sounds of Oslo, Amsterdam, and Chicago
What if your office sounded like this?
Paal Nilssen-Love Trio (PNL, drums, percussion; Ab Baars, clarinet, shakuhachi, tenor saxophone; Ken Vandermark, tenor saxophone, clarinet), live, Oslo, 2011
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
The flowers seem not to know—this park’s in one of the city’s most violent neighborhoods (Austin).
Entering his sound-world isn’t hard. What’s hard is leaving.
Tristan Murail (1947-), La Barque mystique, 1993
yesterday in Chicago
At the Art Institute—next to Millennium Park, site of Saturday’s Gospel Fest—I heard this piece for the first time, played by three Chicago-based musicians (violinist Yuan-Qing Yu, clarinetist J. Lawrie Bloom, pianist Adam Nieman). It, too, sang.
Charles Ives (1874-1954), Largo for Violin, Clarinet, Piano (1901-02); Lucy Chapman-Stoltzman (violin), Richard Stoltzman (clarinet), Richard Goode (piano), 1990
This is a sound-world I’d be happy to inhabit all day.
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir (1977-), Ró (2013); Esbjerg Ensemble, live
sounds of Chicago
Ralph Shapey (1921-2003), Three for Six (1979); Oerknal!, live, Netherlands (The Hague, Amsterdam) 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
He ate and drank the precious Words—
His Spirit grew robust—
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust—
He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book—What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings——Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 1593 (Franklin)
Something to wash over you.
John Luther Adams (1953-), The Light Within (2007); New Music Detroit, live, Detroit, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
spring rain—
the uneaten ducks
are quacking—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
otherworldly
Iancu Dumitrescu (1944-), Infinity for bass clarinet and ensemble, Hyperion Ensemble (feat. Tim Hodgkinson, clarinets), live, Bucharest, 2009
#1
***
#2
I love watching this guy conduct.
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Vincent van Gogh, Parisian Novels, 1887 (Van Gogh’s Bedrooms, through May 10th)
This sound-world I could inhabit, happily, all weekend.
Gérard Grisey (1946-1998), Vortex Temporum (1994-96)
Ensemble Sonorama, live, Argentina (Buenos Aires), 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
When we recognize we ‘think again’
without knowing what or if
we thought before.—Rae Armantrout, “Fusion,” excerpt (New Yorker, 3/7/16)
Ashley Fure (1982-), Soma (2012)
Curious Chamber Players, live, Germany (Darmstadt), 2012
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Why shouldn’t our music be as mysterious as our life?
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
music clip of the day 