alone
John Cage (1912-1992), In a Landscape (1948)
Anton Batagov (1965-, piano), live, Moscow, 2014
**********
lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Paul Cezanne, The Bay of Marseilles, Seen From L’Estaque, c. 1885
This, too, I never tire of.
sounds of Chicago
Jack DeJohnette (drums) with MCOTD Hall-of-Famer Henry Threadgill (reeds), Roscoe Mitchell (reeds), Muhal Richard Abrams (piano), and Larry Gray (bass), Made in Chicago, 2015
**********
lagniappe
art beat: more from the other day at the Art Institute of Chicago
This, too, I never tire of.
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Greyed Rainbow, 1953
sounds of Chicago
Matthias Kranebitter (1980-), pack the box (with five dozen of my liquor jugs) (2013)
Mocrep, live, Chicago, 2014
[vimeo 111677932 w=560&h=315]
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Collage=life.
—Joseph Cornell, diary entry, 1964
More of Cecil T.
Cecil Taylor, live, Switzerland (Montreux), 1974
**********
lagniappe
reading table
It is a very painful thing, having to part company with what torments you.
—Robert Walser (1878-1956), “Balloon Journey” (translated from German by Christopher Middleton)
never enough
Thelonious Monk Quartet (TM, piano; Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; John Ore, bass; Frankie Dunlop, drums), “Nutty,” “Bemsha Swing,” “Epistrophy,” “Crepuscule with Nellie,” “I Mean You,” live (TV show), Netherlands, 1961
**********
lagniappe
art beat
William Klein (1928-), Baseball Cards, New York 1955
never enough
Only a great artist could play so simply.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)/Ferrucio Busoni (1866-1924), Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme; Solomon (AKA Solomon Cutner [1902-1988]), recording, 1948
what’s new
Daniel Knox, “Don’t Touch Me” (Daniel Knox, Carrot Top Records, 2/24/15)
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Some people really are what they seem to be—though not that many.
***
Like most explanations, it’s as plausible as anything else.
***
Character, to me, is one more lie of history and the dramatic arts. In my view, we have only what we did yesterday, what we do today, and what we might do tomorrow. Plus, whatever we think about all of that. But nothing else—nothing hard or kernel like. I’ve never seen evidence of anything resembling it. In fact I’ve seen the opposite: life as teeming and befuddling, followed by the end.
—Richard Ford, “The New Normal” (Let Me Be Frank With You)
white folks got soul, too
(day three)
J.J. Cale (1938-2013)
“Call Me the Breeze” (J.J. Cale), live, Tulsa, 2004
***
“After Midnight” (J.J. Cale), live (with Eric Clapton), Dallas, 2004
my back pages
On this date in 1977, at a church thirty miles north of Chicago, amidst the cold and the snow and the dark, tenor saxophonist Von Freeman (1923-2012), a MCOTD Hall-of-Famer, played for a wedding. He was accompanied by pianist John Young (1922-2008). Here is how they sounded that night, as people were entering the church (0:15-, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” “More”), as the bride walked down the aisle (8:00-, “In a Sentimental Mood”), and as folks were leaving (10:20-, “My Favorite Things,” “Song for My Father”).
***
Von Freeman
If your appetite for new music is insatiable, what better time to be alive?
Tyshawn Sorey (1980-), Quartet for Butch Morris (2012); International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), featuring Erik Carlson (violin); Joshua Rubin (bass clarinet), Eric Lamb (flute), Cory Smythe (piano); live, New York, 2012
Six decades of listening and, until yesterday, I’d never heard this particular combination of instruments. You?
**********
lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
James Ensor (1860-1949), Rooftops of Ostend, 1884 (Temptation: The Demons of James Ensor, through January 25th)
*****
reading table
Nature, the sky above us, is conducting no mean politics when it presents beauty to all, without discrimination, and nothing old and defective, but fresh and most tasty.
—Robert Walser (1878-1956), “Snowdrops,” excerpt (translated from German by Tom Whalen and Trudi Anderegg)
music clip of the day 