Thursday, 12/9/10
Some music asks nothing more than to be a source of delight.
Wim Mertens Ensemble, “Maximizing the Audience,” live, Spain (Madrid), 1998
Vodpod videos no longer available.music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: hard-to-peg
2010
Wednesday, 12/1/10
recipe
take one electric guitar
add another
& another
& . . .
Glenn Branca Ensemble, Symphony No. 5, live, New York (The Kitchen), 1984
Part 1
***
Part 2
**********
lagniappe
Born . . . in 1949, [Glenn Branca] . . . ignored rock until attracted to the repetitiveness of certain songs by the Kinks and Paul Revere and the Raiders. He claims to have taught himself composition by listening to guitar feedback at point-blank range for forty-five minutes at a time.
—Kyle Gann, American Music in the Twentieth Century (1997)
2010
Wednesday, 11/24/10
Coolest guy on the planet?
Will Gaines (tap dance) with Steve Beresford (piano), Alex Ward (clarinet), live, London, 2009
**********
lagniappe
I tap-danced for ten years before I began to understand that people don’t make musicals anymore.
2010
Sunday, 11/21/10
ain’t no grave can hold . . .
Johnny Cash, “Ain’t No Grave,” 2003 (recorded), 2010 (released)
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
The Johnny Cash Project is a global collective art project, and we would love for you to participate. Through this website, we invite you to share your vision of Johnny Cash, as he lives on in your mind’s eye. Working with a single image as a template, and using a custom drawing tool, you’ll create a unique and personal portrait of Johnny. Your work will then be combined with art from participants around the world, and integrated into a collective whole: a music video for “Ain’t No Grave,” rising from a sea of one-of-a-kind portraits.
Strung together and played in sequence over the song, the portraits will create a moving, ever evolving homage to this beloved musical icon. What’s more, as new people discover and contribute to the project, this living portrait will continue to transform and grow, so it’s virtually never the same video twice.
Ain’t No Grave is Johnny’s final studio recording. The album and its title track deal heavily with themes of mortality, resurrection, and everlasting life. The Johnny Cash Project pays tribute to these themes. Through the love and contributions of the people around the world that Johnny has touched so deeply, he appears once again before us.
The Johnny Cash Project is a visual testament to how the Man in Black lives on—not just through his vast musical legacy, but in the hearts and minds of all of us around the world he has touched with his talent, his passion, and his indomitable spirit. It is this spirit that is the lifeblood of The Johnny Cash Project. Thank you for helping Johnny’s spirit soar once more. God bless.
*****
*****
reading table
Without trouble, there is no life.
—New Orleans restaurateur Provino Mosca, quoted in Calvin Trillin, U.S. Journal, “No Daily Specials,” New Yorker, 11/22/10
*****
radio
Happy Birthday, Hawk!
Today, Coleman Hawkins’ (106th) birthday, the folks at WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) are celebrating in their usual way—playing his music all day (and then some [’til 9:30 a.m. tomorrow]).
When I heard Hawk I learned to play ballads.
2010
Saturday, 11/20/10
I don’t know how boys do it these days—grow up, that is, without ever dreaming of being a cowboy.
Sunshine Boys (featuring J.D. Sumner), “We’re Gonna Ride on the Golden Range,” 1951 (Prairie Roundup)
2010
Wednesday, 11/17/10
Do not find yourself in the music, but find the music in yourself.
—Heinrich Neuhaus (Russian piano teacher whose students included Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, Radu Lupu, et al.)
Marilyn Crispell, “Dear Lord” (John Coltrane), live
**********
lagniappe
“Jesus Dropped The Charges” [The O’Neal Twins, Sunday, 11/7/10] made my day.
2010
Tuesday, 11/16/10
Find a note that pleases you.
Then another.
And another.
—Cecil Taylor (when asked what advice he would give to a young musician)
Cecil Taylor, live, 1981 (Imagine the Sound)
**********
lagniappe
art beat
Going to an art museum you never know what you may encounter. This painting, for instance, I’d never laid eyes on—never even heard of the artist—until I happened upon it the other day at Chicago’s Art Institute.
Arthur Wesley Dow (American, 1857-1922), Boats at Rest
2010
Monday, 11/15/10
Madonna would’ve been a big star back then, too.
“Snake Hips (Do The Wiggle Waggle Woo),” Happy Days (1929), with Sharon Lynn (singer), Ann Pennington (dancer)
**********
lagniappe
reading table
As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, — John, Isd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, whatcan we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,drive, he sd, for
christ’s sake, look
out where yr going.—Robert Creeley (I Know a Man)
Want to hear Creeley read this? Here (MP3).
2010
Saturday, 11/13/10
what’s new
(an occasional series)
The Books, “I Didn’t Know That” (2010)
(Want more of The Books? Here.)
*****
Prince Rama, “Om Namo Shivaya” (2010)
*****
Glasser, “Mirrorage” (2010)
2010
Wednesday, 11/10/10
two takes
Some lyrics sound as though they want to be read; others would look silly on the page but, unlike the page-worthy, they sing.
“If I Had A Boat” (Lyle Lovett)
Lyle Lovett, live (TV broadcast), 2004
*****
The Holmes Brothers, State Of Grace (Alligator), 2007
lagniappe
Gregory Isaacs/p.s.
Yesterday’s link to WKCR-FM’s Memorial Broadcast didn’t work right (only a fraction of the show could be accessed), but it does now.
*****
reading table
To fall into despair is just a high-class way of turning into a dope. I choose to laugh, and laugh at myself no less than at others.
—Saul Bellow, Letters (2010) (as quoted in yesterday’s New York Times review)
music clip of the day 