for the President-elect
Skip James (1902-1969), “Hard Times Killing Floor Blues,” live (song begins at :58), Germany (Cologne), 1967
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)
John Sonsini (1950-), BYRON & RAMIRO, 2008
more
Rev. Charles Nicks (1941-1988; organ) & the St. James Adult Choir (feat. Hermon Frederick), “I Can Depend on God,” live, St. James Baptist Church, Detroit
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)
Kerry James Marshall (1955-), Souvenir IV (1998)
How rare—a guitarist with dazzling technique whose ideas often are just as strong.
Julian Lage (guitar) with Scott Colley (bass), Kenny Wollesen (drums), “I’ll Be Seeing You,” live, Los Angeles, 2016
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, New York (Central Park)
more
Patti Smith, “Peaceable Kingdom,” “People Have the Power” (with Michael Stipe), live, New York, 12/5/16
***
Another take.
Live (“People Have the Power,” with Michael Stipe), Chicago, 12/30/16
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, New York
sounds of New York
What other drummer does so much with so little?
Paul Motian Trio (PM, drums; Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone; Bill Frisell, guitar), “It Should’ve Happened a Long Time Ago” (P. Motian), live, New York, 2005
sounds of New York
This guy’s one of my favorite alto players and composers.
Tim Berne’s Almost Human (TB, alto saxophone, composition; Matt Mitchell, piano; Dan Weiss, drums), live, New York, 12/14/16
#1
***
#2
sounds of New York
Pulverize the Sound (Peter Evans, trumpet; Tim Dahl, bass; Mike Pride, drums), live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
Jackie Evancho, a 16-year-old singer who became famous after appearing on “America’s Got Talent,” announced last week that she would sing the national anthem at the inauguration.
—“Andrea Bocelli Won’t Be Singing at the Trump Inauguration,” New York Times, 12/20/16
sounds of New York
Charmaine Lee (vocal) & Nate Wooley (trumpet), live, New York, 11/20/16
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lagniappe
reading table
If novelists know anything it’s that individual citizens are internally plural: they have within them the full range of behavioral possibilities. They are like complex musical scores from which certain melodies can be teased out and others ignored or suppressed, depending, at least in part, on who is doing the conducting. At this moment, all over the world—and most recently in America—the conductors standing in front of this human orchestra have only the meanest and most banal melodies in mind. Here in Germany you will remember these martial songs; they are not a very distant memory. But there is no place on earth where they have not been played at one time or another. Those of us who remember, too, a finer music must try now to play it, and encourage others, if we can, to sing along.
—Zadie Smith, “On Optimism and Despair,” (“A talk given in Berlin on November 10 on receiving the 2016 Welt Literature Prize.”), New York Review of Books, 12/22/16 issue
sounds of New York
Eli Keszler & So Percussion, “Archway,” New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
“I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.”
—Daniel Duane, “The Tent Cities of San Francisco” (quoting Justin Keller), New York Times, 12/18/16
serenade to the President-elect
Public Enemy, “Ball of Confusion”/”Arizona”/”Fight the Power,” live, Australia (Sydney), 2008
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lagniappe
art beat: early September, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)
Danny Lyon (1942-), Arrest of Taylor Washington, Atlanta, 1963
music clip of the day 