sounds of India
Vilayat Khan (1928-2004), sitar, with Kishan Maharaj (1923-2008), tabla, Raga Bhairavi, live, London, 2002
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lagniappe
reading table
Sun and moon, sun and moon, time goes.
—John Updike, Rabbit, Run
two takes
Julius Eastman (1940-1990), Evil Nigger (1979)
Julius Eastman, Frank Ferko, Janet Kattas, Patricia Martin, pianos; live, Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.), 1980 (Unjust Malaise, New World Records, 2005)
*****
Jace Clayton, electronics; David Friend & Emily Manzo, pianos (The Julius Eastman Memory Depot, New Amsterdam Records, 2013)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Today’s composer, because of his problematical historical inheritance, has become totally isolated and self-absorbed. Those composers who have gained some measure of success through isolation and self-absorption will find that outside of the loft door the state of the composer in general and their state in particular is still as ineffectual as ever. The composer must become the total musician, not only a composer. To be only a composer is not enough.
*****
reading table
Ecstasy affords/the occasion and expediency determines the form.
—Marianne Moore (1887-1972), “The Past is the Present”
two takes
The Davis Sisters (feat. Jackie Verdell), “We Need Power”
TV Show (TV Gospel Time), 1964
Recording, 1959
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lagniappe
reading table
Nothing lasts, and yet nothing passes, either. And nothing passes just because nothing lasts.
—Philip Roth, The Human Stain
Rock drummers trying to play jazz usually sound like, well, rock drummers trying to play jazz. Jazz drummers trying to play rock are no different; they typically sound like tourists pretending to be natives. This guy, no matter the idiom (rock, jazz, gospel, whatever), sounds right at home.
Brian Blade and The Fellowship Band, live, Chicago, 3/14/13
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lagniappe
reading table
Maybe we think that nirvana is a place where there are no problems, no more delusions. Maybe we think nirvana is something very beautiful, something unattainable. We always think nirvana is something very different from our own life. But we must really understand that it is right here, right now.
—Taizan Maezumi, Appreciate Your Life (2001)
two takes
Alton Ellis (1938-2008), “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”
Live
Recording
*****
lagniappe
reading table
First day of spring—
I keep thinking about
the end of autumn.—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694, translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
Monk
Thelonious Monk Quartet (TM [1917-1982], piano; Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Larry Gales, bass; Ben Riley, drums), 1968
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lagniappe
reading table
opening day . . .
green of the field
through the ticket gates—Randy Brooks (Baseball Haiku, Cor van den Heuvel & Nanae Tamura, eds.)
back to church
“He Set Me Free,” Mt. Do-Well Baptist Church, McConnells, S.C., 1991
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lagniappe
reading table
“God’s Grandeur”
By Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)The world is charged with the grandeur of God.It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oilCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soilIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.And for all this, nature is never spent;There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;And though the last lights off the black West wentOh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —Because the Holy Ghost over the bentWorld broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
What I love about the ’net is that sometimes, like yesterday, when I happened upon this, you find yourself being lifted out of your seat by something you didn’t even know existed two minutes ago.
Ned Rothenberg (clarinet, alto saxophone) & Samir Chatterjee (tabla), “Interstellar Duo #3,” live, New York, 2009
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lagniappe
reading table
The more I read, the less I understand.
—Charles Simic, “Serving Time” (New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012)
sui generis
Quintron and Miss Pussycat, “Freedom,” New Orleans
Too Thirsty For Love, 2008
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lagniappe
reading table
Language is finite and formal; reality is infinite and formless. Order is comic; chaos is tragic.
—John Updike, Assorted Prose (1965)
two takes
It’s spring!
“Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most” (T. Wolf & F. Landesman)
Betty Carter (1929-1998), Inside Betty Carter, 1964
*****
Bob Dorough (1923-), Right On My Way Home, 1997
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lagniappe
reading table
spring rain—
the uneaten ducks
are quacking—Kobayashi Issa, 1813 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
