Wednesday, January 15th
sounds of Algeria, France, and the United States
Mohamed Lamouri, “Billie Jean” (M. Jackson), live, Paris, 2015
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: reading table
2020
Tuesday, January 14th
what’s new
One-word review: Wow!
Fay Victor (vocals), Baba Israel (vocals), Marc Ribot (guitar), Ingrid Laubrock (tenor saxophone), Kris Davis (piano), live (Celebration of the Life of Steve Dalachinsky), New York (Winter Jazz Fest), 1/11/19
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
*****
reading table
I speak across the vast
Dialogues in which we go
To clench my words against
Time or the lack of time
Hoping that for a moment
They will become for me
A place I can think in
And think anything in,
An aside from the monstrous.***
This is no other place
Than where I am, between
This word and the next.—W. S. Graham (1918-1986), from “The Dark Dialogues”
2020
Friday, January 10th
tonight in Chicago
He’s playing at Buddy Guy’s club, opening for Buddy himself.
Kingfish (AKA Christone Ingram, 1999-), “Hey Joe,” live, Tupelo, Miss., 2017
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langiappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
*****
reading table
a lovely night lit
with oil lamps . . .
croaking frogs—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
*****
radio
Today WKCR (Columbia University) is celebrating the birthday of jazz drummer Max Roach (1924-2007), playing his music all day.
2020
Monday, January 6th
like nobody else
Art Ensemble of Chicago (Roscoe Mitchell, 1940-, reeds, flute, percussion; Joseph Jarman, 1937-2019, reeds, flute, percussion; Lester Bowie, 1941-1999, trumpet, flugelhorn, MCOTD Hall of Fame; Malachi Favors, 1927-2004, bass, percussion, vocals; Don Moye, 1946-, drums, percussion), live, Germany (Hamburg), 1991
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
Culture’s beginnings:
from the heart of the country
rice-planting songs—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), from Narrow Road to the Interior (translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill)
2020
Saturday, January 4th
timeless
Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990), “Misty” (E. Garner, J. Burke), live, Sweden (Stockholm), 1964
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
welcoming in loads
of new year’s rain . . .
trashy house—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
2019
Sunday, December 29th
back to church
Swanee Quintet, “Prayer Changes Things,” live, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
You think you care what this book is about, but really you care how it sounds.
—Joe Moran, First You Write a Sentence (2018)
*****
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
2019
Saturday, December 28th
sounds of outside and inside
This I could listen to all day.
Cool Maritime (AKA Sean Hellfritsch), from Sharing Waves, 2018
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lagniappe
reading table
The bush warbler
in a grove of bamboo sprouts
sings of growing old—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill
*****
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
2019
Friday, December 27th
what’s new
Los Lobos, “¿Dónde Está Santa Claus?”, “Llegó Navidad,” “Christmas and You,” “It’s Christmas Time in Texas,” live, Washington, D.C., 12/18/19
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lagniappe
reading table
Along my journey
through this temporal world, people
new-year-house-cleaning—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill
*****
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
2019
Sunday, December 22nd
never enough
Gospel Harmonettes (featuring Dorothy Love Coates, 1928-2002, MCOTD Hall of Fame), “I Won’t Let Go” (D. Coates), live (TV show), 1964
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lagniappe
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
To limber your sensibility, stalk the aesthetic everywhere: cracks in a sidewalk, people’s ways of walking. The aesthetic isn’t bounded by art, which merely concentrates it for efficient consumption. If you can’t put a mental frame around, and relish, the accidental aspect of a street or a person, or really of anything, you will respond to art only sluggishly.
—Peter Schjeldahl, “The Art of Dying,” New Yorker, 12/23/19
2019
Tuesday, December 17th
sounds of New York
More of one of my favorite drummers—again at the Village Vanguard.
Ed Blackwell (drums, 1929-1992) with Mal Waldron (1925-2002, piano), Charles Rouse (1924-1988, tenor saxophone), Woody Shaw (1944-1989, flugelhorn), Reggie Workman (1937-, bass), “Git Go” (M. Waldron, excerpt), live, New York (Village Vanguard), 1985
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago
*****
reading table
Do you imagine that writers speak ‘as themselves’? No such selves exist.
—Peter Schjeldahl, “The Art of Dying,” New Yorker, 12/23/19
