only rock ’n’ roll
The Ex & Brass Unbound,* live, Dublin, 2010
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lagniappe
last night
He read at the Art Institute of Chicago, where I sat rapt and happy.
Seamus Heaney, “Postscript,” Dublin, 2011
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*Mats Gustafsson (baritone saxophone), Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone), Wolter Wierbos (trombone), Roy Paci (trumpet).
Some folks sing with their feet.
Duke Ellington Orchestra, Bunny Briggs (dance), Jon Hendricks (vocal), “David Danced Before the Lord with All His Might,” live, San Francisco (Grace Cathedral), 1965
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lagniappe
reading table
And David danced before the Lord with all his might . . .
—2 Samuel 6:14 (King James)
bloodlines
Ravi Coltrane (JC’s son), tenor saxophone; Matt Garrison, bass (son of Coltrane bassist Jimmy Garrison); Nikki Glaspie, drums; live (Le Poisson Rouge), New York, 1/7/12
shhhh . . .
Joe McPhee, “Old Eyes” (for Ornette Coleman), live, New York, 2009
old stuff
Count Basie Orchestra (feat. Jimmy Rushing [vocals] & Herschel Evans [tenor saxophone]), “When My Dreamboat Comes Home,” live (radio broadcast), New York (Savoy Ballroom, Harlem), 1937
The other day, driving to Rockford for a hearing in a murder case, listening to this for the first time, I couldn’t quit hitting the repeat button: “and once again the fields of gloom are adroitly plowed under.”
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
What music from today will folks be listening to in 2087?
earthy (horns) + ethereal (vibes) = enthralling
Peter Brötzmann (saxophones, tarogato) and Jason Adasiewicz (vibraphone), live, New York (Le Poisson Rouge), 9/5/12
Part 1
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Part 2
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Part 3
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Tonight these guys will be at the Hideout, a little club on Chicago’s near northwest side, which is where I’ll be too.
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lagniappe
reading table
Four trees – upon a solitary Acre –
Without Design
Or Order, or Apparent Action –
Maintain –The Sun – upon a Morning meets them –
The Wind –
No nearer Neighbor – have they –
But God –The Acre gives them – Place –
They – Him – Attention of Passer by –
Of Shadow, or of Squirrel, haply –
Or Boy –What Deed is Theirs unto the General Nature –
What Plan
They severally – retard – or further –
Unknown –—Emily Dickinson
love it or hate it
Fire Room (Ken Vandermark, reeds; Lasse Marhaug, electronics; Paal Nilssen-Love, percussion), live, Poland (Poznań), 2011
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
What Emily Dickinson says of poetry applies to music too: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
Happy (100th) Birthday, John!
John Cage, composer, September 5, 1912-August 12, 1992
Today, celebrating his centennial, we revisit past clips.
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10/9/09
No matter where you are, this landscape is just around the corner.
John Cage (1912-1992), In a Landscape (1948); Stephen Drury, piano
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music is a means of rapid transportation.
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What I’m proposing, to myself and other people, is what I often call the tourist attitude—that you act as though you’ve never been there before. So that you’re not supposed to know anything about it. If you really get down to brass tacks, we have never been anywhere before.
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As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.
—John Cage
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5/22/10
Here’s a piece that sounds different every time you hear it.
John Cage, 4’ 33” (1952); David Tudor, piano
lagniappe
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*****
musical thoughts
I didn’t wish it [4′ 33″] to appear, even to me, as something easy to do or as a joke. I wanted to mean it utterly and be able to live with it.
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Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.
—John Cage
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3/8/12
John Cage, Two (1987)
Live, Netherlands (Amsterdam), 2009
Dante Boon (piano), Rutger van Otterloo (soprano saxophone)
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Recording, 1991 (hat Art)
Marianne Schroeder (piano), Eberhard Blum (flute)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Every something is an echo of nothing.
—John Cage, Silence (1961)
*****
7/23/12
Monday, n. the day the weekly tide of confusion rolls in.
How about something simple?
John Cage (1912-1992), Six Melodies (for violin and keyboard; dedicated to Josef & Anni Albers), 1950; Annelie Gahl (violin) & Klaus Lang (electric piano), 2010
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lagniappe (new stuff)
radio
Today it’s all Cage all day at WKCR-FM.
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art beat: more from Sunday’s stop at the Art Institute of Chicago
Agnes Martin, Untitled #12, 1977 (detail)
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another birthday, closer to home
Today also marks the birthday of MCOTD—our third.
joy, n. listening to Paul Motian play Monk.
Paul Motian Trio (PM, drums; Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone; Bill Frisell, guitar), “Misterioso” (T. Monk), live, New York (Village Vanguard), 2005
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Jasper Johns, Corpse and Mirror II (1974-75)
*****
reading table
up to today
such a healthy singer . . .
katydid—Kobayashi Issa, 1813 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
timeless
Sly and the Family Stone
“Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again),” TV Show (Soul Train), 1974
*****
“In Time,” Fresh, 1973
Jazz legend Miles Davis was so impressed by the song “In Time” . . . that he made his band listen to the track repeatedly for a full 30 minutes. Composer and music theorist Brian Eno cited Fresh as having heralded a shift in the history of recording, “where the rhythm instruments, particularly the bass drum and bass, suddenly [became] the important instruments in the mix.”
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lagniappe
art beat: more from Tuesday’s stop at the Art Institute of Chicago
Roy Lichtenstein, Landscape in Fog (1996)
music clip of the day 