what’s new
D’Angelo and the Vanguard (Pino Palladino, bass; Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, drums, et al.), “Ain’t That Easy” (Black Messiah), 12/15/14
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Here’s another take.
Live, Paris, 2012
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lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), New York (Subway), 1980
two takes
Need a lift?
Charles Ives (1874-1954), Ragtime Dance No. 4 (1904)
Alarm Will Sound, live, New York, 2013
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Orchestra New England, recording, 1990
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
As I remember some of the dances as a boy, and also from father’s description of some of the old dancing and fiddle playing, there was more variety of tempo than in the present-day dances. In some parts of the hall a group would be dancing in polka, while in another, a waltz. Some of the players in the band would, in an impromptu way, pick up with the polka, and some with the waltz, and some with a march. Often the piccolo or cornet would throw in asides. Sometimes a change in tempo, or a mixed rhythm would be caused by a fiddler who, after playing three or four hours steadily, was getting a little sleepy. Or maybe another player was seated too near the hard cider barrel. Whatever the reason for these changes and simultaneous playing of things, I remember distinctly catching a kind of music that was natural and interesting and which was decidedly missed when everybody came down ‘blimp’ on the same beat again.
—Charles Ives
only rock ‘n’ roll
Ajax, live, Boston, 2014
sounds of New York (day two)
Here, as in the city itself, density and spaciousness coexist.
Tim Berne’s Cornered,* “Embraceable Me,” live, New York, 10/12/14
*TB, alto saxophone; Oscar Noriega, clarinets; Ryan Ferreira, guitar; Matt Mitchell, piano; Michael Formanek, bass; Ches Smith, drums, vibraphone.
If I wanted to listen in on a conversation in a language I already know, I could go to Starbucks.
Christian Wolff (1934-), Pulse (1998); Jens Bracher (trumpet) & Julian Belli (percussion), live, Germany (Mannheim), 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
The Idea
by Mark Strand (April 11, 1934-November 29, 2014)For us, too, there was a wish to possess
Something beyond the world we knew, beyond ourselves,
Beyond our power to imagine, something nevertheless
In which we might see ourselves; and this desire
Came always in passing, in waning light, and in such cold
That ice on the valley’s lakes cracked and rolled,
And blowing snow covered what earth we saw,
And scenes from the past, when they surfaced again,
Looked not as they had, but ghostly and white
Among false curves and hidden erasures;
And never once did we feel we were close
Until the night wind said, “Why do this,
Especially now? Go back to the place you belong;”
And there appeared , with its windows glowing, small,
In the distance, in the frozen reaches, a cabin;
And we stood before it, amazed at its being there,
And would have gone forward and opened the door,
And stepped into the glow and warmed ourselves there,
But that it was ours by not being ours,
And should remain empty. That was the idea.
passings
Bunny Briggs, tap dancer, February 26, 1922-November 15, 2014
Duke Ellington Orchestra with Bunny Briggs (dance) and Jon Hendricks (vocal), “David Danced Before the Lord with All His Might,” live (A Concert of Sacred Music), San Francisco (Grace Cathedral), 1965
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And David danced before the Lord with all his might . . .
—2 Samuel 6:14 (King James)
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lagniappe
art beat
Robert Frank (1924-), Funeral—St. Helena, South Carolina, 1955
only rock ‘n’ roll
Couldn’t make it to Paris? (Me neither.)
St. Vincent, live, Paris, 10/31/14
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lagniappe
reading table
Most of the time I think of the self as a snare, and I don’t like being trapped in it. I try to reach out beyond my pittance of experience and connect to the world, but it turns out one way to do that is to be honest and accurate about my own life. I’m not convinced the personal is all that unique, anyway. It sometimes seems immoderate to claim really exceptional personal experiences, even though some of those experiences, particularly the painful ones, leave you with the worst feelings of isolation, feelings that have all the character of an absolutely individual, completely unprecedented experience—but you always find out that you aren’t alone. There are others, lots of others.
—Charles D’Ambrosio, email interview, New Yorker blog, 11/26/14
Thankful I am, too, for the unruly pleasures of rock ‘n’ roll.
Flamin’ Groovies, “Shake Some Action,” 1976
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
The story told in “Shake Some Action” is complete in its title—though in the song it’s a wish, not a fact, a desperate wish the singer doesn’t expect to come true. The words hardly matter: “Need” “Speed” “Say” “Away” are enough. It starts fast, as if in the middle of some greater song. A bright, trebly guitar counts off a theme, a beat is set, a bass note seems to explode, sending a shower of light over all the notes around it. The rhythm is pushing, but somehow it’s falling behind the singer. He slows down to let it catch up, and then the sound the guitar is making, a bell chiming through the day, has shot past both sides. Every beat is pulling back against every other; the whole song is a backbeat, every swing a backhand, every player his own free country, discovering the real free county in the song as it rises up in front of him, glimpsing that golden land, losing it as the mirage fades, blinking his eyes, getting it back, losing it again—that is its reckless abandon, the willingness of the music, in pursuit of where it needs to go, where it must go, to abandon itself.
—Greil Marcus, The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs (2014)
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.
four takes
“Lulu’s Back In Town” (A. Dubin, H. Warren)
Fats Waller (studio recording), 1935
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Art Tatum (live), 1935
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Thelonious Monk (live, Paris; Charlie Rouse [tenor saxophone], Larry Gales [bass], Ben Riley [drums]), 1966
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Jason Moran (live, New York [East Village apt.]), 2011
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lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, c. 1940
music clip of the day 