Sunday, 8/12/12
back to church
“Sending Up My Timber,” Male Choir, Macedonia Baptist Church, North Carolina, c. 2008
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: piano
2012
Saturday, 8/11/12
Sometimes what you’re looking for—when, say, your hard drive crashes (as mine just did)—is something where not much seems to happen, beautifully.
John Luther Adams, “The Farthest Place” (2001); piano (Clint Davis), vibraphone (Brian Archinal & Andy Bliss) bass (Satoru Tagawa), violin (Lydia Kabalen); University of Kentucky (Lexington), 2008
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lagniappe
There are all kinds of music.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo”
Richard Burton
2012
Thursday, 8/9/12
Mozart, Piano Sonata No. 18 in D. major, K. 576 (1789)
Mitsuko Uchida, piano
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Listening to Mozart is like entering a room where the walls, the ceiling, even the floor are made entirely of glass.
2012
Monday, 8/6/12
summer in the city
Jack White, “Take Me With You When You Go”
Lollapalooza, Chicago (Grant Park), 8/5/12
2012
Monday, 7/30/12
joy, n. listening to Monk alone at the piano playing a standard.
Thelonious Monk, piano
“Don’t Blame Me” (J. McHugh & D. Fields), Denmark, 1966
*****
“Just a Gigolo” (I. Caesar & L. Casucci), 1963
2012
Wednesday, 7/25/12
Suppose that, for the rest of your life, you could listen to only one piece of music.
What would you choose?
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), For Bunita Marcus (1985)
Hildegard Kleeb, piano (1994)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
[Morton Feldman and I] were driving back from some place in New England where a concert had been given. He is a large man and falls asleep easily. Out of a sound sleep, he awoke to say, “Now that things are so simple, there’s so much to do.” And then he went back to sleep.
—John Cage, in Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage (1961)
2012
Tuesday, 7/24/12
George Lewis (1952-), “Will to Adorn” (2011)
International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Chicago, 2012
[W]hen writing “The Will To Adorn,” Lewis was especially “interested in this idea of adornment—color, color, color everywhere.” The piece represents Lewis’ current musical goal to get “more color energy into the pieces.”
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
In February, when I left this concert, which took place on a Sunday afternoon at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, I felt both exhilarated and wistful. This performance, which had been such a joy to hear, I would never be able to experience again. Or so I thought, until, just the other day, I discovered this recording online. Young people, many of them, anyway, would see nothing remarkable in being able, thanks to the ’net, to return to a musical experience whenever, and wherever, you want. To me it seems a small miracle.
*****
reading table
I was trying to assert myself as the man in the house, taking charge of things no one could control.
—Richard Ford, Canada (2012)
2012
Sunday, 7/22/12
Dorothy Love Coates (1928-2002), “The Lord Will Answer Prayer,” 1981
More? Here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
Were gospel to be more publicly acclaimed, she [Dorothy Love Coates] might have the stature of a Billie Holiday or a Judy Garland. Instead, for thousands of black people, she is the message carrier.
—Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (6th ed. 2002)
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[I]t was obvious that Keith [Richards] and Gram [Parsons] enjoyed spending time together. . . . [W]e just all cared deeply about the same things. We just loved, for instance, to sit and listen to Dorothy Love Coates, the gospel singer.
(Quotes originally posted 3/28/10.)
2012
Saturday, 7/21/12
Johann Sebastian Bach, Air on the G String (adapted from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, 2nd Mvt.), Friedrich Gulda, piano, 1980s (?)
(Yeah, that’s Chick Corea at 2:57.)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
This would make a helluva blurb:
Bach’s music is the only argument proving the creation of the Universe cannot be regarded a complete failure.
2012
Friday, 7/20/12
two takes
Robert Glasper Experiment, “Always Shine” (feat. Lupe Fiasco & Bilal)
TV show (David Letterman), 2/29/12
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Recording, Black Radio (2012)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Jazz, classical, R&B: so much great music, no matter the genre, shares a particular quality—density.
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reading table
It’s as if your body were itself a person
And the person wasn’t you.—Frederick Seidel, “Track Bike” (excerpt), London Review of Books, 7/19/12
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art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (between court hearings at the nearby federal court building)
Willem de Kooning, Untitled XI (1975)
music clip of the day 