This I could listen to all day.
Neneh Cherry & The Thing (Mats Gustafsson, baritone saxophone; Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums), “Dream Baby Dream,” live, Spain (San Sebastian), 2012
With just one horn, there’s a lot of space for the other players—the so-called “rhythm section”—to fill, which these guys do as well as anyone I’ve heard in a long time.
David Murray’s Black Saint Quartet (DM, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Lafayette Gilchrist, piano; Jaribu Shahid, bass; Hamid Drake, drums), live, Berlin, 2007
My heart’s on fire . . .
Nona Hendryx (with Ronny Drayton, guitar), Philadelphia, 2012
“Temple of Heaven”
*****
“Rock This House”
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lagniappe
reading table
Her life, she said, was an out-of-tune piano played with passion.
***
This evening I sat listening to five presidential candidates offering their imaginary solutions for a country that doesn’t exist.
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“Imaginary maladies are much worse than the real ones, because they’re incurable,” an old friend who walks with difficulty was telling me.
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Much of what our eyes see and our ears hear is lost in translation.
***
“An alarm clock with no hands, ticking on the town dump,” is how he described himself.
***
They gave the nice old gentleman I met at the bake sale several medals for the misery he caused in some country that no one could find any longer on the map.
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I bet all our elected representatives in Washington spend a great deal of time in front of mirrors admiring themselves. They lift their noses and chins, stare straight ahead without moving an eyebrow or a muscle, then nod their heads gravely and smile to themselves as they go out to meet the people.
***
He sat on a bench in Washington Square Park whispering something extremely confidential to his dog, who sat before him with ears perked, wagging his tail cautiously from time to time.
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The crosses all men and women must carry through life are even more visible on this dark and rainy November evening.
—Charles Simic, “A Year in Fragments” (excerpts), New York Review Blog, 12/31/12
Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons Ensemble (ED, alto saxophone; Steve Berry, trombone; Darius Savage, bass; Isaiah Spencer, drums), live, Chicago, 2005
Happy New Year!
Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan, TV show (In Session, Canada), 1983
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Once upon a time there was a common musical culture. Certain dialects, like blues, were known to nearly everyone. No more.
tonight
These guys will be playing at the Hideout, a small club on Chicago’s near northwest side, which is where I’ll be too.
DKV Trio (Hamid Drake, drums; Kent Kessler, bass; Ken Vandermark, reeds), live, Italy (Sant’Anna Arresi Jazz Festival), 2008
only rock ’n’ roll
There are only a few bands I come back to often.
One of them is The National.
—my (25-year-old) son Alex, talking music the other day
The National, “Fake Empire,” live, New York, 2011
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More?
Live, Netherlands, 2011*
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Here’s Bryan Ferry talking about his new album (featured yesterday):
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*Here’s the set list (courtesy of a YouTube comment):
00:00 runaway. 06:30 anyone’s ghost. 09:45 bloodbuzz ohio. 14:40 afraid of everyone. 19:00 conversation 16. 23:20 lemonworld. 27:04 apartment story. 30:50 sorrow. 35:50 england. 42:10 fake empire. 45:45 encore break. 48:05 mr november. 53:13 terrible love.
sounds of Thailand
Kung Narin Phin Sing, live, Thailand
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lagniappe
reading table
Like a tropical storm,
I, too, may one day become “better organized.”—Lydia Davis, “Tropical Storm” (The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, 2009)
passings
Dave Brubeck, pianist, composer, bandleader
December 6, 1920-December 5, 2012
Dave Brubeck Quartet (DB, piano; Paul Desmond, alto saxophone; Gene Wright, bass; Joe Morello, drums), TV show (Jazz Casual with Ralph J. Gleason*), 1961 (followed by other clips)
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lagniappe
found words
japanese punk band with sousaphone
—Web search that brought someone here
*****
*Gleason, who died in 1975, had a hand in a lot of different things, including the Monterey Jazz Festival (cofounder, 1958) and Rolling Stone (cofounder, 1967).
two takes
Stephanie McDee, “Call the Police”
Recording (Living The Blues), 2002
***
Live, Baton Rouge, 2012
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lagniappe
reading table
We know we are very special. Yet we keep trying to find out in what way: not this way, not that way, then what way?
—Lydia Davis, “Special” (The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, 2009)
