Saturday, June 11th
There’s Amsterdam.
There’s Ethiopia.
And there’s Amsterdam in Ethiopia.
The Ex & Han Bennink (drums), Ethiopia, 2002
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: guitar
2016
Friday, June 10th
voices I miss
Albert Collins (1932-1993), live, Switzerland (Montreux), 1979
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), Chicago 28 1957 (Abstractions, through 8/14/16)
*****
tonight in Chicago
The Chicago Blues Festival celebrates the 45th anniversary of Alligator Records, where, in the ’70s, barely out of college, I had the good fortune to co-produce recordings by Albert Collins, Koko Taylor, Son Seals, Fenton Robinson, Jimmy Johnson, Carey Bell, et al.
2016
Tuesday, June 7th
like nobody else
Leroy Jenkins Gut Band (LJ [1932-2007] violin, compositions; Brandon Ross, guitar; David Wong, bass; Newman Taylor Baker, drums), live, New York, 2000
2016
Monday, May 30th
Vancouver folkie + iconic Memphis rhythm section.
This should never have worked.
But it does, wonderfully.
Frazey Ford, “September Fields” (Indian Ocean), 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
The climate is pretty.
I wrote everything on it.
That’s the activity where it
gets relatively inauspicious.***
And you were sitting there
in the night of life. It sure was good.
My favorite desserts were there.
And when they invite you, it’s like an important document
goes missing. I’ll give you an example:
a twelve-year struggle upstate, in
the slick atmosphere of the breakfast room.
It might have gotten stuck in her farthingale.Otherwise no reply.
—John Ashbery (1927-), “As Someone Who Likes Travel,” fragments (New Yorker, 5/30/16)
To read Ashbery is to read English as a foreign language—which I mean as a compliment.
2016
Sunday, May 22nd
old school
Tommy Ellison & The Singing Stars, “I’m Not the Same Person,” live, Hempstead, N.Y., 2007
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lagniappe
reading table
I hear a river thro’ the valley wander
Whose water runs, the song alone remaining.—Trumbull Stickney (1874-1904), “Dramatic Fragments,” excerpt
*****
random sights
yesterday morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
2016
Friday, May 13th
more Prince
“I Wanna Be Your Lover,” live, Capitol Theatre (Passaic, N.J.), 1982
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lagniappe
reading table
Whatever we’re dealing with catches us
in mid-reconsideration. It’s beautiful,
my lord, just not made to be repeated,
that’s all.***
It was a moment, what can I say.
—John Ashbery (1927-), Breezeway (2015), fragments (“A Breakfast Radish,” “Domani, Dopodomani”)
2016
Friday, April 29th
only rock ‘n’ roll
Dog Faced Hermans, live, Lincoln, Neb., 1994
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday, Art Institute of Chicago
Vincent van Gogh, A Corner of the Asylum and the Garden with a Heavy, Sawed-Off Tree, 1889 (Van Gogh’s Bedrooms, through May 10th)
2016
Tuesday, April 26th
14 strings + drums
Tomeka Reid Quartet (TR, cello, compositions; Mary Halvorson, guitar; Jason Roebke, bass; Tomas Fujiwara, drums), live, New York, 3/8/16
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
2016
Sunday, April 24th
two takes
“Trouble Will Soon Be Over”
Blind Willie Johnson, 1930
***
Sinead O’Connor, 2016 (God Don’t Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson)
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
2016
Saturday, April 23rd
passings
Lonnie Mack, guitarist, singer, songwriter, July 18, 1941-April 21, 2016
“Memphis” (C. Berry), 1963
***
“She Don’t Come Here Anymore,” 1966
***
“Farther on Down the Road,” live (with Albert Collins, Roy Buchanan), New York (Carnegie Hall), 1985
music clip of the day 