drums | music clip of the day

Category: drums

Wednesday, March 26th

alone

Günter “Baby” Sommer, live, Germany (Dresden), c. 2007

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musical thoughts

Who has more fun than drummers?

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lagniappe

reading table

Back to Mandrake the Magician,
The man of mystery often seen
In the company of swells and
Denizens of the underworld,
While mother kneads pie dough
And sways her hips to the radio,
And the fat, bow-legged dog
Drools over a red rubber ball,
When there is a flash of lightning
Followed by a roll of thunder
And sudden darkness upon us all.

—Charles Simic, “Memory Train” (New Republic, 3/24/14)

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Tuesday, March 25th

Happy (85th) Birthday, Cecil!

Cecil Taylor (March 25, 1929-), pianist, composer, MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, 2013 Kyoto Prize Laureate in Arts and Philosophy, etc.

Today, celebrating his musical life, we revisit three favorites.

Live, Germany (Nürnberg), 1984

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Live (with Rashid Bakr, drums; Thurman Barker, marimba, miscellaneous percussion), 1995

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Live (with Max Roach, drums), New York (Columbia University), 2000

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes.

—Cecil Taylor

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Nina Simone (“Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” [Trad.], “To Love Somebody” [B. Gibb, R. Gibb], “Suzanne” [L. Cohen], “Save Me” [A. Franklin], “Porgy, I Is Your Woman Now”/”Today Is A Killer”/”I Loves You Porgy” [G. Gershwin, D. Heyward]), live, Rome, 1969

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lagniappe

art beat

Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, 1940s

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2014

Saturday, March 22nd

passings

Scott Asheton, drummer (Stooges), August 16, 1949-March 15, 2014

Live (rehearsal), Tribute to the Stooges (SA, drums; Ron Asheton, guitar; J Mascis, guitar; Mike Watt, vocals, bass), “1970,” Belgium (Hasselt), 2002

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Live, Iggy and the Stooges, “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog,” France (Clisson), 2011

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Live, Stooges, “1970,” Michigan (Goose Lake Festival), 1970

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lagniappe

reading table

What do the sky and gardens know
of such disappointments?

—August Kleinzahler, “September” (fragment)

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2014

Wednesday, March 19th

sounds of New York

William Parker (bass), Christian McBride (bass), Cooper-Moore (drums), Charles Gayle (tenor saxophone), Hamiett Bluiett (baritone saxophone), Jason Kao Hwang (violin), live (benefit concert), New York, 2012

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Q: What would you do if you were not a composer?

Augusta Read Thomas (1964-): . . . I would spend all day listening. I could listen all day long until the day I die to music I’ve never heard and only begin to scratch the surface. There’s so much new. . . .

—chicagomusic.org

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2014

Wednesday, March 12th

not for the faint of heart

Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet,* live, France (Le Mans), 2004

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Q: What would people be surprised to know that you listen to?

Bill Clinton: Brötzmann, the tenor sax player, one of the greatest alive.

—Oxford American, 2001 (annual music issue)

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*PB, reeds; Ken Vandermark, reeds; Joe McPhee, pocket trumpet, tenor saxophone; Roland Ramanan, trumpet, wooden flute; Toshinori Kondo, trumpet; Jeb Bishop, trombone; Fred Longberg-Holm, cello; Kent Kessler, bass; Michael Zerang, drums; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums.

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2014

Tuesday, March 11th

sounds of Chicago

Paul Butterfield (vocals, harmonica), Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Mark Naftalin (keyboards), et al., live, Boston, 1971

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lagniappe

found words

Automated response received yesterday, after calling my pharmacy to find out if a prescription was ready, getting a recorded recitation of the available options, and hitting “0” in the hope of reaching a non-virtual human being: