I’ve tried listening to his recordings while doing something else, but that hasn’t worked. Whatever else I was doing, I just put aside. If it was nighttime, I turned off the light. Some music occupies every available inch of space—there isn’t room for anything else.
Alfred Cortot: Frederic Chopin, “Farewell” (Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69, No. 1 [excerpt]); Robert Schumann, “Der Dichter Spricht” (Op. 15, No. 13 in G major [excerpt])
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Cortot looked for the opium in music.
—Daniel Barenboim
(Originally posted 7/13/10.)
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If you want to stay right where you are, don’t even bother with this clip. But if, instead, you’d like to go somewhere you may never have been before, well, this might be just the ticket.
Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006), Three Etudes, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
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I listen to all kinds of music—new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything.
—Gyorgy Ligeti (whose influences included not only the usual suspects [Chopin, Debussy, etal.] but also Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans and the Rainforest Pygmies and fractal geometry)
(Originally posted 10/6/09.)
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Want a break from music that’s busy, busy, busy, busy, busy?
To almost everyone’s surprise but his own, he [Morton Feldman] turned out to be one of the major composers of the twentieth century, a sovereign artist who opened up vast, quiet, agonizingly beautiful worlds of sound . . . . In the noisiest century in history, Feldman chose to be glacially slow and snowily soft.—Alex Ross
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Earlier in my life there seemed to be unlimited possibilities, but my mind was closed. Now, years later and with an open mind, possibilities no longer interest me. I seem content to be continually rearranging the same furniture in the same room.—Morton Feldman
(Originally posted 11/7/09.)
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mail, etc.
Congratulations on your 500th post. I don’t know how you do it but I’m definitely looking forward to receiving your next 500 posts. Thanks for exposing me to so many great artists. Keep the music coming and thanks for what you do.
When people hear I’m a criminal defense lawyer, they often ask: “How come there aren’t more songs about serial killers?”
Eddie Noack, “Psycho,” 1968
Vodpod videos no longer available.
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In response to yesterday’s post, a reader writes:
Ever wonder what it would be like if Neil Young circa 1971 Heart of Gold and Bruce Springsteen circa his 1975 Time magazine cover performed “Whip My Hair”?
Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials, “Find My Baby,” live
Vodpod videos no longer available.
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In response to yesterday’s post, a reader writes:
No, you were right the first time, the movement to bebop was immense progress. . . . To deny progress in art or politics is bad politics, tho there are clearly eddies and flows as we know from being currently enmeshed in a backward eddy.
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reading table
They don’t live long
but you’d never know it—
the cicada’s cry.
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Awake at night—
the sound of the water jar
cracking in the cold.
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Even in Kyoto—
hearing the cuckoo’s cry—
I long for Kyoto.
The other day Oran Etkin, whose music was featured here a while back, wrote:
I’ve been checking in every once in a while to your blog— you’ve got some really amazing and diverse music up there!
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I wanted to let you know about a new project I have and a great video I just posted yesterday. I have a project for kids called Timbalooloo (www.timbalooloo.com), which has music classes for 0-10 year olds using a new approach I developed to reach that age group, CDs, Videos, Books, etc. I am putting out a kids CD next month called Wake Up, Clarinet! based on this whole approach. It’s with my band featuring Jason Marsalis, Curtis Fowlkes, Fabian Almazan, Garth Stevenson and Charenee Wade. Anyways, I put up this video from a live concert, and I thought you might enjoy it and see if it would be cool for your blog.
Professor Longhair (AKA Henry Roeland [“Roy”] Byrd), December 19, 1918-January 30, 1980
“Tipitina,” live
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“Hey Little Girl,” live
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Mike Kinnamon, Bonnie Bramlett’s Nashville-based manager, in response to an email letting him (and Bonnie) know that her music was featured here (Delaney, alas, is no longer alive), left a voice-mail message yesterday:
. . . I just love it when somebody like you cares enough to send stuff like that around. It’s really cool, and it lifts her [Bonnie] up, too. Thank you so much, buddy . . .
The impact of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill now soiling the Louisiana shoreline was felt far inland on Thursday as P&J Oyster Company, the country’s oldest oyster processor and distributor, ceased its shucking operations.
“The bottom line is that the guys that we purchase from are not working,” said Sal Sunseri, referring to the oyster harvesters who’ve been idled by the mass closure of harvesting areas and freshwater diversions. “Today’s our last day of shucking.”
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“Having the guy down the street deliver oysters that were shucked just that morning to our doorstep is an amazing thing,” said John Besh, who featured P&J Oysters at his five New Orleans area restaurants. “The relationship is so valuable, knowing that I can count on them to source the best oysters from the saltiest areas and deliver them in a consistent, uniform manner.”
“They provide wonderful oysters,” said Darin Nesbit, chef at the Bourbon House, whose relationship with P&J is so tight Sal Sunseri helped shuck oysters the first night the restaurant opened following Hurricane Katrina. “Even in times of trouble, they’ve always taken care of us.”
P&J was started in 1876 by John Popich, a Croatian immigrant who took on partner Joseph Jurisich at the turn of the century. In 1921, Popich and Jurisich purchased a shucking house at the corner of Toulouse and North Rampart streets. Alfred Sunseri, the current owners’ grandfather, who was married to Popich’s cousin, joined the company soon after.
You’re right, not only can’t you lip-synch this stuff; you can’t really sing it if you don’t know it in your heart. That’s why it’s sooooo good. [The Pilgrim Jubilees, 6/13/10]
music clip of the day 