People talk about getting enough of this or that in their daily diet. But what about beauty? There’s an epidemic, unreported by TV, radio, newspapers, of beauty malnutrition.
Lou Harrison (1917-2003), Threnody for CarlosChavez (1978);William Winant Percussion Group with David Abel (viola), live, Berkeley, Calif., 2010
**********
lagniappe
art beat: Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago (while waiting for the jury to return a verdict in a trial involving an alleged conspiracy to steal millions of dollars of diamonds)
Paul Cezanne, The Bay of Marseilles, Seen From L’Estaque, c. 1885
Art Ensemble of Chicago (Roscoe Mitchell, saxophones, percussion; Joseph Jarman, saxophones, percussion, electric guitar; Lester Bowie [MCOTD Hall of Famer], trumpet, percussion; Malachi Favors, bass, percussion; Don Moye, drums, percussion [first clip])
Stevie Wonder with Prince, “Superstition” (S. Wonder), live, Paris, 2010
Not many stars would handle this the way Prince does. Actually, what’s most impressive is what he doesn’t do. Given a guitar solo, he doesn’t try to steal the show—or even draw attention. Instead, he feeds the groove.
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Sophistication is upscale conformity.
***
What is more yours than what always holds you back?
***
The heart is a small, cracked cup, easy to fill, impossible to keep full.
—James Richardson, “Even More Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays from Vectors 3.0” (excerpts)
D’Angelo (with Questlove, drums; Pino Palladino, bass; Kuumba Frank Lacy, trombone, trumpet; Chalmers “Spanky” Alford, guitar; Anthony Hamilton, vocals, et al.), live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 2000
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
No stage anywhere in the world can compare with the one that exists in the imagination. Where else can you find Jimi Hendrix jamming with Miles Davis? Sam Cooke singing with Smokey Robinson? Sly Stone taking everybody higher with Sun Ra?
The improvising pianist Cecil Taylor, a pioneering, influential and highly experimental musician and a longtime Brooklyn resident, is one of this year’s recipients of the Kyoto Prize, awarded each year by the Inamori Foundation in Japan, the foundation announced on Friday. Mr. Taylor, 84, is this year’s laureate in the category of arts and philosophy; different fields across technology, science, art and philosophy are considered on a rotating basis, and there has been a recipient in music every four years. (The last musician laureate in 2009 was the conductor and composer Pierre Boulez.) The prize comes with a cash gift of 50 million yen (approximately $510,000), to be given at a ceremony in Kyoto in November. This year’s other laureates are the electronics engineer Dr. Robert H. Dennard and the evolutionary biologist Dr. Masatoshi Nei.
Live (solo), Germany (Berlin), 1991 (The Tree of Life)
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts: following yesterday’s post
With live music, you’ve got to be ready when it is. Last night, after looking forward to an evening of Ethiopian dance, of saxophones and drums, at the Hideout, I just wasn’t in the mood. Instead I listened, in my living room, to something else—Bach’s Sonata No. 1 in G minor for solo violin, played by Nathan Milstein. On another night that would have seemed as foreign to me as this kinetic dance music did last night. But we can only hear with the ears we’ve got, which, like the rest of us, are ever changing, often in ways we neither anticipate nor understand.
music clip of the day 