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Heaven: hearing, together, a favorite drummer and a favorite bassist.
Ed Blackwell (drums, 1929-1992) with Malachi Favors (bass, 1927-2004) and Dewey Redman (tenor saxophone, 1931-2006), “Paris? Oui” (Tarik), 1969
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
voices I miss
This drummer never fails to lift my spirits.
Ed Blackwell (drums, 1929-1992) with Mal Waldron (piano), Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Woody Shaw (flugelhorn), Reggie Workman (bass), “The Git Go” (M. Waldron), live, New York (Village Vanguard), 1985
#1
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#2
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what’s new
David Leon (alto saxophone, compositions) & Ingrid Laubrock (tenor saxophone), live, New York, 11/29/18
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lagniappe
reading table
The Constructed Space
by W. S. Graham (1918-1986)
Meanwhile surely there must be something to say,
Maybe not suitable but at least happy
In a sense here between us two whoever
We are. Anyhow here we are and never
Before have we two faced each other who face
Each other now across this abstract scene
Stretching between us. This is a public place
Achieved against subjective odds and then
Mainly an obstacle to what I mean.
It is like that, remember. It is like that
Very often at the beginning till we are met
By some intention risen up out of nothing.
And even then we know what we are saying
Only when it is said and fixed and dead.
Or maybe, surely, of course we never know
What we have said, what lonely meanings are read
Into the space we make. And yet I say
This silence here for in it I might hear you.
I say this silence or, better, construct this space
So that somehow something may move across
The caught habits of language to you and me.
From where we are it is not us we see
And times are hastening yet, disguise is mortal.
The times continually disclose our home.
Here in the present tense disguise is mortal.
The trying times are hastening. Yet here I am
More truly now this abstract act become.
what’s new
Makaya McCraven (drums, compositions), et al., live (studio), 11/19/18
They’re playing tonight in Dublin, tomorrow in London, and Thursday in Chicago (MM’s hometown).
voices I miss
Art Pepper (alto saxophone, 1925-1982) with Hampton Hawes (piano), Charlie Haden (bass), Shelly Manne (drums), “Lost Life” (A. Pepper), Living Legend, 1975
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lagniappe
reading table
. . . that Ethereal Gain
One earns by measuring the Grave –
Then – measuring the Sun –—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), from 288 (Franklin)
voices I miss
No matter what kind of day you’re having, this will make it better.
Von Freeman (1923-2012, tenor saxophone, MCOTD Hall of Fame), with John Young (1922-2008, piano), et al., live (radio broadcast), late 1970s
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park
More sounds of Europe.
Enno Poppe (1969-), Fleisch (2017); Ensemble Nikel, live, Austria (Bludenz), 2017
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
what’s new
Aruan Ortiz (piano), Melanie Dyer (viola), Michael Attias (alto saxophone), live, New York, 10/8/18
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
like nobody else
This world is not my home . . .
—Sun Ra (1914-1993)
Sun Ra Arkestra (SR [keyboards, vocals], John Gilmore [tenor saxophone, clarinet, vocals], et al.), live, Spain (San Sebastian), 1985
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lagniappe
reading table
Appalled: by all the dead: Henry brooded.
—John Berryman (1914-1972 [MCOTD Hall of Fame]), from Dream Song 21
like nobody else
Rahsaan Roland Kirk (tenor saxophone, clarinet, etc. [1935-1977]) and the Vibration Society (Dick Griffin, trombone; Ron Burton, piano; Vernon Martin, bass; Jerome Cooper, drums; Joe Texidor, percussion), live, Paris, 1970
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
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reading table
All the people at the controls are opportunists or gangsters. The sweetness of reason died out of our public life with FDR. There doesn’t even seem to be a normal intelligence at work in the affairs of the nation.
—Tennessee Williams, letter to publisher James Laughlin, April 9, 1947
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