sounds of New York
Pulverize the Sound (Peter Evans, trumpet; Tim Dahl, bass; Mike Pride, drums), live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
Jackie Evancho, a 16-year-old singer who became famous after appearing on “America’s Got Talent,” announced last week that she would sing the national anthem at the inauguration.
—“Andrea Bocelli Won’t Be Singing at the Trump Inauguration,” New York Times, 12/20/16
sounds of New York
Charmaine Lee (vocal) & Nate Wooley (trumpet), live, New York, 11/20/16
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lagniappe
reading table
If novelists know anything it’s that individual citizens are internally plural: they have within them the full range of behavioral possibilities. They are like complex musical scores from which certain melodies can be teased out and others ignored or suppressed, depending, at least in part, on who is doing the conducting. At this moment, all over the world—and most recently in America—the conductors standing in front of this human orchestra have only the meanest and most banal melodies in mind. Here in Germany you will remember these martial songs; they are not a very distant memory. But there is no place on earth where they have not been played at one time or another. Those of us who remember, too, a finer music must try now to play it, and encourage others, if we can, to sing along.
—Zadie Smith, “On Optimism and Despair,” (“A talk given in Berlin on November 10 on receiving the 2016 Welt Literature Prize.”), New York Review of Books, 12/22/16 issue
sounds of New York
Eli Keszler & So Percussion, “Archway,” New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
“I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.”
—Daniel Duane, “The Tent Cities of San Francisco” (quoting Justin Keller), New York Times, 12/18/16
Chicago blues
day two
Junior Wells (1934-1998; vocal, harmonica), Buddy Guy (1936-; guitar), et al., “Cryin’ Shame” (AKA “Country Girl”), live, Chicago, 1970
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lagniappe
reading table
winter wind—
he can’t find his roost
the evening crow—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
Sometimes I want to hear something that will quicken my pulse; sometimes I want something that will slow it—like this, for instance, which I heard the other night in Chicago, played by the group for whom it was written (a.pe.ri.od.ic). One sound . . . another . . . another . . .
Jürg Frey (1953-), Fragile Balance (2014), excerpt; Ensemble Grizzana (Jürg Frey, clarinet; Mira Benjamin, violin; Richard Craig, flute; Emma Richards, viola; Philip Thomas, piano; Seth Woods, cello); 2015
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lagniappe
reading table
Winter seclusion—
sitting propped against
the same worn post—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill (The Sound of Water: Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets)
back to church
Pastor Eric Thomas, Greater Harvest Missionary Baptist Church, “Ain’t No Need to Worry,” live, Chicago, 2016
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lagniappe
reading table
Each Second is the last / Perhaps
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), #927 (Franklin), fragment
tonight in Chicago
She’ll be playing at Constellation (where I’ll be listening).
Okkyung Lee (cello), live, Netherlands (Nijmegen), 2015
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lagniappe
reading table
On the Anniversary of the Death of Matsuo Basho
Winter rain on moss
soundlessly recalls those
happy bygone days—Yosa Buson (1716-1784), translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill (The Sound of Water: Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets)
sounds of Christchurch*
Roy Montgomery, “Five Bears,” 2016
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lagniappe
reading table
The way “The Tennessee Waltz”
is about having heard“The Tennessee Waltz”
before:an almost floral
nostalgia,is what we call
beautiful.—Rae Armantrout (1947-), “Overhearing,” fragment (Veil: New and Selected Poems)
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the beat goes on
2,500 posts—and counting.
*New Zealand.
sounds of Kinshasa*
Baloji with Konono No. 1, “Karibu Ya Bintu,” 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
One needs to keep a clear head when facing pirates in the Amazon.
—Hubert Kinski, 43-year-old Polish explorer, quoted in “‘There’s No Law on the Amazon’: River Pirates Terrorize Ships by Night,” New York Times, 11/18/16
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*Democratic Republic of Congo.
old school
Gospelaires of Dayton, Ohio, “Feel the Spirit,” live, Europe, 1966
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
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reading table
Talk is a way of not looking.
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Nothing speaks for itself.
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Most of the people you know are almost mad.
—Ann Lauterbach (1942-), Many Times, But Then (1979), fragments (“Then Suddenly,” “The White Sequence”)
music clip of the day 