Labels are often worse than useless. This guy, for instance, is often tagged as “cerebral.” But here’s something you can’t—I can’t, anyway—listen to without smiling.
Anthony Braxton, Composition No. 58
Taylor Ho Bynum Chicago Big Band,* live, 2009, Chicago
*****
Here’s another take—Braxton’s original recording (The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton [Mosaic], rec. 1976).
To obtain the value
of a sound, a movement,
measure from zero.
***
A sound has no legs to stand on.
***
The world is teeming: anything can
happen.
—John Cage, “2 Pages, 122 Words on Music and Dance” (excerpts)
*Taylor Ho Bynum & Josh Berman (cor), Jaimie Branch (tpt), Jeb Bishop & Nick Broste (tb), Nicole Mitchell (fl), Caroline Davis, Keefe Jackson & Dave Rempis (saxes), Jeff Parker (g), Jason Adasiewicz (vib), Nate McBride (b), Tim Daisy & Tomas Fujiwara (d)
Having grown up with 45s and LPs, I sometimes feel a bit like folks whose first records were 78s must have felt when I was young. Listen, for instance, to Pitchfork‘s review of M83’s new album (Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming):
Well, throughout the past decade, the 30-year old Gonzalez has honored the tremendous impact of growing up during the golden age of CD buying by implicitly serving as a patron saint for those who treat the weekly trip to the record store as a pilgrimage and still covet the album as a physical proposition: His output always comes stylishly packaged, with cover art worth obsessing over and credits that need to be scoured in order to spot the guest appearances.
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads(Kevin Nutt, gospel) —Give the Drummer Some (Doug Schulkind, sui generis, Web only)
—Daniel Blumin
—Cherry Blossom Clinic (Terre T, rock, etc.)
—Antique Phonograph Music Program (MAC, “78s and cylinders . . . played on actual period reproducing devices”)
—HotRod (“Shamanic vibrational love frequencies for the infinite mind,” Web only)
• WHPK-FM(broadcasting from University of Chicago)
Rara music is a Lenten processional music with strong ties to the Vodou religious tradition. It has been commonly confused with Haitian Carnival since both celebrations involve large groups of dancing revelers in the streets. Rara is performed between Ash Wednesday (the day after Carnival ends) until Easter Sunday (or Easter Monday in some parts of Haiti.) Rara bands roam the streets performing religious ceremonies as part of their ritual obligations to the “lwa” or spirits of Haitian Voodoo. Guédé, a spirit associated with death and sexuality, is an important spiritual presence in Rara celebrations and often possesses an ougan (male Voodoo priest) or mambo (female Voodoo priest) before the band begins its procession in order to bless the participants and wish them safe travels for their nightly sojourns.
Animal Collective, Unitled/“Brothersport”
Live, Chicago (Pitchfork Festival), 7/15/11
*****
Want to hear the entire set?
Jazz, classical, gospel, rock: the names may be different, but what they offer is the same—a way, pleasurably, to lose your mind.
**********
lagniappe
In the evening darkness at a place outside New York, an outlook where/you can perceive eight million people’s homes in a single glance. . . ./Schubert’s being played in some room/there and for someone the tones at this moment are more real than everything else.
—Tomas Transtromer, “Schubertiana” (excerpt), trans. Samuel Charters
Here, in an undated audio clip, Transtromer, winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature, talks about this poem and reads it in this English translation.
*****
Transtromer suffered a stroke in 1990, at the age of fifty-nine, which robbed him of speech and impaired the use of his right arm. Rather than delivering the customary [Nobel] laureate’s address when he accepts the award, on December 10th, he will play a piece on the piano using only his left hand.
—Dan Chiasson, “Night Thoughts: The poetry of Tomas Transtromer,” New Yorker, 10/31/11
Nils Økland, Hardanger fiddle
Sigbjørn Apeland, harmonium
“Blond blå,” live
What’s more surprising—that there’s so much ugliness in the world, or so much beauty?
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Who are we, if not a combination of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined? Each life is an encyclopedia, a library, an inventory of objects, a series of styles, and everything can be constantly reshuffled and reordered in every conceivable way.
—Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium (trans. Patrick Creagh; 1988)
Edward Wilkerson, Jr. (bass clarinet), Tomeka Reid (cello), Scott Hesse (guitar), live, Lakeside, Michigan (Lakeside Inn), 10/16/11*
Vodpod videos no longer available.
No matter how long you’ve been listening to music there are always new things to hear. When, for instance, is the last time you heard a trio featuring bass clarinet, cello, and guitar?
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
This whole division between genres has more to do with marketing than anything else. It’s terrible for the culture of music. Like anything that is purely economic, it ignores the most important component.
music clip of the day 