Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Second Hand (1970),* New York (Brooklyn Academy of Music), 2011
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lagniappe
random thoughts
What if your entire life—every thought, every movement, every word—were actually a work of art, only pretending to be something ordinary?
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*Merce Cunningham, choreography; John Cage, music; Jasper Johns, costumes.
sounds of New York
David Van Tieghem, “Ear to the Ground,” 1981
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lagniappe
art beat
Robert Frank (1924-), New York, 1958
Here’s a variation, from the 1960s civil rights struggles, on the gospel song we heard Sunday.
SNCC Freedom Singers (AKA The Freedom Singers), “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind on Freedom,” live, Turkey, 2007
We started singing songs at the mass meetings. Songs of the movement gave you energy–a willingness and a wantingness to want to be free. Whenever there was a march to be taken place, there were songs that we would use to motivate the people to get in the line. One such song was “I Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Freedom.” Most of the songs from the movement were taken from spirituals, gospel, and rhythm and blues–any type of music. Someone in the audience would start and say, “Come and go with me to that land. Come and go with me to that land.” And the rest would just repeat it.
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And here’s another take on the original.
Mavis Staples, “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind on Jesus,” recording (One True Vine), 2013
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lagniappe
art beat
Danny Lyon (1942-), Atlanta (Toddle House), 1963
People talk about getting enough of this or that in their daily diet. But what about beauty? There’s an epidemic, unreported by TV, radio, newspapers, of beauty malnutrition.
Lou Harrison (1917-2003), Threnody for Carlos Chavez (1978); William Winant Percussion Group with David Abel (viola), live, Berkeley, Calif., 2010
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lagniappe
art beat: Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago (while waiting for the jury to return a verdict in a trial involving an alleged conspiracy to steal millions of dollars of diamonds)
Paul Cezanne, The Bay of Marseilles, Seen From L’Estaque, c. 1885
Is any instrument more compelling than the human voice?
Patty Griffin, live, Washington, D.C., 2013
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lagniappe
art beat
Lee Friedlander (1934-)
Feel like floating?
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), For Philip Guston (1984)
S.E.M. Ensemble, 2000
love it or hate it
Terrie Ex (guitar), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums), live, Paris, 2012
#1
#2
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lagniappe
art beat
Danny Lyon (1942-), Chicago (Uptown), 1965
This guy, like another New Yorker,* contains multitudes.
John Zorn (with Marc Ribot, guitar; John Medeski, keyboards, et al.), live, Poland (Warsaw), 2013
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I’m an additive person—the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can’t see the connections, but they are there.
—John Zorn
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*Walt Whitman (“Song of Myself”): “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
adlib-ability
Drummer Big Black (AKA Daniel Ray, 1934-), talking and playing (with Go: Organic Orchestra, Venice, Calif., 2005)
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lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, c. 1940
music clip of the day 