No matter how many years I listen to music, there’s still nothing like the thrill of hearing, for the first time, something that grabs you by the collar—as this did last night—and doesn’t let go.
Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), Concerto for Piano and Strings (1979)/Evgeny Svetlanov, piano, Sinfonie Orchester der USSR
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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mail
In the Christian’s automobile, no need to worry about a parking space. Amen![The Dixie Hummingbirds, 1/10/10]
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I want you to know how much I enjoy the music posts. I learn a lot about many people I really don’t know, and those that I do make for great listening again.
[T]he only time I’ve ever seen Monk act like a little boy and looking up to somebody [was in the presence of Duke Ellington]. That was his idol.—Joe Termini (quoted in Robin D. G. Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original [2009])
I began listening to this piano sonata many years ago, after discovering, at our local library, a recording of it by Claudio Arrau, which I proceeded to check out over and over again (until I finally bought it). Since then I’ve also heard recordings by Artur Schnabel and Wilhelm Kempff and Solomon and Andras Schiff, as well as this one (thanks to my brother-in-law John, who gave it to me as a present years ago). As with any masterpiece, there’s no such thing as a “definitive” performance; it’s inexhaustible. Different performances reveal different dimensions. Listen to the way the dark, subdued second movement opens up to the joyous third movement: it’s one of the most hopeful passages of music I know—one I never tire of hearing.
Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53 (“Waldstein”)/Emil Gilels, piano (1972)
Part 1 (beginning of 1st Movement)
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Part 2 (end of 1st Movement and 2nd Movement [begins at 2:41])
Why take a straight path when you can take a crooked one?
Sheila Jordan (with Steve Kuhn, piano; David Finck, bass; Billy Drummond, drums; Mark Feldman and Barry Finclair, violin; Vincent Lionti, viola; Harold Birston, cello), “Autumn in New York,” live, 2008, New York (on her 80th birthday)
captivating, adj. capturing interest as if by a spell. E.g., Betty Carter.
Betty Carter (with Cyrus Chestnut, piano), “Once Upon A Summertime,” live, Japan, 1993
(Watch how she moves when giving way to Cyrus Chestnut’s piano solo [3:40-54]: the elegance of a dancer, the dignity of a queen.)
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If you’re sitting in that audience ready to fight me from the very beginning, I’m going to have a hard time getting to you. But if you’ve got a heart at all, I’m going to get it.—Betty Carter
You can talk about her exquisite phrasing: the way she hovers around the beat. But that sort of musical shoptalk barely scratches the surface. Other singers may be able to express joy, or pain, or regret, or longing, or other feelings. But how many other singers are able to convey so many different emotions all at once?
Billie Holiday (with Jimmy Rowles, piano), “My Man,” live
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I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.
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No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.
Thelonious Monk with saxophonist Charlie Rouse, working out a number, “Boo Boo’s Birthday,” during a recording session, 1967
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Thelonious Monk (with Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Ben Riley, drums; Larry Gales, bass), “Boo Boo’s Birthday” (Underground [Columbia], 1968)
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reading table
One of the great discoveries I made in college, besides Bach (10/19/09, 10/24/09, 12/25/09) and Blind Willie Johnson (11/15/09) and Bill Evans (11/18/09) and Hound Dog Taylor (10/30/09), was John Berryman. Hearing him read his poetry, not long before he died (jumping off a bridge in Minneapolis), changed my life. Really. That night made me realize, in ways that I never had before, just how lively and surprising and exciting poetry could be. It made me realize, too, that what a great poem offers is an experience—one you can’t get anywhere else. And so I have Berryman to thank not only for his own poems (especially TheDream Songs [which would be on my desert-island packing list]) but also for making Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wislawa Szymborska, Charles Simic, et al., such important figures in my life. Just as my life would be immeasurably poorer without Thelonious Monk (11/2/09, 11/25/09, today) and Vernard Johnson (12/6/09) and Morton Feldman (11/7/09, 12/5/09) and Lester Bowie (9/8/09, 10/28/09), so too would it be without them.
This recording, for all its technical shortcomings (headphones help), captures some of what I heard in Berryman that night almost 40 years ago. Blustery and grandiose and vulnerable, jazzy and funny: he was all these things—and more.
This is not a cultural occasion, ladies and gentlemen, in case you were misled by anyone. This is an entertainment.—John Berryman
music clip of the day 