sounds of Detroit
Don Was/Sweet Pea Atkinson, “Slow Down,” recording session, 2007
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lagniappe
art beat: more from the other day at the Art Institute of Chicago
This I never tire of.
Joan Mitchell (1925-1992), City Landscape, 1955
sounds of Chicago
Matthias Kranebitter (1980-), pack the box (with five dozen of my liquor jugs) (2013)
Mocrep, live, Chicago, 2014
[vimeo 111677932 w=560&h=315]
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lagniappe
reading table
Collage=life.
—Joseph Cornell, diary entry, 1964
Need a jolt?
Ballet mecanique (1924) by Fernand Leger and Dudley Murphy (cinematography by Man Ray), with original score by George Anthiel (1900-1959), as performed in 1989 by the New Palais Royale Orchestra and Percussion Ensemble (Maurice Peress, cond.)
This I bumped into Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it’s playing, continuously, in the exhibit Shatter Rupture Break, which runs through May 3rd.
sounds of Chicago
Billy Boy Arnold (1935-) & The Aces,* “She Fooled Me,” live, 1978
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lagniappe
art beat
Daido Moriyama (1938-), New York, 1971
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*Louis Myers (1929-1994), guitar; Dave Myers (1926-2001), bass; Fred Below (1926-1988), drums.
sounds of Chicago
Goofiness is a much underrated virtue.
Mucca Pazza, live, Washington, D.C., 2015
what’s new
Daniel Knox, “Don’t Touch Me” (Daniel Knox, Carrot Top Records, 2/24/15)
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lagniappe
reading table
Some people really are what they seem to be—though not that many.
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Like most explanations, it’s as plausible as anything else.
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Character, to me, is one more lie of history and the dramatic arts. In my view, we have only what we did yesterday, what we do today, and what we might do tomorrow. Plus, whatever we think about all of that. But nothing else—nothing hard or kernel like. I’ve never seen evidence of anything resembling it. In fact I’ve seen the opposite: life as teeming and befuddling, followed by the end.
—Richard Ford, “The New Normal” (Let Me Be Frank With You)
old school
Soul Stirrers, “He’s Been a Shelter to Me” (Paul Foster, lead vocal), “I’m a Soldier” (Jimmy Outler, lead vocal), live (TV show), early 1960s
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lagniappe
reading table
When you’re playing baseball, on that field, it’s like your whole life, it’s your world and you don’t want to leave it. It was such a joy to be there, to be able to make decisions on your own: when to swing, when not to swing; when to run, when not to run. I felt this is the only place in the world where I could make my own decisions.
—Ernie Banks (1931-2015)
only rock ‘n’ roll
The Avantist, “Ramses,” live (studio performance), Hickory Hills, Ill., 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
I am obliged to perform in complete darkness
operations of great delicacy
on my self.—John Berryman (1914-1972, MCOTD Hall of Fame), Dream Song 67
what’s new
Shabazz Palaces, “Forerunner Foray” (video by Chad VanGaalen), 1/9/15
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lagniappe
passings
Ernie Banks, Chicago Cubs infielder (SS, 1B), January 31, 1931-January 23, 2015
my back pages
On this date in 1977, at a church thirty miles north of Chicago, amidst the cold and the snow and the dark, tenor saxophonist Von Freeman (1923-2012), a MCOTD Hall-of-Famer, played for a wedding. He was accompanied by pianist John Young (1922-2008). Here is how they sounded that night, as people were entering the church (0:15-, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” “More”), as the bride walked down the aisle (8:00-, “In a Sentimental Mood”), and as folks were leaving (10:20-, “My Favorite Things,” “Song for My Father”).
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Von Freeman
music clip of the day 