Composers, too, like singers, saxophonists, even drummers, have distinctive voices. Here’s one we haven’t heard in a while.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), For Stefan Wolpe (1986), The Choir of Saint Ignatius of Antioch (Harold Chaney, cond.), Benjamin Ramirez & Thomas Kolor, vibraphones
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lagniappe
random thoughts
My father, gone since 1977, does he miss being alive?
Jose James, “Do You Feel”
Live, KCRW Berkeley Street Session, Santa Monica, 12/17/12
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
R&B?
Jazz?
Pop?
We need a new vocabulary—or maybe none at all.
Feel like floating?
Steve Reich (1936-), Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76)
eighth blackbird, Third Coast Percussion, et al., live, Chicago, 2011
Rock drummers trying to play jazz usually sound like, well, rock drummers trying to play jazz. Jazz drummers trying to play rock are no different; they typically sound like tourists pretending to be natives. This guy, no matter the idiom (rock, jazz, gospel, whatever), sounds right at home.
Brian Blade and The Fellowship Band, live, Chicago, 3/14/13
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lagniappe
reading table
Maybe we think that nirvana is a place where there are no problems, no more delusions. Maybe we think nirvana is something very beautiful, something unattainable. We always think nirvana is something very different from our own life. But we must really understand that it is right here, right now.
—Taizan Maezumi, Appreciate Your Life (2001)
Most saxophonists play with their mouths and fingers.
Not this guy—he uses his whole body.
Mats Gustafsson, baritone saxophone, live, Romania (Bucharest), 2010
*****
Sunday afternoon, at an art gallery on Chicago’s west side (Corbett vs. Dempsey), I heard Gustafsson, who lives in Sweden, perform with the Chicago-based reed player Ken Vandermark. One-word review: mesmerizing.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Sometimes discaholism is taken to its most further borders when the “holy 4″ is fulfilled:
When a vinyl has the holy 4 qualities: great music, great title, great rarity and an AMAZING cover and design!!!
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‘one piece of vinyl per day keeps the doctor away’
—Mats Gustafsson, Discaholic Corner
What I love about the ’net is that sometimes, like yesterday, when I happened upon this, you find yourself being lifted out of your seat by something you didn’t even know existed two minutes ago.
Ned Rothenberg (clarinet, alto saxophone) & Samir Chatterjee (tabla), “Interstellar Duo #3,” live, New York, 2009
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lagniappe
reading table
The more I read, the less I understand.
—Charles Simic, “Serving Time” (New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012)
They sounded so good last Sunday—let’s hear some more.
Pastor B. L. Blade with Daniel Lanois (guitar, vocals), Brian Blade (drums), et al.
“The Maker” (D. Lanois), excerpt (“Oh, river rise from your sleep.”)
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lagniappe
random thoughts
How strange it seems sometimes, like the other day in the shower, to have hands and feet.
sui generis
Quintron and Miss Pussycat, “Freedom,” New Orleans
Too Thirsty For Love, 2008
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lagniappe
reading table
Language is finite and formal; reality is infinite and formless. Order is comic; chaos is tragic.
—John Updike, Assorted Prose (1965)
two takes
It’s spring!
“Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most” (T. Wolf & F. Landesman)
Betty Carter (1929-1998), Inside Betty Carter, 1964
*****
Bob Dorough (1923-), Right On My Way Home, 1997
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lagniappe
reading table
spring rain—
the uneaten ducks
are quacking—Kobayashi Issa, 1813 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
keep on dancing
How many steps separate the club and the church?
Theo Parrish, Netherlands (Amsterdam), 2011
Cajmere, “Brighter Days”
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Wash up in the sound if you want to . . .
Theo inviting folks to the gig:
music clip of the day 