Monday, April 25th
Thank God—or Whatever—for the Unfamiliar.
Mark Barden (1980-), Nocturne (2013); Mivos Quartet, live, New York, 2013
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: cello
2016
Wednesday, April 20th
More.
Henry Threadgill’s Society Situation Dance Band
Live, Germany (Hamburg), 1988
#1
#2
#3
*****
Henry Threadgill and His Very Very Circus
“Too Much Sugar for a Dime,” live, New York, 1995
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
2016
Tuesday, April 19th
MCOTD Hall of Famer—and, as of yesterday, Pulitzer Prize Winner.
Henry Threadgill’s Zooid
Live, Poland (Warsaw), 2011
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Live, New York, 2013
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Live, Washington, D.C., 2013
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
All music is classical music, you know. I don’t put up boundaries on music.
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Of course I started out in an ethnic community, with the blues and church music and jazz. But that was just one place to start. You read fiction then you start reading nonfiction! You start reading biographies and scientific accounts. It doesn’t change where you came from. It just broadens it. That’s what we do, we keep building on the foundation where we come from. You don’t lose it, you just keep building on it.
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I think we’ve gotten used to the dissonant, so it’s not even dissonant any more.
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[W]e have no control over anything but what we do. I just try to stay hopeful: I don’t want to get too pessimistic about anything.
—Henry Threadgill, The Guardian, 4/18/16
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the beat goes on
2,300 posts—and counting.
2016
Monday, April 18th
Feel like floating?
Music for Airports, “1/1” (B. Eno, R. Davies, R. Wyatt), 1978; Bang on a Can All-Stars, live (arr. Michael Gordon), San Diego Airport, 2015
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lagniappe
reading table
To a Snail
By Marianne Moore (1887-1972)If “compression is the first grace of style,”
you have it. Contractility is a virtue
as modesty is a virtue.
It is not the acquisition of any one thing
that is able to adorn,
or the incidental quality that occurs
as a concomitant of something well said,
that we value in style,
but the principle that is hid:
in the absence of feet, “a method of conclusions”;
“a knowledge of principles,”
in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.
2016
Wednesday, April 6th
sounds of New York
Oliver Lake and the FLUX String Quartet, live, New York, 2014
2016
Thursday, March 31st
Something to wash over you.
John Luther Adams (1953-), The Light Within (2007); New Music Detroit, live, Detroit, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
spring rain—
the uneaten ducks
are quacking—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
2016
Thursday, March 24th
Uneasy sounds for an uneasy world.
Iancu Dumitrescu (1944-), Hyperspectres for doublebasses, cellos, and percussion, live, Paris, 2011
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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”
2016
Wednesday, March 23rd
More cello.
Marcos Balter (1974-), Memoria (2007); Katinka Kleijn, live, Brazil (Manaus), 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
. . . and the mystery itself is the gateway to perception.
—Lao Tzu (c. 5th cent. B.C.), Tao Te Ching, translated from Chinese by Sam Hamill
2016
Tuesday, March 22nd
More cello.
Anna Thorvaldsdottir (1977-), Transitions (2014); Michael Nicolas, live, Chicago, 2015
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lagniappe
reading table
Let Emily sing for you because she cannot pray . . .
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), letter to cousins Louis and Frances Norcross (on the death of their father), 1863
2016
Monday, March 21st
I can’t think of a finer way to begin the week.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Cello Suite No. 6, excerpt (Allemande); Natalia Gutman (1942-), live, Moscow, 1987
music clip of the day 