more
Anna Thorvaldsdottir (1977-), In the Light of Air (2013/2014); International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), live, New York, 2014
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Suppose that, for the rest of your listening life, you had two options. One: You could only listen only to things you’d never heard before. Two: You could never listen to anything new. Which would you choose? Why?
sounds of Chicago (and St. Louis)
Pastor DeAndre Patterson (Destiny Worship Center, Chicago), live, St. Louis (Kennerly Temple Church of God in Christ), 2016
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lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), New York, late 1960s
voices I miss
Ed Blackwell (drums, 1929-1992) with Mal Waldron (piano), Charles Rouse (tenor saxophone, flute), Woody Shaw (trumpet, flugelhorn), Reggie Workman (bass), live (“The Git Go,” “All Alone,” “Fire Waltz”), New York (Village Vanguard), 1985
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), Irises at Horikiri, 1857
MCOTD Hall of Fame
No matter how I’m feeling (down, up, whatever), listening to him leaves me feeling better.
Hamid Drake (drums), live, New York, 2015
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lagniappe
art beat
Danny Lyon (1942-), Chicago (Uptown), 1965
like nobody else
Rev. Utah Smith (1906-1965), “Two Wings,” 1953
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lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009, MCOTD Hall of Fame), New York, c. 1940
what’s new
Happy Place,* live, New York (Threes Brewing, Brooklyn), 5/3/17
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), Sudden Shower over Shin Ohashi Bridge and Atake (from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo), 1857
*****
*Will Mason, drums, compositions; Kate Gentile, drums; Will Chapin, guitar; Andrew Smiley, guitar.
voices I miss
He played drums with the spareness and delicacy of a haiku poet.
Anat Fort (piano), Gary Wang (bass), Paul Motian (drums, 1931-2011), “Just Now,” live, New York, 2008
Is any alto player more eloquent?
Joe McPhee (alto saxophone), William Parker (bass), Gerald Cleaver (drums), live, New York, 2014
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lagniappe
art beat
Paul Strand (1890-1976), Abandoned Window, 1944
more
William Parker’s In Order To Survive (WP, bass; Hamid Drake, drums, MCOTD Hall of Fame; Cooper-Moore, piano, vocals; Lewis Barnes, trumpet; Rob Brown, alto saxophone), “Hymn,” live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
He isn’t doing that right—that was a very important one. It was what Astaire claimed he was thinking whenever he watched himself onscreen, and I noted that third-person pronoun. This is what I understood by it: that for Astaire the person in the film was not especially connected with him. And I took this to heart, or rather, it echoed a feeling I already had, mainly that it was important to treat oneself as a kind of stranger, to remain unattached and unprejudiced in your own case. I thought you needed to think like that to achieve anything in this world. Yes, I thought that was a very elegant attitude.
—Zadie Smith, Swing Time
MCOTD Hall of Fame
William Parker’s In Order To Survive (WP, bass, composition; Hamid Drake, drums, MCOTD Hall of Fame;* Lewis Barnes, trumpet; Rob Brown, alto saxophone; Cooper-Moore, piano), “Criminals in the White House,” live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
radio
Today—his birthday—it’s all Ornette Coleman all day on WKCR-FM (Columbia University).
*****
*With saxophonists Von Freeman and Henry Threadgill; trumpeter Lester Bowie; gospel singer Dorothy Love Coates; composer Morton Feldman; poets John Berryman, William Bronk, and Wislawa Szymborska; and photographer Helen Levitt.
