sounds of Chicago
Ornette and Denardo Coleman. Ry and Joachim Cooder. One way to make a place for yourself is to play something dad doesn’t—like drums.
Tweedy (feat. Jeff [guitar, vocals] & Spencer [drums] Tweedy), “Low Key,” live, Chicago, 2014
*****
taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
only rock ’n’ roll
Cloud Nothings, “I’m Not Part of Me,” live, Chicago, 2014
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lagniappe
art beat: more from Monday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Josef Koudelka (1938-), Spain, 1975
Nationality Doubtful, through September 21st
passings
Joe Sample, keyboard player, composer, February 1, 1939-September 12, 2014
Digable Planets with guests Lester Bowie (trumpet), Melvin “Wah Wah Watson” Ragin (guitar), Joe Sample (keyboards), “Flyin’ High in the Brooklyn Sky,” live, New York, 1990s
As much as I love Lester, a MCOTD Hall-of-Famer, this performance could get along without him. Same with Wah Wah Watson. Not Joe—he makes everybody sound better.
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Life doesn’t end; it stops.
His music, which I’ve been listening to for over forty years, never grows old. If anything, the opposite is true. Year after year, it gets stronger, deeper, fresher.
Blind Willie Johnson, “Trouble Will Soon Be Over” (with Willie B. Harris), 1929
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lagniappe
reading table
I love the past tense, but you can’t live there.
—John Koethe, “Stele” (fragment; ROTC Kills, 2012)
sounds of Chicago
Robbie Fulks, “Let’s Kill Saturday Night” (R. Fulks), live, Norway (Bergen), 2013
***
Here’s another take—his 1998 recording.
alone
Crazy what you happen upon in the middle of the night.
King Buzzo (AKA Buzz Osborne), “Boris,” “Ballad of Dwight Fry,” “Suicide In Progress,” live, Baltimore (Ottobar), 7/17/14
What I’m doing, it’s not folk music, it’s not heavy metal. It’s ‘molk,’ how ’bout that?
sounds of Chicago & Norway & the Netherlands
Who needs coffee?
Lean Left (Ken Vandermark, reeds [Chicago]; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums [Norway]; Andy Moers & Terrie Hessels, guitars [Netherlands]), live, Belgium (Brussels), 2014
#1
#2
#3
#4
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lagniappe
musical (& other) thoughts
Ken Vandermark has a lot of interesting things to say about improvised music and life as a musician, about politics and movies and journalism and New York, as you can hear in this podcast-interview.
voices I miss
Albert Collins (1932-1993), “Cold, Cold Feeling,” live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1979
Nobody sounds like this guy, whose 1978 album Ice Pickin’, recorded at Curtis Mayfield’s studio in Chicago and nominated for a Grammy, I’m happy to say I co-produced.
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lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), Birmingham, Ala., 1963
only rock ’n’ roll
Spoon, live (studio performance), Seattle, 7/24/14
sounds of Zimbabwe
Bhundu Boys, “Hupenyu Hwangu,” live, 1980s
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lagniappe
reading table
Yesterday’s email brought this from a reader.
The Layers
by Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006)I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
