music clip of the day

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Category: Chicago

2012

Thursday, 2/2/12

most useless label?

 world music

 indie rock

 free jazz

The competition’s fierce.

Mostly Other People Do the Killing (Moppa Elliott, bass; Peter Evans, trumpet; Jon Irabagon, alto saxophone; Kevin Shea, drums), live, London (The Vortex), 7/14/11

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)

Vincent van Gogh

The Bedroom (1889)

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Self-Portrait (1887)

With van Gogh, the life continually threatens to overtake the art; the challenge is to look with fresh eyes.

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2012

Wednesday, 1/25/12

trying to teach white folks

This Is Ska! (1964)

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lagniappe

 found words

Real Messages from Heaven

—book title (Books-A-Million, 144 S. Clark St., Chicago)

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2012

Monday, 1/23/12

Yesterday we left off in 1977; let’s fast-forward 33 years.

Von Freeman (tenor saxophone), with Mike Allemana (guitar), Matt Ferguson (bass), Michael Raynor (drums); “Lester Leaps In,” live, Chicago (New Apartment Lounge, 75th St.), 2010 

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lagniappe

This year, as I’ve mentioned before, Von was awarded, along with bassist Charlie Haden, singer Sheila Jordan, trumpeter Jimmy Owens, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, an NEA (National Endowment of the Arts) Jazz Masters Fellowship—“the highest honor that our nation bestows on jazz artists.” Here’s the NEA’s video tribute.

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2012

Monday, 1/9/12

What do you get when you combine a pianist who plays with the percussive intensity of a drummer and a drummer who plays with the melodic buoyancy of a pianist?

Cecil Taylor (piano), Max Roach (drums), live
New York (Columbia University), 2000

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lagniappe

art beat: more from Thursday’s stop at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)

Mark Rothko, Painting (1953-54)

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2012

Saturday, 1/7/12

Roy Hargrove Quintet,* “Strasbourg/Saint Denis,” live, Paris, 2008

What better way to begin the new year than with live music, which is what I did last Sunday (with my wife Suzanne and older son Alex), catching these guys at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase, where they played an ebullient set for the overflow crowd.

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lagniappe

reading table

In January baseball lives in the imagination.

Now he was stuck at this ramshackle ballpark between a junkyard and an adult bookstore on the interstate outside Peoria.

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“The shortstop is a source of stillness at the center of the defense. He projects this stillness and his teammates respond.”

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When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see?

—Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding (2011)

*****

*RH, trumpet; Justin Robinson, alto saxophone; Gerald Clayton, piano; Danton Boller, bass; Montez Coleman, drums

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2012

Friday, 1/6/12

two takes

Here’s her first record as a solo artist.

Dionne Warwick, “Don’t Make Me Over” (B. Bacharach & H. David), 1962
Billboard Hot 100 #21, R&B #5

TV broadcast

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Recording

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When I first began, the kind of music I was recording was so unorthodox. It was like nothing else that was being played on radio at the time, and most people said, ‘Well, she won’t be around that long.’

—Dionne Warwick, 2011 Interview

More? Here. And here.

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)

Franz Kline, Painting (1952)

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Jasper Johns, Corpse and Mirror II (1974-75)

(Some folks duck into a church in the noon hour—this is my church.)

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2012

Tuesday, 1/3/12

the other night

Just a week after hearing vibist Jason Adasiewicz’s Sun Rooms trio there, my older son Alex (home for the holidays) and I went back to the Hideout, a small club on Chicago’s north side, to hear these guys.

DKV Trio (Hamid Drake, drums; Kent Kessler, bass; Ken Vandermark, reeds), live, Chicago (Hideout), 12/28/11

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2012

Monday, 1/2/12

what you’d be listening to if you were 20* 

Lupe Fiasco, “The End of the World” (sampling M83, “Midnight City”), 2011

*****

Adele, “Rolling in the Deep,” Jamie xx Remix, feat. Childish Gambino, 2011

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Hip-hop is jazz’s great grandson.

—Roy Hargrove, trumpet player, bandleader

*****

 found words

Don’t Die with your Teeth in a Glass.

—Billboard, Chicago Ave. at LaSalle St., Chicago
(Dr. Irfan [Ivan] Atcha, “Chicago’s #1 provider for Teeth-In-A-Day & Teeth-In-An Hour Dental Implants”)

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*Based on a sample of one—my son Luke. What a treat to have a pair of 20-year-old ears back in the house (and car) over the holidays.

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2011

Saturday, 12/24/11

When I was little, I would go into Chicago to hear live music—Peter, Paul & Mary, Kingston Trio, Beach Boys—with my father. Then, as a teenager, I’d go into the city with my brother Don to hear the Velvet Underground and the MC5, the Who, Tim Hardin and Tim Buckley, Muddy Waters. Now I make these trips with my sons. The other night, for instance, my older son Alex (now 24 and home for the holidays) and I went to the Hideout, a small club on Chicago’s north side, not far from where I once went with my father (now gone) and my brother (now hundreds of miles away), to hear this guy.

Jason Adasiewicz’s Rolldown (JA, vibraphone; Josh Berman, cornet; Aram Shelton, alto saxophone; Jason Roebke, bass; Frank Rosaly, drums), “Hide,” live, c. 2008

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lagniappe

reading table

No, the human heart
Is unknowable.
But in my birthplace
The flowers still smell
The same as always.

—Ki no Tsurayuki (872-945; trans. Kenneth Rexroth)

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2011

Tuesday, 12/6/11

 passings

Hubert Sumlin, guitar player, November 16, 1931-December 4, 2011

*****

Howlin’ Wolf, with Hubert Sumlin (guitar)

“Smokestack Lightning” (AKA “Smoke Stack Lightning”; rec. 1956, Chicago)

In a country that paid proper respect to its cultural heritage, this would be played for children in school, as part of their cultural education. Instead kids encounter it, if at all, on TV—the soundtrack to a Viagra commercial.

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“Back Door Man” (rec. 1960, Chicago)

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“Wang Dang Doodle” (rec. 1960, Chicago)

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

I started listening to people like Hubert Sumlin and trying to deal with a less muscular way of reaching people . . .

—Marc Ribot

*****

random thoughts

Rankin, Loda, Cissna Park, Schwer, Gilmer, Watseka: the world is filled with places we’ve never even heard of (many less than 150 miles away), as I was reminded yesterday driving home from Danville, Illinois, where I’d gone to see clients at the prison.

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