spellbinding
Hariprasad Chaurasia (bansuri [bamboo flute]), Raga Bhimpalasi, 1991
#1
#2
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lagniappe
radio
Today, celebrating the jazz saxophonist’s birthday, WKCR-FM (Columbia University) is Coleman Hawkins Radio.
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reading table
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
—Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), The Rambler (#2), 1750
another take
Slow, dark, bluesy—this is a world away from the two church performances we heard last Sunday.
Pastor Terry Anderson (and congregation), “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Jesus,” live, Houston (Lilly Grove Missionary Baptist Church), 2010
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lagniappe
reading table
One of Emily Dickinson’s “envelope” poems:
In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much—how little—is within our power
only rock ’n’ roll
Mitch Ryder (with Jimmy McCarty, guitar; Don Was, bass, et al.), “Little Latin Lupe Lu,” live, Detroit, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
Alice Munro, yesterday, on winning the Nobel Prize in Literature:
alone
György Kurtág (1926-), Perpetuum Mobile (from Játékok [Games])
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lagniappe
reading table
‘There is no God and Mary is His Mother.’
—Robert Lowell (1917-1977), “For George Santayana” (excerpt)
two takes
Bobby McFerrin, “Joshua,” live (studio performances), 2013
WNYC-FM, New York
*****
WFUV-FM, New York
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lagniappe
reading table
Novelist Philip Roth on death, getting older, etc.:
‘You think, That’s the end of it when your parents die. After that, you’re done. Nobody’s supposed to die anymore, right?’
—Claudia Roth Pierpont, “The Book of Laughter: Philip Roth and His Friends,” New Yorker, 10/7/13
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‘Seventy-five; how sudden.’
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‘Time runs out at a terrifying speed. It seems that it was just 1943.’
—Patricia Cohen, “Philip Roth, Provacateur, Is Celebrated at 75,” New York Times, 4/12/08
alone
R.L. Burnside (1926-2005), “See My Jumper Hanging on the Line,” live, Independence, Miss., 1978
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lagniappe
reading table
Harvest in progress
a crane stands
in the rice paddy—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694; translated from Japanese by David Young)
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)
back to church
Heavenly Gospel Singers, “Jesus Traveled On This Road Before”
Live, St. James Missionary Baptist Church, Canton, Miss., 1978
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lagniappe
reading table: more of Seamus Heaney
Reading (New York), 2011
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Funeral (Dublin), September 2, 2013
old school
Charlie Musselwhite (1944-; vocals, harmonica) with Big Walter Horton (1918-1981; vocals, harmonica), live, Chicago, 1981
Charlie’s playing is wonderful: it both swings and sings. And he’s got great presence. But listen to Walter, whom I had the chance to work with in the ’70s when I was with Alligator Records. He’s not onstage long; this was only months before his death. But there are moments, when Walter’s playing, where time seems to stop (16:11, 18:03, 18:22, 19:57, etc.).
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lagniappe
reading table
You can fall a long way in sunlight.
You can fall a long way in the rain.The ones who don’t take the old white horse
take the morning train.—Robert Hass (1941-), “August Notebook: A Death” (excerpt)
two takes
“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”
Bessie Griffin (with Charles Barnett, piano), live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1981
*****
Albert Ayler (AA, saxophone; Call Cobbs, piano; Henry Grimes, bass; Sunny Murray, drums), recording, 1964
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lagniappe
reading table
To live is to lose ground.
—E. M. Cioran (1911-1995; translated from French by Richard Howard)
music clip of the day 