music clip of the day

Musicians (and composers) fall into two camps: less-is-more and more-is-more.

The less-is-more camp may, in turn, be divided into the less-less-is-more and the more-less-is-more.

And the less-less-is-more . . .

Jon Hassell and Maarifa Street (Jon Hassell, trumpet; Peter Freeman, bass, laptop; Hugh Marsh, violin; Steve Shehan, percussion, laptop), live, Serbia (Belgrade), 2006

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Want more? Here.

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lagniappe

. . . Jon Hassell’s ideas and techniques have so thoroughly permeated lo- and hi-brow contemporary electronic music, albeit often in a third or fourth hand way . . . that it’s difficult to think what contemporary music would sound like without his influence. . . . there’s categorically no doubt that Hassell has had as an important effect on contemporary music as Miles Davis or Jimi Hendrix or James Brown or the Velvet Underground.—The Wire

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reading table

More on John Berryman (12/28/09): Here Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Philip Levine recalls John Berryman (also Robert Lowell) as a teacher at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

He [John Berryman] took that class with a seriousness I had never seen before. . . . He was entrancing. He was magnetic. . . . He had a marvelous sense of humor. . . . He really took this seriously. He was a great teacher. He was the greatest teacher I ever had—and an inspiration.—Philip Levine

Philip Levine, live, England (Aldeburgh), 2009