two takes
“Crepuscule with Nellie” (T. Monk)
Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar), live, Baltimore, 11/6/20
*****
Thelonious Monk (piano), live, Paris, 1969
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, outside Chicago (Salt Creek Trail)
sounds of Mexico
Son Rompe Pera, live (“Proteus,” “FOS,”” Reina de Cumbias,” “Ay David!,” “El Palo Poste”), Mexico City, published 10/17/20
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
*****
reading table
All I want
is not to befirst on one side,
then the other,but to conjure
a streamof sounds and images
for which I am notresponsible.
and maneuver within it—mouth and tail
one thought.—Rae Armantrout, from “Conjure” (Conjure, 2020)
alone
Jeff Parker (guitar, electronics), live (Quarantine Concert presented by Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago), 10/4/20
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
sounds of Chicago
Dustin Laurenzi’s Natural Language (DL, tenor saxophone; Jeff Swanson, guitar; Mike Harmon, bass; Charles Rumback, drums), live, Chicago (Constellation), 10/10/20
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
timeless
Blind Willie Johnson (1897-1945), “God Don’t Never Change,” 1929
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
what’s new
William Parker Trio (WP, bass; Ava Mendoza, guitar; Gerald Cleaver, drums), live (performance begins at 3:10), New York (live-streamed by Skopje Jazz Festival, North Macedonia), 10/15/20
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
*****
reading table
Now is the time to experiment, and there is no choice but to experiment.
—Gustavo Dudamel (1981-), Music & Artistic Director, Los Angeles Philharmonic (quoted in Alex Ross, “The L.A. Philharmonic’s Emotional Return to an Empty Hollywood Bowl,” New Yorker, 9/28/20)
soundtrack to a dream I’d love to have
Jon Hassell (1937-, trumpet), “Sketches of the Mediterranean” (with Paolo Fresu, trumpet, flugelhorn; Rick Cox, guitar; Kheir-Eddine M’Kachiche, violin; Peter Freeman, bass), live, France (Junas), 2013
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago
*****
reading table
a knotwood-eating bug
likes what it likes . . .
evening dew—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
two takes
Oliver Messiaen (1908-1992), O sacrum convivium (1937)
Susan Alcorn (1953-, pedal steel guitar), live, 2011
*****
Ensemble Aedes, live, France (Compiègne), 2013
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
So you must not be frightened . . . if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any agitation, any pain, any melancholy, since you really do not know what these states are working upon you?
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Letters to a Young Poet (1929, translated from German by M.D. Herter Norton)
two takes
“Cold, Cold Feeling” (J. M. Robinson)
T-Bone Walker (1910-1975, vocals, guitar), 1952
*****
Albert Collins (1932-1993, vocals, guitar), 1978
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my back pages
The other day, on Spotify, I saw that this track—something I co-produced in another life—had over 4 million plays. If someone had told me, when we were working on this album, that someday it would “stream” to millions of listeners, I would have wondered: What are you smoking?
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
Feeling inert?
Not anymore.
Tomeka Reid Quartet (TR, cello; Mary Halvorson, guitar; Jason Roebke, bass; Tomas Fujiwara, drums), “Old New” (T. Reid), 2019
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
On these southern roads,
on shrine or thatched roof, all the same,
swallows everywhere—Yosa Buson (1716-1784), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill
music clip of the day 