William Parker (bass), Christian McBride (bass), Cooper-Moore (drums), Charles Gayle (tenor saxophone), Hamiett Bluiett (baritone saxophone), Jason Kao Hwang (violin), live (benefit concert), New York, 2012
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Q: What would you do if you were not a composer?
Augusta Read Thomas (1964-): . . . I would spend all day listening. I could listen all day long until the day I die to music I’ve never heard and only begin to scratch the surface. There’s so much new. . . .
Henry Theadgill’s Zooid,* live, New York (Roulette), 2012
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lagniappe
radio
Today WKCR-FM (Columbia University) is featuring Threadgill and a host of other musicians who came out of Chicago in the ’60s and ’70s.
In May of 1977, members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) collaborated with students at WKCR to present “Chicago Comes to New York,” a four-day music festival at Columbia University’s Wollman Auditorium. Join us starting midnight on January 7, 2014 as we revisit this momentous event with a 24-hour marathon broadcast featuring music and interviews by the AACM.
Thirty members of the AACM came to New York with their families and friends for the festival, many for the first time. The festival also included an on-air component in the form of a ninety-hour broadcast of music and interviews with AACM artists. Over the last year, two recent WKCR alums restored and digitized the entire collection of reel-to-reel tapes from the festival, hearing the music for the first time since it was recorded.
Celebrate the incredibly important work that members of the AACM have been doing to promote artistic freedom and self-determination for nearly half a century. Help us revitalize and share these unique pieces of recorded history that WKCR is so privileged to have regained access to.
Last night this woman, who died of cancer in 2006, was very much alive, singing Bach on the radio.*
Johann Sebastian Bach, “Ich Habe Genug” (“I Have Enough,” church cantata), Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (1954-2006), 2003
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lagniappe
Christmas, 1948
Charlie Parker (alto saxophone), Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Al Haig (piano), Tommy Porter (bass), Max Roach (drums), “White Christmas,” live, New York (Royal Roost), 12/25/48
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*WKCR-FM (Columbia University), Bach Festival, through New Year’s Eve.
Charles Gayle (tenor saxophone), William Parker (bass), Marvin “BuGaLu” Smith (drums), with Brandon James Lewis (tenor saxophone, 10:10-), live, New York (Whole Foods, Union Square), 2012
Lou Reed, singer, songwriter, guitarist, March 2, 1942-October 27, 2013
Live (with Robert Quine [1942-2004], guitar; Fernando Saunders, bass; Fred Maher, drums), New York (Bottom Line), 1983
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
All great rock comes from a particular place. Take Lou Reed. Could he have emerged from Detroit? Nah—too self-conscious, too arty. San Francisco? Unh-uh—way too abrasive. He could only have come from one place, the city where, as the joke has it, a tourist goes up to someone and asks: “Can you tell me the way to the Empire State Building—or should I just go fuck myself?”
music clip of the day 