sorrowful, adj. showing or expressing sorrow; mournful; plaintive.
E.g., Roger Sessions’ Duo for Violin and Piano.
Roger Sessions (1896-1985), Duo for Violin and Piano (1942), excerpts
Carlos Bernales, violin, Chris Christopher, live, New York, 2/1/08
#1
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#2
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#3
Vodpod videos no longer available.Our music is a Secret Order.
—Louis Armstrong, 1954 (John F. Zwed, Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra [1997], epigraph)
Von Freeman (tenor saxophone, with Ed Petersen, tenor saxophone; Willie Pickens, piano; Brian Sandstrom, bass; Robert Shy, drums), live, Chicago (Green Mill Lounge), 12/31/10
Vodpod videos no longer available.Whatever I’d say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.
—John Coltrane
Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute)
June 20, 1928-June 29, 1964
John Coltrane Quintet (JC, tenor saxophone; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Elvin Jones, drums), “Impressions,” live, Germany (Baden-Baden), 1961
Vodpod videos no longer available.(For whatever reason, this clip sometimes seems to play better, on my Mac, with Safari than Firefox.)
More Eric Dolphy? Here. And here.
More John Coltrane? Here.
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lagniappe
reading table
Leviathan
Truth also is the pursuit of it:
Like happiness, and it will not stand.Even the verse begins to eat away
In the acid. Pursuit, pursuit;A wind moves a little,
Moving in a circle, very cold.How shall we say?
In ordinary discourse—We must talk now. I am no longer sure of the words,
The clockwork of the world. What is inexplicableIs the ‘preponderance of objects.’ The sky lights
Daily with that predominanceAnd we have become the present.
We must talk now. Fear
Is fear. But we abandon one another.
When I was in my 20s, this wouldn’t have appealed to me at all—
too “light,” too “cool,” not “adventurous” enough. But to borrow from
Bobby D., “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” Most of what I liked then I still like. But I like a lot of other things, too. It helps,
I’ve found, if you listen, closely, to what is there—not what isn’t.
George Shearing, August 13, 1919-February 14, 2011
George Shearing Quintet (GS, piano; Chuck Wayne, guitar; Joe Roland, vibes; John Levy, bass; Denzil Best, drums), 1950s
“Conception”
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“I’ll Be Around”
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“Swedish Pastry”
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“Move”
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Dean and I went to see Shearing at Birdland in the midst of the long, mad weekend. The place was deserted, we were the first customers, ten o’clock. Shearing came out, blind, led by the hand to his keyboard. He was a distinguished-looking Englishman with a stiff white collar, slightly beefy, blond, with a delicate English-summer’s-night air about him that came out in the first rippling sweet number he played as the bass-player leaned to him reverently and thrummed the beat. The drummer, Denzil Best, sat motionless except for his wrists snapping the brushes. And Shearing began to rock; a smile broke over his ecstatic face; he began to rock in the piano seat, back and forth, slowly at first, then the beat went up, and he began rocking fast, his left foot jumped up with every beat, his neck began to rock crookedly, he brought his face down to the keys, he pushed his hair back, his combed hair dissolved, he began to sweat. The music picked up. The bass-player hunched over and socked it in, faster and faster, it seemed faster and faster, that’s all. Shearing began to play his chords; they rolled out of the piano in great rich showers, you’d think the man wouldn’t have time to line them up. They rolled and rolled like the sea. Folks yelled for him to “Go!” Dean was sweating; the sweat poured down his collar. “There he is! That’s him! Old God! Old God Shearing! Yes! Yes! Yes!” And Shearing was conscious of the madman behind him, he could hear every one of Dean’s gasps and imprecations, he could sense it though he couldn’t see. “That’s right!” Dean said. “Yes!” Shearing smiled, he rocked. Shearing rose from the piano, dripping with sweat; these were his great 1949 days before he became cool and commercial. When he was gone Dean pointed to the empty piano seat. “God’s empty chair,” he said. On the piano a horn sat; its golden shadow made a strange reflection along the desert caravan painted on the wall behind the drums. God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere.
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)
Comedy, like jazz, is an art of syncopation.
