Albert Collins (1932-1993), “Lights Are On But Nobody’s Home,” live, Austin, Tx., 1988
How strange to think that Albert, a sweet, warm, gentle guy I had the good fortune to work with in the ’70s while at Alligator Records, has been gone nearly 20 years.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
There’s one cat I’m still trying to get across to people. He is really good, one of the best guitarists in the world.
post-election special
Weary of words?
John Luther Adams, The Light That Fills the World (chamber version, revised 2001), excerpt
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lagniappe
art beat: Saturday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Paul Strand, The Court, New York (1924)
Film and Photo in New York (through 11/25/12)
The body knows things the mind will never understand.
D’Angelo (with Jesse Johnson, guitar; Pino Palladino, bass; Chris “Daddy” Dave, drums, et al.), “Chicken Grease,” live, Switzerland (Zurich), 2012
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lagniappe
art beat: Saturday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Morris Engel, Harlem Merchant (1936)
Film and Photo in New York (through 11/25/12)
Miles
Miles Davis Group,* live, Germany (Berlin), 1971
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lagniappe
art beat: Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago (after a hearing at the nearby federal court building)
Allen Ruppersberg, No Time Left To Start Again/The B and D of R’n’R (through 1/6/13)**
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*With Gary Bartz, saxophones; Keith Jarrett, keyboards; Michael Henderson, bass; Leon Chancler, drums; Don Alias & James Mtume, percussion.
**“B and D”=birth and death.
neo neo soul
D’Angelo, “The Charade,” live, Switzerland (Zurich), 2012
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)
only rock ’n’ roll
Wilco, live, Barcelona (Primavera Sound Festival), 5/31/12
#1
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#2
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#3
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#4
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#5
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#6
timeless
Sly and the Family Stone
“Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again),” TV Show (Soul Train), 1974
*****
“In Time,” Fresh, 1973
Jazz legend Miles Davis was so impressed by the song “In Time” . . . that he made his band listen to the track repeatedly for a full 30 minutes. Composer and music theorist Brian Eno cited Fresh as having heralded a shift in the history of recording, “where the rhythm instruments, particularly the bass drum and bass, suddenly [became] the important instruments in the mix.”
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lagniappe
art beat: more from Tuesday’s stop at the Art Institute of Chicago
Roy Lichtenstein, Landscape in Fog (1996)
serendipity
Umar (AKA Omar) Suleyman (AKA Suleeyman),* live, Ethiopia, c. 2010
This guy I bumped into the other day, as I do so many things, listening to the radio.**
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*Not to be confused with Omar Souleyman.
summer in the city
The Black Keys, Lollapalooza, Chicago (Grant Park), 8/3/12
“Howlin’ For You”
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“Little Black Submarines”
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“Lonely Boy”
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
What, if anything, does it mean that, in the year 2012, not one but two of the headliners at Lollapalooza—Jack White and the Black Keys—are deeply influenced by blues?
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reading table
Life had begun to demand lies in order to be workable.
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At the crest of the hill where the road went up, was an abandoned house, and beyond it the road disappeared off into the blue sky.
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It’s odd, though, what makes you think about the truth. It’s so rarely involved in the events of your life. I quit thinking about the truth for a time then. Its finer points seemed impossible to find among the facts. If there was a hidden design, living almost never shed light on it.
—Richard Ford, Canada (2012)
music clip of the day 