hyperspectres for doublebasses, cellos, and percussion, live, Paris, 2011
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow / And leaden-eyed despairs
—John Keats (1795-1821), “Ode to a Nightingale”
old school
Dynamic Revelators (Wichita, Ks.), “Holding On,” live, Gurdon, Ark., c. 2011
**********
lagniappe
reading table
We have to live out our precise experimentation.
—John Ashbery (1927-), “Breezeway” (Breezeway, 2015)
like nobody else
Cecil Taylor Unit (CT, piano, vocal, percussion; Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone, percussion; William Parker, bass, percussion; Rashid Bakr, percussion; Andre Martinez, percussion; Brenda Bakr, vocal) with dancers (Doretha Davidson, Leon Brown, Ron McKay, Pauline Zaguhei), live, Germany (Berlin), 1983
only rock ‘n’ roll
Tenement, live, Philadelphia, 2012
sounds of joy
Instant Composers Pool (ICP) Orchestra, “Lavoro” (S. Bergin, borrowing from “Moten Swing”), live, Amsterdam, 2013
Joyful? Yes. But sad, too. Pianist (and cofounder) Misha Mengelberg’s encroaching dementia, which has since sidelined him altogether, provides a poignant counterpoint.
