like nobody else
Nina Simone (“Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” [Trad.], “To Love Somebody” [B. Gibb, R. Gibb], “Suzanne” [L. Cohen], “Save Me” [A. Franklin], “Porgy, I Is Your Woman Now”/”Today Is A Killer”/”I Loves You Porgy” [G. Gershwin, D. Heyward]), live, Rome, 1969
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lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, 1940s
sounds of Los Angeles
Living Off the Wall: East Los, 2014
Trailer
***
#1 (Backyard Intro)
***
#2 (Anthony)
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#3 (Lauren)
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#4 (Nekro)
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#5 (The Show)
spring!
Bob Dorough (1923-; vocals, piano), “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most” (T. Wolf, F. Landesman), 1997
*****
Blossom Dearie (1924-2009; vocals, piano), “They Say It’s Spring” (M. Clark, B. Haymes), 1958
*****
Sun Ra Arkestra (SR [1914-1993], piano; June Tyson, vocals; John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, et al.), “Springtime Again” (S. Ra), live, Rome, 1980
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lagniappe
reading table
A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown—
Who ponders this tremendous scene—
This whole Experiment of Green—
As if it were his own!—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886; Franklin #1356)
***
spring rain—
the uneaten ducks
are quacking—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
sleepless in Chicago
Some folks sleep all night, or so I’ve heard. Maybe you’re one of them. If not, here’s a mix you might try—a sonic tonic.
1. Play this on repeat.
John Luther Adams (1953-), “The Farthest Place” (2001); piano (Clint Davis), vibraphone (Brian Archinal & Andy Bliss), bass (Satoru Tagawa), violin (Lydia Kabalen); University of Kentucky (Lexington), 2008
2. Ditto.
Waterfall Sounds, Cow Creek
3. Adjust volume levels to taste.
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lagniappe
reading table
For you fleas too
the nights must be long,
they must be lonely.—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827; translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
Nick Hennies (music, film editing), “Lineal” (Part 1), 2009
[vimeo 7567186 w=560&h=315]
Someday our world, and its shiny technology, will seem no less remote.
serendipity*
Christopher DeLaurenti (sampling Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On” [1971]), live, Seattle, 2009
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lagniappe
reading table: passings
Bill Knott, February 17, 1940-March 12, 2014
Night Thought
Compared to one’s normal clothes, pajamas
are just as caricature as the dreams
they bare: farce-skins, facades, unserious
soft versions of the mode diem, they seem
to have come from a posthumousness;
floppy statues of ourselves, slack seams
of death. Their form mimics the decay
that will fit us so comfortably someday.
*****
*This I bumped into yesterday, listening to the radio (WFMU: Miniature Minotaurs [Kurt Gottschalk]).
sounds from all over
Russia
Anton Maskeliade, “Crown,” Moscow, 2014
*****
Japan
Perfume, “Sweet Refrain,” 2013
*****
Egypt
Cellar Door, “Blind,” 2013
alone
Akio Suzuki (self-made instrument), live, England (Newcastle), 2014
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Each day we have a choice. We can listen, again, to stuff we’ve heard before. Or we can open our ears to something new.
*****
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), Hiroshige’s Winter Scenes (through 3/20/14)
Yabu Street at the foot of Atago Hill (from the series “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo”), 1857
not for the faint of heart
Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet,* live, France (Le Mans), 2004
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Q: What would people be surprised to know that you listen to?
Bill Clinton: Brötzmann, the tenor sax player, one of the greatest alive.
—Oxford American, 2001 (annual music issue)
*****
*PB, reeds; Ken Vandermark, reeds; Joe McPhee, pocket trumpet, tenor saxophone; Roland Ramanan, trumpet, wooden flute; Toshinori Kondo, trumpet; Jeb Bishop, trombone; Fred Longberg-Holm, cello; Kent Kessler, bass; Michael Zerang, drums; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums.
serendipity
This I bumped into yesterday, while taking a break from work (murder case, tax stuff, etc.). I found it enthralling—maybe you will too.
Okkyung Lee (cello), live, Ireland (Cork), 2012
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lagniappe
radio
Today, on the heels of yesterday’s celebration of Ornette Coleman, WKCR (Columbia University) is hosting yet another birthday marathon—this one for jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, born on this date in 1903.
Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra (with Bix Beiderbecke [1903-1931], cornet), “I’m Coming Virginia” (1927)
