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
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: piano
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)
***
[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)
2012
Thursday, 7/12/12
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
*****
Happy Birthday, Suzanne!
2012
Thursday, 7/5/12
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.)
2012
Wednesday, 6/27/12
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?
2012
Monday, 6/25/12
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?
music clip of the day 