Lenny Bruce, 1959 (with Cannonball Adderly, saxophone; Bill Evans, piano; Teddy Kotick, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums)
Vodpod videos no longer available.(Yeah, I could do without all the extra blah-blah-blah, too.)
More Lenny? Here.
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lagniappe
radio
Today WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) is remembering George Shearing, who passed away Monday at the age of 91, with a memorial broadcast that runs until 9 p.m. (EST).
Spontaneity, immediacy, freshness—they can be as important in classical music as they are in jazz. What I love about this performance, for instance, is that he never stops searching. It’s as if he’s encountering this piece for the first time and unable to conceal his astonishment.
Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 31, Op. 110/Rudolf Serkin, piano, live, 1987
1st Movement
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2nd Movement
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3rd Movement
Vodpod videos no longer available.More Beethoven piano sonatas?
Here (No. 14, “Moonlight,” Artur Schnabel).
And here (No. 21, “Waldstein,” Emil Gilels).
And here (No. 23, “Appassionata,” Solomon).
And here. (No. 32, Claudio Arrau).
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reading table
The Busy Road
I am so used to it by now
that when the traffic falls silent,
I think a storm is coming.***
Lonely
No one is calling me. I can’t check the answering machine because I have been here all this time. If I go out, someone may call while I’m out. Then I can check the answering machine when I come back in.
***
Nietszche
Oh, poor Dad. I’m sorry I made fun of you.
Now I’m spelling Nietszche wrong, too.—The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (2009)
two takes
My soul look back and wonder how did I make it over . . .
Mahalia Jackson, “How I Got Over,” live, 1963
New York (Bethel Baptist Church, Bronx)
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Washington, D.C. (March on Washington)
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*****
clear, adj. bright, luminous; transparent; free from obscurity. E.g., alto saxophonists Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green.
Rudresh and Bunky, talking and playing (with Jason Moran, piano; Francois Moutin, bass; Jack DeJohnette and Damion Reid, drums)
Vodpod videos no longer available.Listening to these guys, who’d ever guess that one is nearly twice as old as the other? (Rudresh is 39, Bunky 75.)
*****
Here’s a track from their recent album (Apex, 2010), “Playing with Stones,” featuring Rudresh (Bunky sits out).
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
My favorite moment in this next clip comes at 2:24, when alto saxophonist Greg Osby, listening to Bunky, tilts his head, as if to say, “Did you hear that?!”
Bunky Green (with alto saxophonists Greg Osby and Steffano di Battista), “Body and Soul,” live, Germany, 2008
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lagniappe
reading table
In the is-this-a-great-country-or-what department, how delicious to learn
that two great American artists—trumpeter Roy Eldridge and poet Elizabeth Bishop—were born, one hundred years ago, within days of each other. (Eldridge was born on January 30, 1911, Bishop on February 8th.)
Sandpiper
The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet
of interrupting water comes and goes
and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.
He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.—Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them
where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains
rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs,
he stares at the dragging grains.The world is a mist. And then the world is
minute and vast and clear. The tide
is higher or lower. He couldn’t tell you which.
His beak is focussed; he is preoccupied,looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed!
The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray
mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.—Elizabeth Bishop
three takes
Twenty inches of snow.
Fifty-mile-an-hour winds.
Thunder, lightning.
When the weather’s this bitter, shouldn’t the songs be too?
She wait till it got nine below zero . . .
Sonny Boy Williamson II (AKA Aleck “Rice” Miller), “Nine Below Zero”
Live (introduced by Memphis Slim; with Otis Spann, piano; Matt Murphy, guitar; Willie Dixon, bass; Billy Stepney, drums), Europe (Germany), 1963
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Recording (with Otis Spann, piano; Robert Jr. Lockwood & Luther Tucker, guitars; Willie Dixon, bass; Odie Payne, drums), Chess Records, Chicago, 12/14/60
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Recording (with Elmore James, guitar; Willie Love, piano; Cliff Givens, bass; Joe Dyson, drums), Trumpet Records, Jackson, Mississippi, 12/4/51
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Three Below Zero?
Seven Below Zero?
Ten Below Zero?
Sonny Boy nailed it with nine.
fringe dress festival (cont’d)
Wanda Jackson, live (TV broadcast [Town Hall Party]), 1958
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music clip of the day 