sounds of New York
Some of the most kinetic, exciting, enlivening sounds I’ve heard in a while.
Farmers by Nature (Craig Taborn, piano; William Parker, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums), live, New York, 4/4/16
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Martin Puryear, Maquette for Bearing Witness (1994) (Multiple Dimensions, through May 1st)
sounds of New York
Vijay Iyer Sextet,* live, New York, 2015
*****
lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), Palisades, N.J., 1958
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*VI, piano, compositions; Graham Haynes, cornet; Steve Lehman, alto saxophone; Mark Shim, tenor saxophone; Matt Brewer, bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums.
American in Paris
Steve Lacy Trio, live, Paris, 1982
*****
lagniappe
musical thoughts
‘Make the drummer sound good.’
—Steve Lacy, recalling Thelonious Monk’s advice (Robin D. G. Kelly, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original [2009]])
only rock ‘n’ roll
Building a Broken Mousetrap (2006), concert film of The Ex
sweet soul music
Curtis Mayfield (1942-1999), “Move On Up” (C. Mayfield), live (Master Henry Gibson [1942-2002], hand drums), Netherlands (The Hague), 1987
only rock ‘n’ roll
Joy Division, live (“Digital,” “New Dawn Fades,” “Colony,” “Autosuggestion”), Netherlands, 1980
Uneasy sounds for an uneasy world.
Iancu Dumitrescu (1944-), Hyperspectres for doublebasses, cellos, and percussion, live, Paris, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow / And leaden-eyed despairs
—John Keats (1795-1821), “Ode to a Nightingale”
old school
Dynamic Revelators (Wichita, Ks.), “Holding On,” live, Gurdon, Ark., c. 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
We have to live out our precise experimentation.
—John Ashbery (1927-), “Breezeway” (Breezeway, 2015)
like nobody else
Cecil Taylor Unit (CT, piano, vocal, percussion; Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone, percussion; William Parker, bass, percussion; Rashid Bakr, percussion; Andre Martinez, percussion; Brenda Bakr, vocal) with dancers (Doretha Davidson, Leon Brown, Ron McKay, Pauline Zaguhei), live, Germany (Berlin), 1983
only rock ‘n’ roll
Tenement, live, Philadelphia, 2012
music clip of the day 