passings
Mose Allison, singer, songwriter, piano player, November 11, 1927-November 15, 2016
Talking, singing, playing (Mississippi Blues Commission, 2015)
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Pete Townsend, Georgie Fame, Elvis Costello talking about “Parchman Farm”
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“Parchman Farm” (M. Allison), 1957
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NEA Jazz Masters Tribute, 2013
passings
Leonard Cohen, songwriter, singer, poet, novelist, Zen Buddhist monk
September 21, 1934-November 7, 2016
With Sonny Rollins (tenor saxophone), “Who By Fire,” 1989
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“Closing Time,” 1992
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“Everybody Knows,” 2014
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“You Want It Darker,” 2016
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
like nobody else
Bob Dorough (1923-), “Devil May Care” (B. Dorough), live (studio performance), Newark, N.J., 2015
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
baseball: Chicago Cubs
Whether staring and suffering, or grinning and hugging and high-fiving, fans become generic in every World Series. But I remember Cubs fans differently from my sporadic visits to the sunlit Confines in those lean years. They loved their Cubs and yearned for better times, but cheered without irony for every good or great play by the visiting team. It was the game they loved above all.
We will see these youthful champions in the post-season for years to come, I believe. Their infield has a combined age of ninety-six—my own age, as it happens—as good a young bunch as I can recall. Bryant, the third baseman and coming National League M.V.P., goes six feet five and bats from a spread-legged crouch that expands magically into a sudden tall tree with the skyward bat at its top. He’s also swift. That sprint of his around the bases from first reminded you of a clip from the Olympics. The shortstop, Addison Russell, who is twenty-two, batted in six runs in Game 6. Báez, at second, patrols his environs with a feline muscularity. Twenty-seven-year-old Anthony Rizzo, the first baseman, bats left, and may prove to be the best of the quartet—with any luck, a future Hall of Famer whose best years await us.
—Roger Angell, New Yorker, 11/3/16
Why not begin the week with something beautiful?
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996), Rain Tree Sketch (1982); Peter Serkin (piano), live, Tokyo, 2003
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Glencoe, Ill. (Chicago Botanic Garden)
*****
random thoughts
Time change—all the pleasures of jet lag without ever leaving home.
This I could listen to all day.
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996), Rain Tree (1981); Bard Percussion (Amy Garapic, vibraphone; Petra Elek, marimba; Zihan Yi, marimba), live, Annandale-on-Hudson (Bard College), New York, 2012
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
We see with memory. My memory is different from yours, so if we’re both standing in the same place we’re not quite seeing the same thing. Different individuals have different memories, therefore other elements are playing a part. Whether you have been in a place before will affect you, and how well you know it. There’s no objective vision ever—ever.
—David Hockney (1937-), A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney (Martin Grayford)
never enough
Miles Davis (with Wayne Shorter, saxophones; Chick Corea, keyboards; Dave Holland, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums), live, Paris, 1969*
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lagniappe
baseball: Chicago Cubs
It’s going to take a while, maybe a year or two, for this to sink in.
*****
*Setlist (courtesy of YouTube):
1. Introduction 0:00
2. Directions 0:34
3. Bitches Brew 8:33
4. Paraphernalia 22:50
5. Riot 35:21
6. I Fall In Love Too Easily 38:42
7. Sanctuary 40:53
8. Miles Runs The Voodoo Down 45:13
9. The Theme 1:02:45
more
Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet), Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums), live
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
sui generis
Sculpture, “Untitled,” 2016
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill. (Trumpenstein)
*****
baseball: Chicago Cubs
. . . Cleveland leads this World Series 3-2, but it feels very close—like, as close to tied as it can be without being, you know, actually tied.
—Thomas Boswell, Washington Post, 10/31/16
Repetitive?
Yes.
Boring?
Not to these ears.
William Basinski, Watermusic II, 2003
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
baseball: Chicago Cubs
Now, it’s onto Cleveland, with a confident team, a DH in [Kyle] Schwarber, [Aroldis] Chapman knowing he’s capable of going longer than two innings, and a “Rocky’’ tape stuffed in their equipment bag.
“The boys are feeling real good right now,’’ said [Anthony] Rizzo, who was impersonating Rocky Balboa with shadow-boxing before the game, even playing the “Rocky’’ theme as his walk-up music before his first at-bat. “We had a good time in here before the game. We’re going the bout. We’re going the distance.
“We’re bought in.
“And we believe in it.’’
—Bob Nightengale, USA Today, 10/31/16
tonight in Chicago
He’ll be playing at Constellation.
Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet) with John Edwards (bass), Mark Sanders (drums), live, Latvia (Riga), 2014
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), The Geranium, 1906
music clip of the day 