only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
Coldplay, “Rehab” (Amy Winehouse)/“Fix You”
Live, Chicago (Lollapalooza), 8/5/11
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lagniappe
reading table
when I’m dead
who’ll wear it next?
new summer robe—Kobayashi Issa, 1817 (trans. David G. Lanoue)
sounds of India
(an occasional series)
All knotted up?
You’ve come to the right place.
Nikhil Banerjee (1931-1986), sitar
Live, Raag Malkauns (excerpt)
The best way to listen to this?
Here’s what I suggest: somewhere out of the way, headphones, eyes closed.
At the end you’ll be a different person than you were at the beginning.
(That’s a good thing, right?)
*****
More? Here. And here. And here.
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reading table
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer nightWas like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whomThe summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itselfIs calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.—Wallace Stevens, “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm”
how to improve your life (guaranteed!)
Listen, each day, to one of Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello. I’ve been listening to them for 40 years. If I hadn’t, I assure you, my life would be even more of a shambles.
Bach, Suite No. 3 in C major for Unaccompanied Cello
Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello
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I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other.I could have different
ancestors, after all.
I could have fluttered
from another nest
or crawled bescaled
from another tree.Nature’s wardrobe
holds a fair supply of costumes:
spider, seagull, fieldmouse.
Each fits perfectly right off
and is dutifully worn
into shreds.I didn’t get a choice either,
but I can’t complain.
I could have been someone
much less separate.
Someone from an anthill, shoal, or buzzing swarm,
an inch of landscape ruffled by the wind.Someone much less fortunate,
bred for my fur
or Christmas dinner,
something swimming under a square of glass.A tree rooted to the ground
as the fire draws near.A grass blade trampled by a stampede
of incomprehensible events.A shady type whose darkness
dazzled some.What if I’d prompted only fear,
loathing,
or pity?If I’d been born
in the wrong tribe
with all roads closed before me?Fate has been kind
to me thus far.I might never have been given
the memory of happy moments.My yen for comparison
might have been taken away.I might have been myself minus amazement,
that is,
someone completely different.—Wislawa Szymborska, “Among the Multitudes” (trans. Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak)
You’re never too young to die.
Amy Winehouse, September 14, 1983-July 23, 2011
“Tears Dry On Their Own”
Take 1: original recording and video (2006)
***
Take 2: remix by Organized Noize Dungeon Family (Big Boi)
(released 7/24/11)
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heat shimmers—
someone listening to
a snail shell—Kobayashi Issa, 1808 (trans. David G. Lanoue)
Last Sunday they sounded so good—let’s hear some more.
The Staple Singers, “On My Way To Heaven,” “Going Away,” “I’m Leaning,”
“I Know I Got Religion”; Uncloudy Day (Vee-Jay), 1959
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listening room: (some of) what’s playing
• Muhal Richard Abrams (with Malachi Favors), Sightsong (Black Saint)
• King Oliver, Off the Record: The Complete 1923 Jazz Band Recordings (Off the Record/Archeophone)
• Beethoven, Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 (“Eroica”)/ Arturo Toscanini, conductor, NBC Symphony Orchestra (RCA)
• Bach, Cello Suites, Steven Isserlis (Hyperion UK)
• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa) (available as a download from Amazon for 89¢)
• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Afternoon New Music (Various, classical and hard-to-peg)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)
—Raag Aur Taal (Various, Indian music)
• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
*****
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Here are a couple cheery things (ha, ha) from a favorite poet.
John Berryman, Two Dream Songs
Happy Birthday, Pops!*
Louis Armstrong, “Basin Street Blues” (three takes)
#1 (live, 1959, Germany [Stuttgart])
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
#2 (live, 1953, New Orleans)
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
#3 (recording, 1928, Chicago)
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
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more
Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five, “West End Blues,” 1928, Chicago
*****
radio
The federal government, in its wisdom, gives you the day off so you can listen to Louis Armstrong.
—Phil Schaap, 7/2/11, Traditions in Swing, WKCR-FM
(broadcasting from Columbia University), which today is all Pops, all day
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Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
—Henry James
*Louis Armstrong gave July 4th as his birthday, something that was determined, after his death, not to be true—at least not literally.
This guy I can’t get enough of.
Vernard Johnson, “Don’t Wait ’Til The Battle Is Over, Shout Now!”; live, TV broadcast (Bobby Jones Gospel)
Vodpod videos no longer available.Time for just one note? 6:23.
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art beat
Lee Friedlander, Cherry Blossom Time in Japan (2006)
*****
reading table
Yesterday, opening my Emily Dickinson collection (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin) at random, I came upon this.
