more
Miles Davis (with John Scofield, guitar; Darryl Jones, bass, et al.), live, Montreal, 1985
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lagniappe
reading table
“Living here is like a joke without a punch line.”
—Bulgarian bar owner, quoted in New York Times Book Review, 12/3/17, review of Border: Journey to the Edge of Europe
trumpet festival
day three
Lester Bowie (1941-1999), trumpeter—and so much more*
Lester Bowie Brass & Steel Band, live, Italy (Umbria), 1996
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lagniappe
reading table
Together, We All Go out under the Cypress Trees in the Chou Family Burial Grounds by T’ao Ch’ien (AKA T’ao Yuan-Ming), 365-427 A.D. (translated from Chinese by David Hinton)
Today’s skies are perfect for a clear
flute and singing koto. And touchedthis deeply by those laid under these
cypress trees, how could we neglect joy?Clear songs drift away anew. Emerald wine
starts pious faces smiling. Not knowingwhat tomorrow brings, it’s exquisite
exhausting whatever I feel here and now.
*****
Happy Thanksgiving!
This holiday, recovering from pneumonia, I’m more thankful than ever for family, for art, for poetry and, yes, for music.
*****
*Lester is a member of the MCOTD Hall of fame, along with saxophonists Von Freeman and Henry Threadgill; drummer Hamid Drake; gospel singer Dorothy Love Coates; composer Morton Feldman; poets John Berryman, William Bronk, and Wislawa Szymborska; and photographer Helen Levitt.
trumpet festival
day two
Peter Evans (trumpet) & Cory Smythe (piano), International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), live, New York, 2014
#1
#2
#3
#4
trumpet festival
day one
Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die (JB, trumpet; Tomeka Reid, cello; Jason Ajemian, bass; Chad Taylor, drums), live, Toronto, 5/6/17
“theme 1,” “. . . meanwhile,” “theme 2”
***
“theme nothing”
drum festival
day one
Dafnis Prieto Sextet (DP, drums; Peter Apfelbaum, tenor saxophone; Alex Sipiagin, trumpet; Roman Filiu, alto saxophone; Manuel Valera , piano; Johannes Weidenmueller, bass), “Back and Forth” (D. Prieto), live, East Lansing, Mich., 2017
like nobody else
Peter Evans (trumpet), “Abyss (for Roscoe Mitchell),” 2016
timeless
James P. Johnson (piano), Sidney DeParis (trumpet), Vic Dickenson (trombone), Ben Webster (tenor saxophone), Jimmy Shirley (guitar), John Simmons (bass), Sidney Catlett (drums), “After You’ve Gone” (T. Layton, M. Harris), 1944
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lagniappe
reading table
Your actual experience is a complete flux.
—Robert Lowell (1917-1977)
Think you know what a trumpet sounds like?
Nate Wooley (trumpet), live, New York, 4/3/17
#1
#2
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lagniappe
reading table
lights have entered
us it is a music more powerfulthan music
—George Oppen (1908-1984), “Till Other Voices Wake Us,” fragment
bad news/good news
Bad news: You’ve heard nothing this good in who knows how long.
Good news: You’re about to hear this.
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (AB, drums; John Gilmore, tenor saxophone; Lee Morgan, trumpet; John Hicks, piano; Victor Sproles, bass), “On The Ginza,” “Lament for Stacey,” “The Egyptian,” “I Can’t Get Started,” “Buhaina’s Delight,” live (TV show), London, 1964
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lagniappe
art beat
Robert Frank (1924-), Rooming house—Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, 1955/56
music clip of the day 