Monday, n. the day the weekly tide of confusion rolls in.
How about something simple?
John Cage (1912-1992), Six Melodies (for violin and keyboard; dedicated to Josef & Anni Albers), 1950; Annelie Gahl (violin) & Klaus Lang (electric piano), 2010
two takes
Robert Glasper Experiment, “Always Shine” (feat. Lupe Fiasco & Bilal)
TV show (David Letterman), 2/29/12
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Recording, Black Radio (2012)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Jazz, classical, R&B: so much great music, no matter the genre, shares a particular quality—density.
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reading table
It’s as if your body were itself a person
And the person wasn’t you.—Frederick Seidel, “Track Bike” (excerpt), London Review of Books, 7/19/12
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art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (between court hearings at the nearby federal court building)
Willem de Kooning, Untitled XI (1975)
sounds of South Africa
Why not start the week with someone you may never have heard before (as I hadn’t until the other day, when I bumped into her on WFMU-FM’s Mudd Up! with DJ/Rupture)?
Madosini (1922-), “Uthando Luphelile” (Power to the Women, 2005)
If, someday, Björk invites you over for tea, don’t be surprised if she wants to show you this.
Martha Argerich, at home with then-husband conductor Charles Dutoit, Switzerland (near Lausanne), 1972
‘Recently I have been guilty of watching a lot of YouTube,’ Björk says. She’s been exploring Martha Argerich (1972 home movies) . . .
—Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise (blog), 11/13/11
*****
Happy Birthday, Suzanne!
sounds of the Congo
Kasai Allstars, “Kabuangoyi,” Congotronics 2: Buzz ’n’ Rumble in the Urb ’n’ Jungle, filmed in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 2000
keep on dancing
Sometimes I don’t want to listen.
What I want are sounds washing over me.
Theo Parrish, “Summertime Is Here” (originally released 1999; reissued 2006)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
[W]hat we find in our mind and our thought is the same as what we find in our ear and in sound: an ocean in constant flux. Just as our ear turns out to be nothing but a construct, and likewise sound, neither can we isolate anything we might call our mind or thought, much less our self.
—The Heart Sutra, translation (from Sanskrit) and commentary (from which this is drawn) by Red Pine, AKA Bill Porter (2004)
*****
reading table
the whining mosquito
also thinks I’m old . . .
edge of my ear—Kobayashi Issa, 1819 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
two takes
“Dirt” (D. Alexander, S. Asheton, I. Pop, R. Asheton)
The Stooges
Live, Detroit, 2003
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Neneh Cherry & The Thing
Recording (The Cherry Thing), 2012
What more could you ask for, when you’re old, than to be able, still, to dance?
Drummers Roy Haynes (87, facing the camera) & Jack DeJohnette (69, back to the camera), tap dancing, New York (NEA Jazz Masters Luncheon), 2012
more favorites
Digable Planets with Lester Bowie (trumpet), Joe Sample (keyboard), Melvin “Wah-Wah Watson” Ragin (guitar), “Flying High in the Brooklyn Sky,” live, 1990s
(Originally posted 3/23/11.)
*****
Talib Kweli, “Get By”
Live, New York, 2007
(Originally posted 9/29/09.)
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Recording & Video, 2002
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Lupe Fiasco, “Hip-Hop Saved My Life”
Live, Los Angeles, 2008
(Originally posted 9/14/09.)
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Recording & Video, 2008
music clip of the day 