summer in the city
Kamasi Washington, “The Rhythm Changes,” live, Chicago (Pitchfork Music Festival), 7/17/16
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday, Art Institute of Chicago
Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), Chicago 42 1952 (Abstractions, through 8/14/16)
sounds of New York
Dre Hocevar Large Ensemble (DH, drums, composition), live, New York, 2015
sounds of Oslo, Amsterdam, and Chicago
What if your office sounded like this?
Paal Nilssen-Love Trio (PNL, drums, percussion; Ab Baars, clarinet, shakuhachi, tenor saxophone; Ken Vandermark, tenor saxophone, clarinet), live, Oslo, 2011
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
The flowers seem not to know—this park’s in one of the city’s most violent neighborhoods (Austin).
MCOTD Hall of Fame
Henry Threadgill (1944-, composer, alto saxophonist, flutist, bandleader, 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner), playing and talking, 2010
two takes
“Never Grow Old,” AKA “Where We’ll Never Grow Old” (James C. Moore)
Aretha Franklin, live, Detroit, 1996
***
Vernard Johnson, live, 1973
never enough
Thelonious Monk Quartet (TM, piano; Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Larry Gales, bass; Ben Riley, drums), “Rhythm-a-Ning” (T. Monk), live, London, 1966
voices I miss
Albert Collins (1932-1993), live, Switzerland (Montreux), 1979
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), Chicago 28 1957 (Abstractions, through 8/14/16)
*****
tonight in Chicago
The Chicago Blues Festival celebrates the 45th anniversary of Alligator Records, where, in the ’70s, barely out of college, I had the good fortune to co-produce recordings by Albert Collins, Koko Taylor, Son Seals, Fenton Robinson, Jimmy Johnson, Carey Bell, et al.
sounds of Chicago and Oslo
Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone), Paal Nilssen-Love (percussion), “Song for Terrie,” live, Netherlands (Amsterdam), 5/26/16
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
A big birthday shout-out to my brother Don, my first listening companion. All these years later, the basement jukebox still plays: “Wake Up Little Susie” (Everly Brothers) . . .”North to Alaska” (Johnny Horton) . . .”(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” (Gene Pitney) . . . Hear it?
Need a lift?
Angelika Niescier (alto saxophone), Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Florian Weber (piano), Chris Tordini (bass), Tyshawn Sorey (drums), “The Barn Thing” (A. Niescier), live, Germany (Krefeld), 2013
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), Martha’s Vineyard Rocks 127B 1954 (Abstractions, through 8/14/16)
Vancouver folkie + iconic Memphis rhythm section.
This should never have worked.
But it does, wonderfully.
Frazey Ford, “September Fields” (Indian Ocean), 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
The climate is pretty.
I wrote everything on it.
That’s the activity where it
gets relatively inauspicious.***
And you were sitting there
in the night of life. It sure was good.
My favorite desserts were there.
And when they invite you, it’s like an important document
goes missing. I’ll give you an example:
a twelve-year struggle upstate, in
the slick atmosphere of the breakfast room.
It might have gotten stuck in her farthingale.Otherwise no reply.
—John Ashbery (1927-), “As Someone Who Likes Travel,” fragments (New Yorker, 5/30/16)
To read Ashbery is to read English as a foreign language—which I mean as a compliment.
