One-word review: Wow!
Sofia Gubaidulina (1931-), String Quartet No. 1 (1971); Armida Quartet (Martin Funda, violin; Johanna Staemmler, violin; Teresa Schwamm, viola; Peter-Philipp Staemmler, cello) with Manaho Shimokawa (dance), live, Berlin, 2018
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
With dewdrops dripping,
I wish somehow I could wash
this perishing world—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill
like nothing else
Evan Parker ElectroAcoustic Nonet (Evan Parker, saxophone; Barry Guy, bass; Paul Lytton, drums; Peter Evans, trumpet; Okkyung Lee, cello; Sten Sandell, piano; Richard Barrett, electronics; Paul Obermayer, electronics; Sam Pluta, electronics), live, France (Mulhouse), 2015
#1
#2
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
*****
A melancholic introspection retrospective
Was taking place in a white-walled room called Summer Was.—Mary Jo Bang (1946-), from “Don’t” (Elegy, 2007)
alone
This tiny piece, which calls out to us from the 18th century, I first heard yesterday. Then I listened again. And again.
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), Les Tendres Plaintes; Grigory Sokolov (1950-, piano), live, Berlin, 2013
*****
reading table
Sweet springtime showers
and no words can express
how sad it all is—Yosa Buson (1716-1784), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill
sounds of Jamaica
Bob Marley and the Wailers, live (“Catch A Fire,” “Trenchtown Rock,” “Concrete Jungle,” “Midnight Ravers,” “Talkin´ Blues,” “Rebel Music,” “I Shot the Sheriff,” “Natty Dread”), Chicago (Quiet Knight), 6/10/75
*****
Happy—70th!—Birthday to my brother Don, with whom I’ve heard more music, in and around Chicago, than I could ever possibly recall. Most recently there was Ry Cooder at Thalia Hall; but before that—way before that—there was, let’s see, Bob Marley and the Wailers at the Quiet Knight (today’s clip), and the MC5 in Lincoln Park (during the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention), and the Velvet Underground at the Kinetic Playground (after which, on our way back to the car, we were stopped by Chicago police, in an unmarked car, who took us back to the station—curfew bust), and the Beatles at Comiskey Park, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, the Kingston Trio, the Smothers Brothers, and the Beach Boys at Arie Crown Theater (with Dad), and Johnny Tillotson, Gene Pitney, and Bobby Rydell on the basement jukebox, and . . . the list goes on, and on, and on.
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Reflecting over seventy years,
I am tired of judging right from wrong.
Faint traces of a path trodden in deep night snow.
A stick of incense under the rickety window.—Ryokan (1758-1831), translated from Japanese by Kazuaki Tanahashi
Why not begin the week with something quiet?
Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame), Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello (1987); Aleck Karis (piano), Curtis Macomber (violin), Danielle Farina (viola), Christopher Finckel (cello), 2015
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
How reluctantly
the bee emerges from deep
within the peony—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill
basement jukebox
Brother Vernard Johnson (1948-, vocals, alto saxophone), “Soul Metamorphosis” (V. Johnson, D. Ward), c. late 1960s
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
Thus spring begins: old
stupidities repeated,
new errors invented—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill
never enough
Don’t “listen” to this.
Close your eyes: let the sounds inhabit you.
Then you will inhabit the sounds.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Clarinet Quintet, K. 581; Armida Quartet with Sabine Meyer (clarinet), live, Italy (Merano [aka Meran]), 2019
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
Come out to view
the truth of flowers blooming
in poverty—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill
like nobody else
Blossom Dearie (1924-2009, vocals, piano), “Manhattan” (R. Rodgers, L. Hart), 1959
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
Gray hairs being plucked,
and from below my pillow
a cricket singing—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill
Soundtrack to a dream I’d love to have.
Steve Reich (1936-), Nagoya Marimbas (1994); ensemble 0, live, France (Pau), 2010
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
. . . life and the memory of it so compressed
they’ve turned into each other. Which is which?—Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), from “Poem”
alone
Joe Morris (1955-, guitar), live (Quarantine Concert presented by Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago), 5/1/20
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
We live in reality without possession or occupation and the love of reality unpossessed transfigures us.
—William Bronk (1918-1999, MCOTD Hall of Fame), “Desire and Denial”
music clip of the day 