Tuesday, June 21st
never enough
Thelonious Monk Quartet (TM, piano; Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Larry Gales, bass; Ben Riley, drums), “Rhythm-a-Ning” (T. Monk), live, London, 1966
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: drums
2016
Monday, June 20th
what’s new
Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra (Tony Allen, drums, et al.)
“Bade Zile,” 2016
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lagniappe
reading table
We don’t want him thinking too much.
—Cubs pitcher John Lackey on rookie catcher Wilson Contreras’s first start tonight, following last night’s home run in his first big-league plate appearance—on the first pitch
2016
Saturday, June 11th
There’s Amsterdam.
There’s Ethiopia.
And there’s Amsterdam in Ethiopia.
The Ex & Han Bennink (drums), Ethiopia, 2002
2016
Friday, June 10th
voices I miss
Albert Collins (1932-1993), live, Switzerland (Montreux), 1979
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), Chicago 28 1957 (Abstractions, through 8/14/16)
*****
tonight in Chicago
The Chicago Blues Festival celebrates the 45th anniversary of Alligator Records, where, in the ’70s, barely out of college, I had the good fortune to co-produce recordings by Albert Collins, Koko Taylor, Son Seals, Fenton Robinson, Jimmy Johnson, Carey Bell, et al.
2016
Tuesday, June 7th
like nobody else
Leroy Jenkins Gut Band (LJ [1932-2007] violin, compositions; Brandon Ross, guitar; David Wong, bass; Newman Taylor Baker, drums), live, New York, 2000
2016
Friday, June 3rd
Mozart one day, another day this—how lucky to live in a world so various.
Konono No. 1, “Yaya Mikolo,” live, France (Saint-Nazaire), 2009
2016
Thursday, June 2nd
sounds of Chicago and Oslo
Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone), Paal Nilssen-Love (percussion), “Song for Terrie,” live, Netherlands (Amsterdam), 5/26/16
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
A big birthday shout-out to my brother Don, my first listening companion. All these years later, the basement jukebox still plays: “Wake Up Little Susie” (Everly Brothers) . . .”North to Alaska” (Johnny Horton) . . .”(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” (Gene Pitney) . . . Hear it?
2016
Wednesday, June 1st
sounds of New York
Sandbox Percussion, live (excerpts from S. Reich, “Drumming”; A. Weiser, “Anatomy of a Drum Roll”; S. Reich, “Music for Pieces of Wood”), New York (Washington Square Park), 2014
2016
Tuesday, May 31st
Need a lift?
Angelika Niescier (alto saxophone), Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Florian Weber (piano), Chris Tordini (bass), Tyshawn Sorey (drums), “The Barn Thing” (A. Niescier), live, Germany (Krefeld), 2013
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), Martha’s Vineyard Rocks 127B 1954 (Abstractions, through 8/14/16)
2016
Monday, May 30th
Vancouver folkie + iconic Memphis rhythm section.
This should never have worked.
But it does, wonderfully.
Frazey Ford, “September Fields” (Indian Ocean), 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
The climate is pretty.
I wrote everything on it.
That’s the activity where it
gets relatively inauspicious.***
And you were sitting there
in the night of life. It sure was good.
My favorite desserts were there.
And when they invite you, it’s like an important document
goes missing. I’ll give you an example:
a twelve-year struggle upstate, in
the slick atmosphere of the breakfast room.
It might have gotten stuck in her farthingale.Otherwise no reply.
—John Ashbery (1927-), “As Someone Who Likes Travel,” fragments (New Yorker, 5/30/16)
To read Ashbery is to read English as a foreign language—which I mean as a compliment.
music clip of the day 