sounds of Chicago and Switzerland
Need a jolt?
Easel (Christoph Erb, tenor saxophone [Switzerland]; Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello, electronics [Chicago]; Michael Zerang, drums [Chicago]), live, Moscow, 2015
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Note to self: Listen, always, as if it was the first time—and the last.
*****
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
The only thing hard about listening to this is letting go of everything else.
John Luther Adams (1953-), Dream in White on White (1992); Virtuoso String Orchestra (Joaquin Valdepenas, cond.), Sanya Eng (harp), live, Toronto, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
Barn’s burnt down—
now
I can see the moon.—Mizuta Masahide, 1657-1723 (translated from Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto)
Why start the new week with the same old stuff?
Julia Wolfe (1958-), Believing (2001); Bang on a Can All-Stars, live, South Korea (Tongyeong International Music Festival), 2014
lagniappe
art beat
Regular readers may recognize this drawing, which was posted last year. The artist is a client of mine, Walter Unbehaun, a seventy-something bank robber whose story is told in the January issue of GQ magazine (Kathy Dobie, “The Curious Case of the Homesick Bank Robber”). This drawing makes an appearance:
[H]e’d created a strong bond with his lawyer. He considered ‘Rich’ a friend, giving him two finely wrought pencil sketchings. One was of an ancient and deeply wrinkled Peruvian woman, the other of a plump African woman wearing glasses.
Walter Unbehaun, African Preacher (Kankakee County Jail, 2014)
lucid, adj. translucent, pellucid, clear. E.g., Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians.
Steve Reich (1936-), Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76)
Ensemble Intercontemporain with Synergy Vocals, live, Paris, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
the door latch
rusting scarlet . . .
winter rain—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
*****
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
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.
*****
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.
music clip of the day 