How about a trip to Prague?
Cesare Tedesco (handpan), live, Prague (Charles Bridge), 2016
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)
Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), Woman and Bicycle, 1952-53
more
Patti Smith, “Peaceable Kingdom,” “People Have the Power” (with Michael Stipe), live, New York, 12/5/16
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Another take.
Live (“People Have the Power,” with Michael Stipe), Chicago, 12/30/16
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, New York
Perhaps even more striking than his self-absorbed failure to acknowledge the award in a meaningful way was her generous-spirited performance, in Stockholm, of his song.
Patti Smith, “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” (B. Dylan), live, Stockholm, 12/10/16
(Taking a break—back in a while.)
two takes
“What a Wonderful World” (B. Thiele & G.D. Weiss)
George Adams (1940-1992; tenor saxophone) & Don Pullen (1941-1995; piano), live, Japan (Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival), 1989
***
Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), live (TV show), England, 1967
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
what we’re about to lose
Michelle Obama, speaking to a gathering of school counselors at the White House (excerpt), yesterday
Our glorious diversity—our diversities of faiths, and colors, and creeds—that is not a threat to who we are; it makes us who we are.
sounds of New York
What other drummer does so much with so little?
Paul Motian Trio (PM, drums; Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone; Bill Frisell, guitar), “It Should’ve Happened a Long Time Ago” (P. Motian), live, New York, 2005
Making good on my resolution.
Stanescu Florin, live, Istanbul, 2014
New Year’s resolution
More accordion.
Live, Paris, 2012
sounds of New York
This guy’s one of my favorite alto players and composers.
Tim Berne’s Almost Human (TB, alto saxophone, composition; Matt Mitchell, piano; Dan Weiss, drums), live, New York, 12/14/16
#1
***
#2
sounds of New York
Pulverize the Sound (Peter Evans, trumpet; Tim Dahl, bass; Mike Pride, drums), live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
Jackie Evancho, a 16-year-old singer who became famous after appearing on “America’s Got Talent,” announced last week that she would sing the national anthem at the inauguration.
—“Andrea Bocelli Won’t Be Singing at the Trump Inauguration,” New York Times, 12/20/16
sounds of New York
Charmaine Lee (vocal) & Nate Wooley (trumpet), live, New York, 11/20/16
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lagniappe
reading table
If novelists know anything it’s that individual citizens are internally plural: they have within them the full range of behavioral possibilities. They are like complex musical scores from which certain melodies can be teased out and others ignored or suppressed, depending, at least in part, on who is doing the conducting. At this moment, all over the world—and most recently in America—the conductors standing in front of this human orchestra have only the meanest and most banal melodies in mind. Here in Germany you will remember these martial songs; they are not a very distant memory. But there is no place on earth where they have not been played at one time or another. Those of us who remember, too, a finer music must try now to play it, and encourage others, if we can, to sing along.
—Zadie Smith, “On Optimism and Despair,” (“A talk given in Berlin on November 10 on receiving the 2016 Welt Literature Prize.”), New York Review of Books, 12/22/16 issue
music clip of the day 