Miles Davis Quintet (MD, trumpet; Wayne Shorter, tenor saxophone; Herbie Hancock, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Tony Williams, drums), “Footprints” (W. Shorter), live, Sweden, 1967
Vodpod videos no longer available.Time for just one note? 3:34. (Shorter’s entire solo is a marvel [1:54-3:54]: it’s as intimate and delicate as a dream.)
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lagniappe
reading table
just the other day
we said goodbye . . .
dewy grave—Kobayashi Issa, 1790s (trans. David G. Lanoue)
lucid, adj. suffused with light, luminous. E.g., Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet.
Morton Feldman, Piano and String Quartet (1985)
Kronos Quartet with Aki Takahashi (piano)
In a world that keeps getting faster and noisier, Feldman offers a refuge.
Here time slows. Quietly.
hearing colors, seeing sounds
John Coltrane, “Giant Steps,” excerpt (Giant Steps, Atlantic, 1970)
Animation by Michal Levy (2001)
(Yo, Michael: Thanks for the tip!)
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lagniappe
Synesthesia is a rare neurological condition that leads stimulation in one sensory pathway to trigger an experience in another. Basically, a short-circuiting in the brain that enables such strange phenomena like perceiving letters and numbers as inherently colored (color-graphemic synesthesia) or hearing sounds in response to visual motion. More than 60 types of synesthesia have been identified, with one of the most common being the cross-sensory experience of color and sound — “hearing” color or “seeing” music.
Israeli artist and jazz musician Michal Levy . . . is an actual synesthetic: When she listens to music, she sees shapes and colors as different tones, pitches, frequencies, harmonies, and other elements of the melody unfold.
What’s surprising here isn’t that there are so many wonderful moments. Given the line-up, you’d expect that. What you wouldn’t expect is for these guys to sound so cohesive, as if they’d been playing together for years.
Sun Ra All Stars (SR, keyboards; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet, vocals; Lester Bowie, trumpet; Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone, vocals; John Gilmore, tenor saxophone; Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, percussion; Philly Joe Jones, drums; Clifford Jarvis, drums; Famadou Don Moye, drums, percussion), live, Germany (Berlin), 1983
Vodpod videos no longer available.More Sun Ra? Here. And here. And here.
More Don Cherry? Here. And here. And here.
More Lester Bowie? Here. And here. And here. And here.
More Archie Shepp? Here.
passings
Jerry Lieber, songwriter, April 25, 1933-August 22, 2011
Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, “Hound Dog” (J. Lieber & M. Stoller), live (TV broadcast; Buddy Guy, guitar; Fred Below, drums), Europe, 1965 (originally recorded 1952)
Vodpod videos no longer available.(Originally posted 12/10/10.)
*****
Nick Ashford, songwriter, singer, May 4, 1941-August 22, 2011
Ashford & Simpson, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (N. Ashford & V. Simpson), live
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
David “Honeyboy” Edwards, singer, guitar player, June 28, 1915-
August 29, 2011
Live, WBEZ-FM (Chicago), 2008
Vodpod videos no longer available.Happy Birthday, Bird!
Charlie Parker, alto saxophonist, August 29, 1920-March 12, 1955
According to Miles Davis, the history of jazz can be summarized in four words: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker.
Charlier Parker & Dizzy Gillespie, “Hot House,” live (TV broadcast), 1952
(Originally posted 10/17/09.)
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lagniappe
radio
WKCR-FM’s Lester Young/Charlie Parker birthday marathon runs until midnight—today’s all Bird.
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musical thoughts
Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.
—Charlie Parker
You may find it difficult to remember someone’s favorite foods or to recall their favorite movies. But their favorite music? Today’s my mother’s birthday; she’s been gone a long time. This guy she loved.
The King Cole Trio (Nat King Cole, piano & vocals; Oscar Moore, guitar; Johnny Miller, bass), “It is Better to Be by Yourself” (Breakfast in Hollywood, 1946)
Vodpod videos no longer available.More? Here.
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lagniappe
art beat: more from Thursday’s stop at Chicago’s Art Institute
Hiroshi Yoshida, Three Little Islands (1930)
In his world Frederic Chopin and Professor Longhair are neighbors.
James Booker, December 17, 1939-November 8, 1983
“Classified,” live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1978
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Playing for friends (home video), Europe, 1978
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
art beat
Lucian Freud, December 8, 1922-July 20, 2011
Self-Portrait: Reflection (2002)
Time for just one?
I’d go with Alfred Cortot.
*****
favorites
(an occasional series)
Of beauty you cannot have too much.
Frederic Chopin, Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 (1835-36)
Take 1: Vladimir Horowitz, live, New York (Carnegie Hall)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Take 2: Krystian Zimerman, live
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Take 3: Claudio Arrau
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Take 4: Alfred Cortot
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Take 5: Sviatoslav Richter, live (Kiev)
Vodpod videos no longer available.More Chopin? Here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
[T]he things we feel in life are not experienced in the form of ideas, and so their translation into literature, an intellectual process, may give an account of them, explain them, analyse them, but cannot recreate them as music does, its sounds seeming to take on the inflections of our being, to reproduce that inner, extreme point of sensation which is that thing that causes us the specific ecstasy we feel from time to time and which, when we say ‘What a beautiful day! What beautiful sunshine!’, is not conveyed at all to our neighbour, in whom the same sun and the same weather set off quite different vibrations.
—Marcel Proust, The Prisoner (1925), trans. Carol Clark
(Originally posted 12/27/10.)
old stuff
(an occasional series)
Duke Ellington, “Black Beauty” (1928)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
music clip of the day 