Complex? Yes. But its complexity is matched by its clarity. It breathes.
Milton Babbitt (1916-2011), Composition for Twelve Instruments (1948, rev. 1954): Ensemble conducted by Ralph Shapey (1921-2002), 1962
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
Weary of the 21st century?
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), Pieces de clavecin en concert No. 5: Marina Piccinini (flute), Kim Kashkashian (viola), Sivan Magen (harp), live, Boston, published 2021
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
timeless
Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame), Crippled Symmetry (1983); Ives Ensemble (Rik Andriessen, flute, bass flute; Arnold Marinissen, vibraphone, glockenspiel; John Snijders, piano, celesta), live, Amsterdam (Netherlands), 2008
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago
this week in Chicago
They will be playing, Thursday night, at the Chicago Jazz Festival.
Henry Threadgill’s Zooid (HT, 1944-, MCOTD Hall of Fame [flute, alto saxophone, compositions]), Liberty Ellman [guitar], Jose Davila [tuba, trombone], Christopher Hoffman [cello], Elliot Humberto Kavee [drums]), live, Washington, D.C., 2013
*****
Henry Threadgill, interview, 2021
sounds of New York
Robert Dick (flutes, composition) with Resonant Refractions, Concerto for Flute, Bass Flute, Strings and Percussion, live, New York, 4/2/22
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lagniappe
reading table
I have just had a long early-morning visit from Faustina who is still carrying on selling her “ticketys” (lottery tickets) bravely and walking miles every day with them, at the age of eighty-two. First she has to have a small drink of cognac, then she advises me about what number to buy this week—it’s 2—then she tells me lots of gossip, except that I can’t understand much of it; she speaks a sort of elementary gibberish of her own, part Spanish, part English. She is carrying all her tickets and money these days in a cardboard suit-case, brown wood-grained, with a red cross on one side, and “The Little Doctor” in large print. She was also carrying a large mirror, very tarnished, in a silver frame, that someone had given her. She is going to take out the mirror and use the frame for a photograph of, first—she said—her daughter, second thought, an improvement, the “Virgin Maria . . .”
—Elizabeth Bishop (Key West, Florida), letter to Robert Lowell, November 18, 1947 (Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell)
like nobody else
Roland Kirk Quartet (RK [aka, later, Rahsaan Roland Kirk], 1935-1977, saxophones, flute, clarinet, etc.; Ron Burton, piano; Steve Novosel, bass; Jimmy Hopps, drums), live (“Ode To Billy Joe,” “My Ship,” “Creole Love Call,” “The Inflated Tear,” “Lovellevelliloqui,” “Making Love After Hours”), Prague, 1967
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
like nobody else
This I return to again, and again, and again.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame), For Philip Guston (1984); S.E.M. Ensemble, 2000
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lagniappe
random sights
a while ago, Ireland (Dingle Peninsula)
sounds of Paris
Yusef Lateef Quartet (YL, 1920-2013, flute; Kenny Barron, piano; Bob Cunningham, bass; Albert Heath, drums), “Yesterdays” (J. Kern), live, Paris, 1972
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago
*****
reading table
This is a world of books gone flat.
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), from “Visits to St. Elizabeths”
sounds of Chicago
Black Diamond (Artie Black, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Hunter Diamond, tenor saxophone, flute; Matt Ulery, bass; Neil Hemphill, drums), live (performance begins at 16:00), Chicago (Constellation,) last night
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
never enough
Guitarist Pete Cosey? Miles gave him a lot of space, as he had pianist Bill Evans. And just as the Miles of Kind of Blue is unimaginable without Evans, so too with Cosey here.
Miles Davis Septet (MD [trumpet, organ, compositions], Dave Liebman [soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute], Pete Cosey [guitar, percussion], Reggie Lucas [guitar], Michael Henderson [bass], Al Foster [drums], Mtume [aka James Foreman, James Mtume; conga, percussion]), live, Stockholm, 1973
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
music clip of the day 