Thursday, August 29th
nothing much happening
Phill Niblock, “Pan Fried 70” (Touch Food, 2003)
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lagniappe
random thoughts
If they’re both immeasurable, is a lifetime any greater than a moment?
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: hard-to-peg
2013
2013
Wednesday, August 28th
can’t wait: Chicago Jazz Festival, 8/29-9/1
The Engines (9/1; Dave Rempis, saxophones, Jeb Bishop, trombone; Kent Kessler [filling in for Nate McBride], bass; Tim Daisy, drums), live, Columbia, South Carolina, 2013
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2013
Sunday, August 25th
fifty years ago
March on Washington, August 28, 1963
Mahalia Jackson, “How I Got Over”
Vodpod videos no longer available.
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Martin Luther King
Has there ever been a greater musician of speech?
2013
Saturday, August 24th
alone
If you’re in the mood for his music, as I often am, nothing else will do.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Triadic Memories (1981); Louis Goldstein, piano
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lagniappe
reading table
In the summer rain
the path
has disappeared.—Yosa Buson (1716-1783; translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
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musical thoughts
What would it be like to live in a world without sound?
2013
Wednesday, August 21st
can’t wait: Chicago Jazz Festival, 8/29-9/1
Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet (8/30), Louis Moholo, drums, Steve Noble, drums, live, London, 2010
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lagniappe
reading table
What a glut of books! Who can read them?
—Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
2013
Tuesday, August 20th
sounds of Ethiopia
Mahmoud Ahmed & Badume’s Band, “Era Mela Mela,” live, Switzerland (Geneva), 2010
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Someday I will be remembered in the past tense as today, her birthday, my mother is.
2013
Monday, August 19th
can’t wait: Chicago Jazz Festival, 8/29-9/1
Hamid Drake, drums (artist-in-residence at this year’s festival) and Pasquale Mirra, vibraphone, live, Sardinia (Osilo), 2012
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lagniappe
reading table
In this mortal frame of mine, which is made of a hundred bones and nine orifices, there is something, and this something can be called, for lack of a better name, a wind-swept spirit, for it is much like thin drapery that is torn and swept away by the slightest stirring of the wind.
—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), “The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel” (excerpt, translated from Japanese by Noboyuki Yuasa)
2013
Friday, August 16th
sounds of Mali
Tired of having your feet on the ground?
Salif Keita, live, Netherlands (Hertme), July 6th
“A Demain”
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“Yamore”
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“Madan”
2013
Thursday, August 15th
Strangeness, in today’s musical world, is sadly undervalued.
Daniel Higgs (vocals, banjo), live, London (Cafe Oto), 2011
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lagniappe
art beat: Tuesday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Cranes at Umezawa Manor in Sagami Province (from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji)
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reading table
Speaking of insomnia, last night I came upon this.
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
—Herman Melville (1819-1891), Moby-Dick
2013
Wednesday, August 14th
sounds of Egypt
Some singers once you begin listening to them you cannot stop.
Umm Kulthum (spelled variously in English; c. 1904-1975), “Enta Omri” (You Are My Life), live, Paris (Olympia Theater), 1967
Listening to this one night at 2:30 a.m., after waking up and getting a glass of milk, I couldn’t make up my mind: Is YouTube a good thing, or a bad thing, for insomniacs?
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lagniappe
found words
Scores Are Killed as Forces Storm Camps of Morsi Backers
—Headline, New York Times website, today
music clip of the day 