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Category: Chicago

Thursday, December 31st

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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Goldberg Variations
Andras Schiff (piano), live

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lagniappe

radio

WKCR‘s Bach Festival concludes at midnight.

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reading table

Nobody does letters to the editor like the Brits. Here, for instance, is how one begins in the December 17th issue of the London Review of Books:

I hesitate to disagree with my brother, David Matthews, about the order of the middle movements of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, but we have long held opposing views, mine being that the scherzo should come third (Letters, 3 December). . . .

Colin Matthews

London SW 11

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random sights

yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)

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To all who’ve dropped by this year (from, I’m told, 120 countries): May you have a happy and peaceful new year.

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Tuesday, December 29th

This guy takes me places no one else does.

Tim Berne’s Snakeoil (TB, alto saxophone; Oscar Noriega, clarinet; Matt Mitchell, piano; Ches Smith, drums, vibraphone), “Small World in a Small Town” (T. Berne), live, Brazil (Sao Paulo), 2015

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lagniappe

art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago

Joan Mitchell (1925-1992), City Landscape, 1955

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Wednesday, December 23rd

sounds of Chicago

Hamid Drake (drums, percussion, voice), live, Sardinia, 2013

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lagniappe

radio

One of the year’s great musical events has begun: the annual Bach Festival on WKCR (Columbia University)—all Bach, all the time, through New Year’s Eve.

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musical thoughts

How lucky to be alive in a world of sound.

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Friday, December 18th

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

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random sights

this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)

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Saturday, December 12th

sounds of Chicago

DJ Heather, live, Chicago, 2015

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), Interchanged, 1955

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Tuesday, December 1st

sounds of Chicago

And more.

Left Hand Frank and His Blues Band, “Linda Lu”
Living Chicago Blues, Vol. 1, 1978

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lagniappe

art beat

Marc PoKempner, Chicago (Divorced Women’s Club), 1988

(I’m taking a break—back in a while.)

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Monday, November 30th

sounds of Chicago

More from Living Chicago Blues, Vol. 1 (1978).

Jimmy Johnson Blues Band, “Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home”

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Some things last. Nearly forty years ago, I co-produced this track, while working at Alligator Records. It remains one of my favorites. The hour was late. The lights had been turned down. But the tape kept rolling.

Carey Bell’s Blues Harp Band, “Woman In Trouble”
Living Chicago Blues, Vol. 1, 1978

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Here’s more of Carey, years later (2000, Switzerland [Bern]).

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)

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2015

Friday, November 20th

Milford Graves (drums, vocals) with Amiri Baraka (words), Roswell Rudd (trombone), Charles Gayle (tenor saxophone, piano), William Parker (bass), live, New York, 2013

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As you get older, you ain’t afraid to say something.

—Milford Graves

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago)

Douglas Ewart, George Lewis, Douglas Repetto, Rio Negro II, 2015 (The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now [through Sunday])