Tuesday, June 4th
alone
Cecil Taylor, piano, live, Germany (Nürnberg), 1984
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: piano
2013
Monday, June 3rd
alone
Matthew Shipp, piano, “Greensleeves,” “Symbol Systems,” 2012
2013
Thursday, May 23rd
Some singers are so distinctive that when you’re in the mood for them no one else will do.
Blossom Dearie (1924-2009), “They Say It’s Spring,” 1958*
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lagniappe
reading table: Albion Beatnik Bookstore, Oxford, England
*****
*BD, vocals, piano; Herb Ellis, guitar; Ray Brown, bass; Jo Jones, drums.
2013
Monday, May 20th
two takes
“Take Five” (P. Desmond)
Ceramic Dog (Marc Ribot, guitar; Shahzad Ismaily, bass & percussion; Ches Smith, drums), live, Netherlands (Amsterdam), 2013
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Dave Brubeck Quartet (DB, piano; Paul Desmond, alto saxophone; Eugene Wright, bass; Joe Morello, drums), live, Germany, 1966
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Bullfinch and Weeping Cherry Tree, 1834
2013
Saturday, May 11th
Here, following Hélène Grimaud’s the other day and Rudolf Serkin’s a while back, is another take.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110, third movement, Maurizio Pollini (1942-), live
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lagniappe
reading table
I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch —
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
2013
Wednesday, May 8th
Yesterday, listening to WKCR-FM (Columbia University), I bumped into this, a track I never tired of hearing when, in the ’70s, I was in college.
Bill Evans (1929-1980), piano, “Never Let Me Go” (Alone, 1968)
2013
Tuesday, May 7th
Only a world this noisy could produce music this quiet.
Evan Parker (soprano saxophone), et al.,* live, London (Freedom of the City festival), 2011
*Heledd Francis Wright (flute), John Russell (guitar), Augusti Fernandez (piano), Adam Linson (bass), Toma Gouband (percussion), Lawrence Casserley (electronics), Matt Wright (electronics).
2013
Monday, May 6th
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110; Hélène Grimaud (1969-), live, Germany (Berlin), c. 2001
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Each performer plays this piece differently, and each performance is different. Each listener hears it differently, and each listen is different. This isn’t one piece; it’s many.
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random thoughts
Two sons, two fathers. Saturday evening, as we were driving back to Bloomington from Indianapolis, where we’d celebrated his graduation from Indiana University at a grand old steakhouse, Luke got a call from a friend. A guy he knew, who grew up in the town right next to us and was a couple years behind him at IU, had just been in a terrible car accident—north of Indianapolis, on the highway to Chicago. He was on his way home for the summer. Now all I could think of was his father, whom I had never met. He would be getting into his car. He would be driving into Chicago on the Eisenhower Expressway, then going south on the Dan Ryan. He would be taking the Skyway into Indiana, then heading toward Indianapolis on Interstate 65. He would be going to get his son. For the last time.
2013
Tuesday, April 30th
one thing after
another after another
after another after another after . . .
John Cage (1912-1992), Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1958); Variable Geometry (Jean-Phillippe Calvin, director), live, London, 2011
A performance like this can go wrong in so many ways. This one, to these ears, works wonderfully. Momentum, tautness, immediacy—it has them all.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Everything we do is music.
2013
Monday, April 22nd
Let’s listen, after a week of bombings and explosions and earthquakes, to something spare, something quiet.
Erik Satie (1866-1925), Sonneries de la Rose + Croix – Air du Grand Prieur (1892); Reinbert de Leeuw, piano
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lagniappe
radio
Happy Birthday, Charles Mingus!
Today it’s all Mingus, all day at WKCR-FM (Columbia University).
music clip of the day 