Wednesday, January 6th
sounds of Nigeria
Wizkid, “Ojuelegba,” 2014 (audio) – 2015 (video)
*****
Remix featuring Drake and Skepta, 2015
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: hard-to-peg
2016
2016
Tuesday, January 5th
sounds of Cameroon
Jovi, “Zélé,” 2015
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reading table
Maybe you go looking for one thing and find another.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), Don Quixote (translated from Spanish by Edith Grossman; internal quotation marks omitted)
2016
Monday, January 4th
more sounds of Kinshasa*
Mbongwana Star, “Malukayi” (feat. Konono No. 1), 2015
*****
*Democratic Republic of Congo.
2016
Sunday, January 3rd
Aretha’s daddy
One of these days, the cloud will be lifted . . .
—Rev. C. L. Franklin
Rev. C. L. Franklin, live, Detroit
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lagniappe
reading table
The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that ships are sometimes wrecked.
—Simone Weil (1909-1943), “The Love of God and Affliction” (translated from French by Richard Rees)
*****
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
the beat goes on
2,200 posts—and counting.
2016
Saturday, January 2nd
sounds of Chicago and Switzerland
Need a jolt?
Easel (Christoph Erb, tenor saxophone [Switzerland]; Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello, electronics [Chicago]; Michael Zerang, drums [Chicago]), live, Moscow, 2015
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Note to self: Listen, always, as if it was the first time—and the last.
*****
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
2015
Tuesday, December 29th
This guy takes me places no one else does.
Tim Berne’s Snakeoil (TB, alto saxophone; Oscar Noriega, clarinet; Matt Mitchell, piano; Ches Smith, drums, vibraphone), “Small World in a Small Town” (T. Berne), live, Brazil (Sao Paulo), 2015
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Joan Mitchell (1925-1992), City Landscape, 1955
2015
Monday, December 28th
Close your eyes . . .
John Luther Adams (1953-), . . . and bells remembered . . . (2005)
Callithumpian Consort, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
aware of the sun
setting, the butterfly
flits away—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
2015
Saturday, December 26th
sounds of Kinshasa*
Mbongwana Star, “Kala,” 2015
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Birds, plants, music—one of the most astonishing things about this most astonishing world is its variousness.
*****
*Democratic Republic of Congo.
2015
Thursday, December 24th
Feel like floating?
Steve Reich (1936-), Six Marimbas (1986); Undergraduate Recital (Colin Van de Reep, Noam Bierstone, Sandro Valiante, Mark Morton, Ben Reimer, Ben Duinker), McGill University, Montreal, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
—Simone Weil (1909-1943; quoted at Orange Crate Art)
2015
Tuesday, December 22nd
The only thing hard about listening to this is letting go of everything else.
John Luther Adams (1953-), Dream in White on White (1992); Virtuoso String Orchestra (Joaquin Valdepenas, cond.), Sanya Eng (harp), live, Toronto, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
Barn’s burnt down—
now
I can see the moon.—Mizuta Masahide, 1657-1723 (translated from Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto)
