This I turned to late yesterday afternoon, amidst darkness and rain and news of a neighbor’s terminal illness. I’ve been living with this piece for forty-some years, and it has never let me down—never failed, whatever the circumstances, to make life seem lighter, brighter, more porous, more spacious. Never.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 1 in G major for Unaccompanied Cello; Mischa Maisky, cello
Thurston Moore (guitar), Okkyung Lee (cello), Ikue Mori (laptop)
Live, New York, 2009
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music, too, is a continually expanding universe.
Sounds for a strange, scary, sad world.
Georg Friedrich Haas (1953-), String Quartet No. 8 (2014); JACK Quartet
two takes
“I Never Learnt to Share” (J. Blake)
Spektral Quartet (arr. Chris Fisher-Lochhead), live, Chicago, 2015
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James Blake, live, Berlin, 2011
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
When we’re full of music, we’re free of everything else.
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random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
tonight in Chicago
These folks will be playing at Curtiss Hall.
Christopher Fisher-Lochhead (1984-), Dig Absolutely (2010); Spektral Quartet, live, Evanston, Ill., 2011
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 6 in D major for Unaccompanied Cello, 4th Mvt. (Sarabande); Yo-Yo Ma, live
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Better one day awake—one moment, even—than ten years asleep.
tonight in Chicago
These folks will be at Constellation.
Tomeka Reid (cello) with Mary Halvorson (guitar), Jason Roebke (bass), and Tomas Fujiwara (drums), “Glass Light,” live, Chicago, 2014
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And these guys will be Elastic.
Dave Rempis (saxophone), Joshua Abrams (bass), Avreeayl Ra (drums), live, Chicago, 2013
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lagniappe
radio
Celebrating the birthdays of saxophonists Lester Young (August 27, 1909) and Charlie Parker (August 29, 1920), WKCR-FM (Columbia University) is featuring their music all day today (Young), all day tomorrow (Young and Parker), all day Saturday (Parker), and into Sunday morning (Parker).
Why not start the week with something strange?
Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), Tetras (1983); JACK Quartet, live, Philadelphia, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
Trust in the Unexpected —
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), #561 (Franklin)
tonight in Chicago
These guys are playing at Elastic Arts.
Vox Arcana (Tim Daisy, percussion; James Falzone, clarinet; Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello, guitar), live, South Carolina (West Columbia), 2012
music clip of the day 