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)
street music: New Orleans
Brass band, 5/12
riveting
Anton Bruckner (1824-96), Symphony No. 5 in B flat major; Berlin Philharmonic (Wilhelm Furtwangler, cond.), live, Berlin, 1942
(Yeah, I realize this performance took place in Nazi Germany during World War II and, no, I don’t have anything profound, or even interesting, to say about how such beauty and such horror could coexist.)
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?
Rarely has dying sounded so joyous.
Glen David Andrews, “I’ll Fly Away”
Live, New Orleans (Zion Hill Baptist Church), 2008
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lagniappe
reading table
[P]eople exist for us only in the idea that we have of them.
—Marcel Proust, The Fugitive (translated from French by Peter Collier)
*****
Each year on this auspicious day, alone and foreign
here in a foreign place, my thoughts of you sharpen;far away, I can almost see you reaching the summit,
dogwood berries woven into sashes, short one person.—Wang Wei (701-61), “9/9, Thinking of My Brothers East of the Mountains” (trans. from Chinese by David Hinton)
Sometimes more is more.
Anton Bruckner (1824-96), Symphony No. 8 in C minor; Vienna Philharmonic (Herbert von Karajan, cond.), live, Austria (Abbey of St. Florian), 1979
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Once upon a time, before the human attention span began to shrink, people could actually sit still and pay attention to something—a single thing—for over an hour.
You don’t need to be asleep to be lost in a dream.
Maurice Ravel, Piano Concerto in G Major (1929-31); Martha Argerich, piano; Orchestre National de France (Charles Dutoit, cond.); live, Germany (Frankfurt), 1990
playing this weekend at the Chicago Jazz Festival
Matt Wilson’s Arts & Crafts* (Sunday, 3:30 p.m.)
“We See” (T. Monk), live, New York, 2011
(Paul Motian, this guy—drummers seem to have a particular feeling for Monk.)
*****
Steve Coleman and Five Elements** (Sunday, 7:10 p.m.)
Live, New York, 2010
*****
Ken Vandermark’s Made To Break Quartet*** (Sunday, 2:20 p.m.)
Live, Barcelona, 2011
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*MW, drums; Terell Stafford, trumpet; Gary Versace, piano; Martin Wind, bass.
**SC, alto saxophone; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; Tim Albright, trombone; Miles Okazaki, guitar; David Virelles, piano; Thomas Morgan, bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums.
***KV, reeds; Christof Kurzmann, electronics; Devin Hoff, bass; Tim Daisy, drums.
two takes
“Moment’s Notice” (J. Coltrane)
McCoy Tyner Quartet (MT, piano; Bobby Hutcherson, vibes; Charnett Moffett, bass; Eric Harland, drums), live, England, 2002
*****
John Coltrane (tenor saxophone, with Lee Morgan trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone; Kenny Drew, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums), recording (Blue Train), 1957
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, tasting: what sense is missing from our repertoire that, if you came from some other world, you couldn’t imagine living without?
Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy (LB, trumpet; Malachi Thompson, trumpet; Steve Turre, trombone; Phillip Wilson, drums, et al.), “I Only Have Eyes For You” (H. Warren & A. Dubin), 1984
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lagniappe
this just in
Lester Bowie, whose singular playing and presence have often been celebrated here,* has just been inducted, posthumously, into the ultra-exclusive MCOTD Hall of Fame, joining tenor saxophonist Von Freeman and poets Wislawa Szymborska and William Bronk.
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*Here (Art Ensemble of Chicago). Here (with Digable Planets). Here (Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy). Here (Art Ensemble of Chicago). Here (with Sun Ra All Stars). And here (Lester Bowie Brass & Steel Band).
music clip of the day 