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Category: musical thoughts

Wednesday, March 12th

not for the faint of heart

Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet,* live, France (Le Mans), 2004


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Q: What would people be surprised to know that you listen to?

Bill Clinton: Brötzmann, the tenor sax player, one of the greatest alive.

Oxford American, 2001 (annual music issue)

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*PB, reeds; Ken Vandermark, reeds; Joe McPhee, pocket trumpet, tenor saxophone; Roland Ramanan, trumpet, wooden flute; Toshinori Kondo, trumpet; Jeb Bishop, trombone; Fred Longberg-Holm, cello; Kent Kessler, bass; Michael Zerang, drums; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums.

Wednesday, March 5th

passings

Robert Ashley, composer, March 28, 1930-March 3, 2014

“The Park” (1978)

#1


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#2


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Here I am working against time . . .

—Robert Ashley, “The Park”

Saturday, February 22nd

A pianist plays the piano.

A violinist plays the violin.

A percussionist plays . . . how much time have you got?

Augusta Read Thomas (1964-), Resounding Earth (2012); Third Coast Percussion

1st Movement


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2nd Movement


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3rd Movement


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4th Movement


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Augusta Read Thomas, talking about Resounding Earth:

Saturday, February 8th

a gathering of birds

Evan Parker Quartet (EP, soprano saxophone; Peter Evans, trumpet; John Russell, guitar; John Edwards, bass), live, London, 2009


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Music offers a way out of our little cluttered closet.

Thursday, January 30th

Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Why Patterns?; California EAR Unit (Dorothy Stone, flute; Arthur Jarvinen, glockenspiel; Gaylord Mowrey, piano), 1991


His music makes so much use of space it seems to keep going even after the sounds have stopped.

Wednesday, January 8th

William Basinski, “Silent Night,” 2004

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

If all we ever listen to are things that sound like things we’ve heard before, aren’t we living, however comfortably, in an echo chamber?

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taking a break

I’m taking some time off—back in a while.

Monday, January 6th

passings

Phil Everly, singer, songwriter, guitar player, January 19, 1939-January 3, 2014

“Wake Up Little Susie,” 1957

This song I heard constantly, on the radio, on our basement jukebox, everywhere, when I was five. Twenty years later, I married a woman named Suzanne. Coincidence?

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 “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Cathy’s Clown,” 1960

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“Claudette,” “Walk Right Back,” “Crying in the Rain,” “Cathy’s Clown,” “Love Is Strange,” “When Will I Be Loved?,” “So Sad (To Watch Love Go Bad),” “Bird Dog,” “Be-Bop-a-Lula,” “Barbara Allen,” “A Long Time Gone,” “Step It Up and Go,” “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Devoted to You,” “Love Hurts,”  “(‘Til) I Kissed You,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Lucille,” “Let It Be Me,” 1983

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When Phil and I hit that one spot where I call it The Everly Brothers, I don’t know where it is. ‘Cause it’s not me and it’s not him. It’s the two of us together.

Don Everly

Thursday, January 2nd

another take

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2; Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), piano


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Things didn’t have to be this way: you could have been born into a world without music.

Monday, December 16th

Something beautiful to begin the week.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, excerpt (2nd movt., Adagio); Hélène Grimaud (piano), Bavarian Radio Chamber Orchestra

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world and at peace with myself.

Nelson Mandela (July 18, 1918-December 5, 2013)

Sunday, December 15th

two takes

The Caravans (feat. Cassietta George), “Walk Around Heaven All Day”

Live


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Recording, 1964


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lagniappe

reading table

Interview of Alice Munro, last month

It’s hard to imagine a male writer, having just won the Nobel Prize in Literature, being so direct, so natural, so down to earth.