never enough
Monk, that is.
“Rhythm-a-Ning,” (T. Monk)
Art Pepper Quartet (AP, alto saxophone; Milcho Leview, piano; Tony Dumas, bass; Carl Burnett, drums), live
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Tom Harrell Quintet (TH, trumpet, flugelhorn; Wayne Escoffery, tenor saxophone; Danny Grissett, piano; Ugonna Okegwo, bass; Johnathan Blake, drums), live, Paris, 2008
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Given the number of lives that end in death, the odds of avoiding it seem slim.
alone
Ran Blake (1935-), pianist, composer, teacher, MacArthur “genius” grant winner
Above the Sadness (trailer), 2011
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Live, “Over the Rainbow,” Portugal (Lisbon), 2010
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Live (at home), 2001
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lagniappe
reading table
‘[L]ife holds thee; not thou it.’
—Herman Melville (1819-1891), Moby Dick
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Why Patterns?; California EAR Unit (Dorothy Stone, flute; Arthur Jarvinen, glockenspiel; Gaylord Mowrey, piano), 1991
His music makes so much use of space it seems to keep going even after the sounds have stopped.
Little Richard, Jerry Lee—they’ve got nothing on this gal.
Rev. Julius Cheeks (lead vocals), Marge Cheeks (piano), Knights of Washington, D.C., “Morning Train,” TV show (TV Gospel Time), early 1960s
Thirty-seven years ago, at a church outside Chicago, my wife Suzanne and I were married. Saxophonist Von Freeman and pianist John Young played at the ceremony.* Afterward, at the nearby reception hall, this guy tickled the ivories. All three are now gone.
Blind John Davis (1913-1985), live, Canada, early ’80s
#1
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#2
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#3
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*Here’s how they sounded that night. (Give it a few seconds.)
passings
Roy Campbell Jr., trumpeter, September 29, 1952-January 9, 2014
Live (RC, pocket trumpet; Rasul Siddik, trumpet; Jobic Le Masson, piano; Aldridge Hansberry, drums), Paris, 2006
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lagniappe
reading table
In the dirty city
one rare glimpse—
mountain moon—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694, translated from Japanese by David Young)
another take
Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2; Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), piano
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Things didn’t have to be this way: you could have been born into a world without music.
Something quiet, and lyrical, and beautiful to begin the year.
Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2; Shura Cherkassky (1909-1995), piano, 1956
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lagniappe
reading table
year after year—
the monkey wearing
a monkey’s mask—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), New Year’s Day, 1693 (translated from Japanese by David Landis Barnhill)
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach, Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826; Martha Argerich, piano, live, Switzerland (Verbier Festival), 2008
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR’s Bach Festival, now in its tenth day, concludes at midnight.
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reading table
Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. . . . Our noise, our business, our purposes, and all our fatuous statements about our purposes, our business, and our noise: these are the illusion.
—Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island
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no passport needed
This year folks from ninety-five countries stopped by to listen. Welcome, all.
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.
music clip of the day 