If, someday, Björk invites you over for tea, don’t be surprised if she wants to show you this.
Martha Argerich, at home with then-husband conductor Charles Dutoit, Switzerland (near Lausanne), 1972
‘Recently I have been guilty of watching a lot of YouTube,’ Björk says. She’s been exploring Martha Argerich (1972 home movies) . . .
—Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise (blog), 11/13/11
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Happy Birthday, Suzanne!
Post-holiday blues?
Not for long.
Rahsaan Roland Kirk (saxophones), with McCoy Tyner (piano), Stanley Clark (bass) and Lenny White “drums,” “Pedal Up,” TV show (introduced by Quincy Jones), 1975
(Later note: When I posted this clip, I didn’t know there’d be all these commercials. You can skip the junk here.)
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Wach (excerpt)
The Ensemble for Intuitive Music Weimar
Live (rehearsal), Austria (Klosterneuberg), 2009
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Would I want to listen to this every day?
Nah.
But I don’t feel like listening to Junior Wells every day either.
Why shouldn’t our music be as various as our days?
something cheery to start the week
There’s some things, you reach a certain point in life when you just don’t have time to get better from it.
—Randy Newman
Randy Newman, “Losing You,” live, London, 2011
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
How many of my records, I wondered the other day while sorting CDs, will I never listen to again? How many will never be heard again by anyone?
Turn it off: cellphone, email, Twitter—the whole modern rot.
Let this, and nothing else, surround you.
Frederic Chopin, Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2
Martha Argerich (piano), live, Germany (Saarbrücken), 1972
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
In the right hands there are no notes—only mysteries.
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reading table
Then I considered the spiritual bread that a newspaper constitutes, still warm and moist as it emerges from the press and the morning mist in which it has been delivered at crack of dawn to the housemaids who take it to their masters with a bowl of milk, this miraculous loaf, multiplied ten-thousandfold and yet unique, which stays unchanged for everyone while proliferating across every threshold.
—Marcel Proust, The Fugitive (translated from French by Peter Collier)
Happy (Day After) Father’s Day
Nas (son) with Olu Dara (father), “Bridging the Gap” (2004)
(sampling Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy”)
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lagniappe
Here’s more from the old man.
David Murray Octet, “Dewey’s Circle” (DM, tenor saxophone; Olu Dara, trumpet; Butch Morris, cornet; George Lewis, trombone; Henry Threadgill, alto saxophone; Anthony Davis, piano; Wilber Morris, bass; Steve McCall, drums), Ming (Black Saint, 1980)
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Muddy Waters, “Mannish Boy” (Chess, 1955)
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lagniappe
reading table
People are mysterious, unfathomable—like divinities: natural objects for reverence. But our habits of thought turn the people around us into objects, the means for our self-protection.
—Lama John Makransky, “Family Practice,”
Tricycle, Summer 2001
old stuff
Fred Astaire (with Ginger Rogers), “I Won’t Dance”
Roberta, 1935
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lagniappe
radio
Driving around yesterday afternoon, I happened upon a new series on NPR’s All Things Considered, “Mom and Dad’s Record Collection.” “[M]usicians, writers, even politicians” talk about a “song they discovered through a parent and how it shaped them.” First up was singer and actress Audra McDonald, who can be heard here.
two takes
“Human Nature” (S. Porcaro & J. Bettis)
Vijay Iyer Trio (VI, piano; Stephan Crump, bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums), live (studio performance [KPLU-FM]), 2011
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Michael Jackson, recording (Thriller), 1982
John Luther Adams, “Red Arc/Blue Veil” (excerpt)
Live, University of Kentucky, 2008
Clint Davis, piano
Charlie Olvera, vibraphone, crotales
Jason Corder, Jordan Munson, video
(Originally posted on 2/10/11.)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
One of the functions of music is to remind us how much more beautiful the world is than it needs to be.
A high school girl in Reykjavik, an old man in Prague, a grieving widow in Sydney: no matter who you are, no matter where you are, these sounds are just a click away.
Franz Schubert, Piano Sonatas D. 958 (C minor), 959 (A major), 960 (B-flat major); Alfred Brendel, piano*
One of the delights of doing this blog is imagining the lives of the folks who stop by. In the past few days, for instance, there’ve been visitors from Germany, Netherlands, France, Syria, and Italy; Lithuania, Sweden, United Kingdom, and Mexico; Greece, New Zealand, Belgium, Israel, and Ethiopia; Colombia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Spain; Mongolia, Argentina, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Singapore, and the United States. To all: Welcome!
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*Here, courtesy of YouTube, is more detailed information about the program:
Sonata in C minor, D. 958
I Allegro
II Adagio
III Menuetto: Allegro — Trio
IV Allegro
Sonata in A major, D. 959
I Allegro
II Andantino
III Scherzo: Allegro vivace — Trio: Un poco più lento
IV Rondo. Allegretto — Presto
Sonata in B-flat major, D. 960
I Molto moderato
II Andante sostenuto
III Scherzo: Allegro vivace con delicatezza — Trio
IV Allegro, ma non troppo — Presto
music clip of the day 