We do not play on Graves —
Because there isn’t Room —
Besides — it isn’t even — it slants
And People come —And put a Flower on it —
And hang their faces so —
We’re fearing that their Hearts will drop —
And crush our pretty play —And so we move as far
As Enemies — away —
Just looking round to see how far
It is — Occasionally ——Emily Dickinson (#599)
***
*****
listening room: what’s playing
• Echocord Jubilee Comp. (Echocord)
• Art Ensemble of Chicago, Full Force (ECM)
• Art Ensemble of Chicago, Urban Bushmen (ECM)
• Paul Motian (with Lee Konitz, soprano & alto saxophones; Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone; Bill Frisell, guitar; Charlie Haden, bass), On Broadway Vol. 3 (Winter & Winter)
• Rebirth Brass Band, Feel Like Funkin’ It Up (Rounder)
• Marc Ribot, Silent Movies (Pi Recordings)
• Wadada Leo Smith, Kabell Years: 1971-1979 (Tzadik)
• Charles “Baron” Mingus, West Coast, 1945-49 (Uptown Jazz)
• John Alexander’s Sterling Jubilee Singers, Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb (New World Records)
• Rev. Johnny L. Jones, The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta (Dust-to-Digital)
• Elliott Carter, composer; Ursula Oppens, piano; Oppens Plays Carter (Cedille)
• Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, composers; Maurizio Pollini, piano, piano works (Schoenberg), Variations Op. 27 (Webern) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa)
• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Daybreak Express (Various, jazz)
—Out to Lunch (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Profiles (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Alternatives (Various, jazz)
—Morning Classical (Various, classical)
—Afternoon New Music (Various, classical and hard-to-peg)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)
• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Give The Drummer Some (Doug Schulkind, sui generis)
—Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine (soul)
Here’s a different take—one deeply indebted to Lester Bowie—on the
brass band.
Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy
DD, trumpet; Louis Bonilla, trombone; Vincent Chancey, horn (AKA French horn); Marcus Rojas, tuba; Nasheet Waits, drums
“Bowie,” recording session (Spirit Moves, 2009)
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Spirit Moves,” “This Love Affair,” “Twilight of the Dogs”
Live, Washington, D.C., 2009
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reading table
How can I possibly sleep
This moonlit evening?
Come, my friends,
Let’s sing and dance
All night long.—Ryokan (1758-1831), trans. John Stevens
nadir, n. the lowest point.
On July 29, 1946, Charlie Parker was arrested in Los Angeles, after starting a fire in his hotel room. Earlier that day, unable to score heroin, scratchy, drunk on whiskey, he recorded this track, which, depending on your point of view, is either one of the worst records he ever made (Parker’s view) or, despite (because of?) its raggedyness, among the greatest (Charles Mingus’s opinion). After his arrest he was confined, for six months, at Camarillo State Mental Hospital.
Charlie Parker, “Lover Man” (CP, alto saxophone; Howard McGhee, trumpet; Jimmy Bunn, piano; Bob Kesterson, bass; Roy Porter, drums), rec. 7/29/46
More? Here.
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rewarding the deserving
So often, it seems, when arts awards are announced, my initial reaction is: “Huh?” Not this time. The National Endowment of the Arts just announced their 2012 Jazz Masters Awards, which recognize, with Lifetime Honors, “living musicians for career-long achievement.” And the winners are Jack DeJohnette, Jimmy Owens, Charlie Haden, Sheila Jordan, and Von Freeman.
*****
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The cafeteria in the hospital’s basement was the saddest place in the world, with its grim neon lights and gray tabletops and the diffuse forboding of those who had stepped away from suffering children to have a grilled cheese sandwich.
***
The next day, I set up an iPod dock and played music, not only in the willfully delusional belief that music would be good for a painful, recovering brain but also to counter the soul-crushing hospital noise: the beeping of monitors, the wheezing of respirators, the indifferent chatter of nurses in the hallway, the alarm that went off whenever a patient’s condition abruptly worsened.
***
One early morning, driving to the hospital, I saw a number of able-bodied, energetic runners progressing along Fullerton Avenue toward the sunny lakefront, and I had a strong physical sensation of being in an aquarium: I could see out, the people outside could see me (if they chose to pay attention), but we were living and breathing in entirely different environments.
—Aleksandar Hemon, “The Aquarium: A Child’s Isolating Illness” (behind a paywall), New Yorker, 6/13 & 20/2011
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
The Dirtbombs, “Stop,” New Jersey (Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park), c. 2007
Vodpod videos no longer available.Anybody can play in tune.
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reading table
welcoming in loads
of new year’s rain . . .
trashy house—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), trans. David G. Lanoue
music clip of the day 