two takes
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), Prelude in C-sharp minor
Sergei Rachmaninoff, piano roll
***
Sun Ra (1914-1993), recording, 1980
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lagniappe
found words
Potentially fatal
dangers lurk in
your backyard—AOL
*****
taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
never enough
John Coltrane Quartet (JC, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums), “Impressions” (J. Coltrane), live (TV show), 1963
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lagniappe
random thoughts
What did we do to deserve such a beautiful world?
*****
art beat
Francis Wolff, Blue Trane recording session (JC, tenor saxophone; Lee Morgan, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone), Hackensack, N.J., 1957
*****
A big birthday shout-out to my oldest listening companion, my brother Don, with whom (as I’ve noted before) I’ve shared more musical experiences than I could ever count: the Beatles (Comiskey Park, 1965), the Velvet Underground (Kinetic Playground, 1968), the MC5 (Lincoln Park, 1968) . . .
the other night
The sky’s all thunder and lightning, and it’s almost midnight, and I’m sitting in a Walgreens parking lot near Midway Airport, waiting for my son Alex’s long-delayed flight to arrive, and if it weren’t for Rubinstein’s recordings of Chopin’s nocturnes, which I keep playing over and over amidst the rain and the neon, I’d be going absolutely bonkers.
Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1; Arthur [Artur] Rubinstein (1887-1982), piano
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Listening to Chopin, reading Chekhov: if I ever retire, maybe I’ll relocate to the 19th century.
This piece had its world premiere in 1941; the venue wasn’t fancy—a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp.
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time), live, ChamberFest Cleveland (Franklin Cohen, clarinet; Yura Lee, violin; Gabriel Cabezas, cello; Orion Weiss, piano), 2013
more
Sun Ra & His Arkestra (with John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, et al.), “Take the ‘A’ Train” (B. Strayhorn), live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1976
beyond category
John Zorn, Book of Angels (excerpts); Uri Caine, piano; Masada String Trio (Mark Feldman, violin; Erik Friedlander, cello;* Greg Cohen, bass); live, France (Marciac), 2008
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lagniappe
reading table
There’s a line in Tarkovsky’s Solaris: we never know when we’re going to die and because of that we are, at any given moment, immortal.
—Geoff Dyer, “Diary,” London Review of Books, 4/3/14
***
*It’s all related: Erik’s the son of photographer Lee Friedlander, whose work is often featured here.
never enough
Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor
Rafal Blechacz (1985-), piano, live
1st Movement
2nd Movement
3rd Movement
4th Movement
*****
can’t wait
Tomorrow Blechacz (pronounced, I just learned, BLEH-hatch), who recently won the 2014 Gilmore Artist Award,* will be at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall, playing Bach and Beethoven and Chopin.
***
*New York Times (1/8/14):
[O]ne of the great windfalls of the music world . . . the $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award . . . is given every four years to an unsuspecting pianist deemed worthy of a great career by a panel of anonymous judges who conduct their worldwide talent search in secret.
Happy (92nd) Birthday, Mingus!
Charles Mingus, bassist, composer, bandleader
April 22, 1922-January 5, 1979
Charles Mingus Quintet (CM, bass; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Booker Ervin, tenor saxophone; Ted Curson, trumpet; Dannie Richmond, drums) with guest Bud Powell (piano), “I’ll Remember April” (G. de Paul, P. Johnston, D. Raye), live, France (Antibes Jazz Festival), 1960
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR (Columbia University): all Mingus, all day.
old stuff
Jeannette and Her Synco Jazzers (Mary Lou Williams, piano, et al.), “The Bumps” (rec. 1927, Chicago)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Whistling was said to be popular among ancient Chinese hermits as a way of achieving oneness with nature.
—Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei (translations by Tony Barnstone, Willis Barnstone, Xu Haixin)
never enough
Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23
Krystian Zimerman (1956-), piano, live
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