Chicago | music clip of the day

Category: Chicago

Saturday, January 17th

If your appetite for new music is insatiable, what better time to be alive?

Tyshawn Sorey (1980-), Quartet for Butch Morris (2012); International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), featuring Erik Carlson (violin); Joshua Rubin (bass clarinet), Eric Lamb (flute), Cory Smythe (piano); live, New York, 2012

Six decades of listening and, until yesterday, I’d never heard this particular combination of instruments. You?

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

James Ensor (1860-1949), Rooftops of Ostend, 1884 (Temptation: The Demons of James Ensor, through January 25th)

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reading table

Nature, the sky above us, is conducting no mean politics when it presents beauty to all, without discrimination, and nothing old and defective, but fresh and most tasty.

—Robert Walser (1878-1956), “Snowdrops,” excerpt (translated from German by Tom Whalen and Trudi Anderegg)

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2015

Wednesday, January 14th

sounds of Chicago (day two)

Sometimes encountering a new piece of music can turn your whole day around, which is what happened to me the other day when I bumped into this.

Georg Friedrich Haas (1953-), In Vain (2000)
Ensemble Dal Niente, live, Chicago, 2013

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Claude Monet (1840-1926), Cliff Walk at Pourville (1882)

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Seascape (1879)

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random thoughts

Eyes taste paintings no less than mouths taste food.

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2015

Tuesday, January 13th

sounds of Chicago (day one)

Art Ensemble of Chicago (Roscoe Mitchell, reeds; MCOTD Hall-of-Famer Lester Bowie [1941-1999], trumpet; Malachi Favors [1927-2004], bass; Don Moye, drums), live, Hungary (Budapest), 1995

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2014

Monday, December 22nd

genius at play

Henry Threadgill (alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader) leading a master class (excerpt), Big Indian, N.Y. (Creative Music Studio), 2014

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More.

Henry Threadgill and His Very Very Circus, “Too Much Sugar for a Dime,” live, New York, c. 1993

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Today Henry, who’s been lifting my spirits for over three decades, enters the MCOTD Hall of Fame, joining tenor saxophonist Von Freeman, trumpeter Lester Bowie, poets John Berryman, William Bronk, and Wislawa Szymborska, and gospel singer Dorothy Love Coates.

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lagniappe

art beat: more from Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Claude Monet (1840-1926), Irises (1914/17)

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radio

One of my favorite musical events begins tonight: the annual Bach Festival on WKCR (Columbia University), which runs through midnight New Year’s Eve.

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2014

Sunday, December 21st

three takes

“Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” (A. Showalter, E. Hoffman)

Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, live (TV show)

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Mahalia Jackson, live (TV show), 1961

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Iris Dement, recording (Lifeline), 2010

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lagniappe

art beat: Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Self-Portrait, 1887

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2014

Friday, December 12th

Bach cello festival (day five)

Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor; Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007), live, France (Vezelay), 1991

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lagniappe

art beat: Sunday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Oribe-Type Ewer (glazed stoneware), early 17th century, Japan

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2014

Wednesday, November 19th

tonight in Chicago

These guys will be playing at Constellation.

Frode Gjerstad Trio (FG, reeds; Jon Rune Strøm, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums)

Live, Poland (Poznan), 2012

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Live, New York, 2012

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lagniappe

random thoughts

What’s surprising isn’t that we die: it’s that we live.

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2014

Monday, November 17th

sounds of Niger

Group Inerane, live, Scotland (Glasgow), 2011

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday afternoon, Rito y Recuerdo: Day of the Dead, National Museum of Mexican Art (1852 W. 19th St., Chicago; through December 14th)

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onstage: last night, Happy Days (Samuel Beckett), Theatre Y (2649 N. Francisco Ave., Chicago; through November 23rd)

Sometimes I hear sounds. But not often. They are a boon, sounds are a boon, they help me . . . through the day. The old style! Yes, those are happy days, when there are sounds. When I hear sounds.

—Winnie

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2014

Friday, November 14th

sounds of Chicago

Steve Dawson’s Funeral Bonsai Wedding (SD, vocals and guitar; Jason Adasiewicz, vibraphone; Jason Roebke, bass; Frank Rosaly, drums), “As Soon As I Walk In” (S. Dawson), 2014

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Music and family have provided two of my life’s through lines. As little boys, my brother Don and I would play in the basement, listening, on the brightly lit juke box, to the Everly Brothers (“Wake Up, Little Susie”), and Johnny Horton (“The Battle of New Orleans”), and Gene Pitney (“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”). Soon we were out the door, hearing the Beatles at Comiskey Park, the Velvet Underground at the Kinetic Playground, and the MC5 in Lincoln Park. Still the beat goes on, undiminished by the passing years. Last week, for my sixty-second birthday, Don gave me (what else?) a record—the new album by this guy, Steve Dawson.

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2014

Monday, November 10th

Why not begin the week with something beautiful?

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Ballade No. 1 in G minor (1831); Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995), piano, live

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

[N]ow Miles [Davis] was relaxed and pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was sending him into several shades of ecstasy.

“Listen to those trills!” Miles ordered.

—1961 interview (Marc Crawford, The Miles Davis Reader)

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art beat: more from Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Interior at Nice, c. 1919

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Category: Chicago

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