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Category: reading table

Monday, June 15th

MCOTD Hall of Fame

His music I first encountered over 40 years ago, and it’s been a perpetual source of joy and inspiration ever since.

Henry Threadgill’s Zooid (HT, 1944-, alto saxophone, composition [MCOTD Hall of Fame]; Jose Dávila, tuba; Liberty Ellman, guitar; Stomu Takeishi, bass; Elliot Kavee, drums), live, Italy ( Cormòns), 2008

 

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lagniappe

random sights

other day, Chicago

*****

reading table

In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers.

—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)

Sunday, June 14th

testify!

The Meditation Singers, “Don’t You Want to Go” (E. Rundless), live, 1960s

 

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Chicago

*****

reading table

I dance, for the joy of surviving,
on the edge of the road.

—Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006), from “An Old Cracked Tune”

Saturday, June 13th

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

Thursday, June 11th

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)

Tuesday, June 9th

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

Tuesday, June 2nd

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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lagniappe

reading table

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

Monday, June 1st

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

Sunday, May 31st

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

Saturday, May 30th

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

Friday, May 29th

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