piano | music clip of the day

Category: piano

Monday, November 10th

Why not begin the week with something beautiful?

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Ballade No. 1 in G minor (1831); Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995), piano, live

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

[N]ow Miles [Davis] was relaxed and pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was sending him into several shades of ecstasy.

“Listen to those trills!” Miles ordered.

—1961 interview (Marc Crawford, The Miles Davis Reader)

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art beat: more from Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Interior at Nice, c. 1919

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Monday, November 3rd

blues festival (day one)

T-Bone Walker (1910-1975), “Don’t Throw Your Love on Me So Strong,” live (TV show), Germany, 1962*

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Claude Monet (1840-1926), The Customs House at Varengeville, 1897

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random thoughts

Every painting was once a blank canvas.

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*With Memphis Slim (piano), Willie Dixon (bass), Jump Jackson (drums).

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Tuesday, October 14th

Thirty-eight years later.

Bela Bartok (1881-1945), Piano Concerto No. 3 (1945); Toho Gakuen Orchestra (Yuri Bashmet, cond.) with Martha Argerich (piano), live, 2007

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And an encore.

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Sonata in D minor; Martha Argerich (piano), live, 2008

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Monday, October 13th

No matter what she’s playing, she seems never to touch the ground.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), Piano Concerto in G (1929-31); RAI National Symphony Orchestra (Claudio Abbado, cond.) with Martha Argerich (piano), live, Rome, 1969

1st movt.

2nd & 3rd movts.

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Sunday, October 12th

two takes

“Strange Man” (D. L. Coates)

Steve Dawson (lead vocals, guitar), Diane Christensen (vocals), Robbie Fulks (vocals, guitar), live, Chicago, 2013

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Dorothy Love Coates (1928-2002; MCOTD Hall-of-Famer), recording, 1968

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random thoughts

Do the Canada geese, seeing me ride by on my bicycle, feel like they’re communing with nature?

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Friday, October 10th

Happy Birthday, Thelonious!

Thelonious Monk, October 10, 1917-February 17, 1982, pianist, composer, bandleader

Live (TV studio),* Paris, 1969

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

A note can be as big as a mountain, or small as a pin. It only depends on a musician’s imagination.

—Thelonious Monk (Robin D. G. Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original)

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radio

WKCR-FM (Columbia University): all Monk, all day.

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*Set list:

1. Dreamland
2. Monk’s Mood (Version 1)
3. Thelonious
4. Reflections
5. Epistrophy
6. Round Midnight
7. Crepuscule With Nellie
8. Ugly Beauty
9. Monk’s Mood (Version 2)
10. Don’t Blame Me
11. Coming On The Hudson
12. Nice Work If You Can Get It

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2014

Wednesday, October 8th

This I could listen to all day.

Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Palais de Mari (1986); Blair McMillen (piano) & Ryan Olivier (video processing), live, Philadelphia, 2014

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

My obsession with surface is the subject of my music. In that sense, my compositions are really not ‘compositions’ at all. One might call them time canvases in which I more or less prime the canvas with an overall hue of the music.

—Morton Feldman, “Between Categories” (Give My Regards to Eighth Street)