Only a world this noisy could produce music this quiet.
Evan Parker (soprano saxophone), et al.,* live, London (Freedom of the City festival), 2011
*Heledd Francis Wright (flute), John Russell (guitar), Augusti Fernandez (piano), Adam Linson (bass), Toma Gouband (percussion), Lawrence Casserley (electronics), Matt Wright (electronics).
keep on dancing
Hieroglyphic Being (AKA Jamal Moss), Imaginary Soundscapes (B1), 2013
Who knew electronic music could be so warm, so joyous?
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”
soundtrack of a marriage
On my first date with Suzanne, in 1974, we went to Chicago’s Jazz Showcase (then upstairs on Lincoln, just south of Fullerton), where we saw Sun Ra & His Arkestra. With a start like that, how could one ever go wrong? When we got married, on this date in 1977, Von Freeman played at the wedding, with pianist John Young. Years later John told me: “When I marry ’em, they stay married.”
Sun Ra & His Arkestra, live, Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival, 1974
*****
Von Freeman, live (with John Young, piano), “Remember,” Chicago (Jazz Showcase), New Year’s Eve 1983 (according to the clip) or 1979 (according to NPR)
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lagniappe
Want to hear what Von and John sounded like on that cold, snowy night thirty-six years ago, at a church north of Chicago? Here (give it a few seconds). As you’ll hear, they played before, during (the processional was Ellington’s “In A Sentimental Mood”), and after the ceremony.
two takes
How To Dress Well (Tom Krell), “& It Was U” (2012)
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Bear//Face, “Taste My Sad” (2012)
Nineteen-year-old Bear//Face—his nonvirtual self, that is—lives in Belfast.
We ain’t never goin’ home . . .
—Neneh Cherry (59:55)*
Neneh Cherry & The Thing (Mats Gustafsson, baritone saxophone, electronics; Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums), live, Austria (Konfrontationen 2012, Nickelsdorf), 7/21/12
*“Call the Police” (S. McDee).
serendipity
Cyrus, “Inversion” (Basic Channel), 1994
Last night, making dinner, I bumped into this on the radio (WFMU-FM). Television I could live without in a heartbeat. Radio? Never.
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lagniappe
found words
Better things will come or worse things, but they will come.
—Ozzie Guillen (Twitter, 10/23/12, after being fired by the Marlins)
Kaija Saariaho, Fall (1991, from the ballet Maa); Nuiko Wadden (harp), Ryan Streber (electronics); Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, Mass.), 2010
One of the joys of having grown children is going out with them to hear live music, as I did the other night, meeting my older son Alex after work at a Chicago art gallery (Corbett vs. Dempsey) for a solo performance by this harpist.
Her stuff, I’ve found, can be habit-forming.
Grimes, live (studio performance), 2012
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lagniappe
reading table
washing my laundry
with my clothes on . . .
summer rain—Kobayashi Issa, 1821 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
music clip of the day 