Tuesday, June 13th
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
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: New York
2017
Sunday, May 14th
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
2017
Wednesday, May 10th
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.
2017
Saturday, April 29th
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
2017
Tuesday, April 25th
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
2017
Saturday, March 11th
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
2017
Thursday, March 9th
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.
2017
Tuesday, February 28th
basement jukebox
Little Johnny Jones (vocals, piano; 1924-1964), “Big Town Playboy,” 1950
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)
Diane Arbus (1923-1971), A young man and his pregnant wife in Washington Square Park, NYC, 1965
2017
Friday, February 24th
sounds of New York
Jim Campilongo Trio (JC, guitar; Chris Morrisey, bass; Josh Dion, drums, vocals) with Nels Cline (guitar), live, New York, 12/5/16*
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Merce Cunningham: Common Time (through April 30th)
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*Set list (courtesy of YouTube):
Hot ‘Lanta 00:00
Heaven Is Creepy 08:20
Politician 18:06
Cock and Bull Story 26:12
2017
Thursday, February 9th
what’s new
Craig Taborn, Daylight Ghosts, 2017
The other day I bumped into this guy in New York, at The Guggenheim, where we were both seeing the Agnes Martin exhibit. We talked for a moment—I told him how much I like his music. Then our eyes went back to the paintings.
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, The Guggenheim (New York)
Agnes Martin (1912-2004), Happy Holiday, 1999
