music clip of the day

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Category: jazz

2013

Monday, November 4th

three takes

This guy, like Monk, could take a familiar form, open it up, and create something both old and new.

Julius Hemphill (1938-1995), “The Hard Blues”

Live (with members of the Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra and the Either/Orchestra),  Boston, 1989


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Recording (JH, alto saxophone, flute; Baikida E.J. Carroll, trumpet; Hamiet Bluiett, baritone saxophone; Abdul Wadud, cello; Philip Wilson, drums), recorded 1972 (first released on Coon Bid’ness, 1975)

***

Recording (Julius Hemphill, alto saxophone; Marty Ehrlich, soprano and alto saxophone, flute; Carl Grubbs, soprano and alto saxophone; James Carter, tenor saxophone; Andrew White. tenor saxophone; Sam Furnace, baritone saxophone, flute), 1991

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lagniappe 

art beat

Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, c. 1940

280310_LevittA

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2013

Tuesday, October 22nd

two takes

“I Thought About You” (J. Van Heusen & J. Mercer)

Jeanne Lee (vocals) with Mal Waldron (piano), et al.
Live, France (Marciac), 2000

***

Mildred Bailey (vocals) with Benny Goodman (clarinet), et al.
Recording, 1939


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lagniappe

art beat

Garry Winogrand (1928-1984)

GarryW

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2013

Monday, October 21st

sounds of Chicago

Art Ensemble of Chicago (Roscoe Mitchell, saxophones, percussion; Joseph Jarman, saxophones, percussion, electric guitar; Lester Bowie [MCOTD Hall of Famer], trumpet, percussion; Malachi Favors, bass, percussion; Don Moye, drums, percussion [first clip])

Live, Chicago (Jazz Showcase), 1981


***

Recording (“Rock Out”), 1969

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2013

Monday, October 14th

less is more*

Rashied Ali (drums), Leroy Jenkins (violin), “Swift Are the Winds of Life,” 1975


*****

*Sometimes, anyway.

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2013

Thursday, October 10th

alone

Need a jump-start?

Cecil Taylor (1929-), piano, “Looking (Berlin Version) Solo,” live, Berlin, 1989


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

When you are playing, whether you know it or not, you are dancing.

—Cecil Taylor

*****

art beat

Lee Friedlander (1934-)

medium_Bluff_treebw

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2013

Monday, October 7th

tonight*

Andrew Hill (1931-2007), “Smoke Stack”

Vijay Iyer Trio (VI, piano; Stephan Crump, bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums), Historicity, 2009

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Andrew Hill (with Richard Davis, bass; Eddie Khan, bass; Roy Haynes, drums), Smoke Stack (AKA Smokestack), 1966 (rec. 1963)

This is one of my favorite albums of all time, of any artist, on any instrument.

—Vijay Iyer

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

More and more I find myself seeking sounds that don’t convey a particular feeling or mood but, instead, create a space I can inhabit, physically, emotionally, intellectually, if only for a short while.

*****

*On WKCR-FM (Columbia University), from 6-9 p.m. (EST), Vijay Iyer, pianist, composer, recent MacArthur “genius” grant winner, future Harvard professor, will be joining host Mitch Goldman “for a deep focus on Andrew Hill.”

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2013

Monday, September 30th

never enough

Thelonious Monk Quartet (TM, piano, compositions; Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Larry Gales, bass; Ben Riley, drums), “Epistrophy,” “Straight, No Chaser,” “Hackensack,” “Rhythm-a-Ning,” “Epistrophy,” live (TV show, Jazz 625 [BBC]), England, mid-’60s

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2013

Saturday, September 28th

good news, bad news

24 Recipients of MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant Named

—New York Times, 9/24/13

First the bad news: MCOTD was passed over, again. The good news? This guy, often featured here, wasn’t.

Vijay Iyer (1971-), pianist, composer, soon-to-be Harvard professor

“Imagine” (J. Lennon), live, Germany (Leverkusen), 2011

*****

“Actions Speak” (V. Iyer), live (Stephan Crump, bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums), New York, 2012

*****

“Somewhere” (L. Bernstein), recording (Stephan Crump, bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums), Historicity, 2009

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

the stillness of the valley
is itself a kind of music

—Du Fu (AKA Tu Fu; 712-770; “Visting the Fengxian Monastery” [excerpt]; translated from Chinese by David Young)

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2013

Wednesday, September 18th

serendipity

Yesterday. Late afternoon, working on an old murder case. Happen upon this: windows open, letting in a breeze.

Mary Halvorson Quintet (MH, guitar, compositions; Jon Irabagon, alto saxophone; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; John Hebert, bass; Ches Smith, drums), “Love in Eight Colors,” “Hemorrhaging Smiles,” live, Washington, D.C., 2013

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lagniappe

reading table

From now on
it’s all clear profit,
every sky.

—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), on his fiftieth birthday (translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)

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2013

Saturday, August 31st

For over thirty years he’s been taking me places no one else does.

Henry Threadgill’s Zooid, live, New York, 2013

#1

#2

*****

It’s not just notes on a page. Threadgill really reaches out and grabs you by the lapels. Someone else described it to me as ‘every time Threadgill enters, it’s like the curtains just parted.’ He has this way of cutting right through the texture of the music.

—pianist Vijay Iyer

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lagniappe

reading table: passings

Between my fingers and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

—Seamus Heaney (April 13, 1939-August 30, 2013), “Digging” (excerpt)

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