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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007), cello
If I had to list a dozen recordings I couldn’t live without, surely a set of Bach’s cello suites would be among them. I first heard them in the early ’70s, when I was in college—and I’ve been living with them ever since.
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lagniappe
radio
Bach Festival, WKCR-FM (see yesterday’s post): Day One.
never enough
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D Minor, Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987), violin
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lagniappe
radio
One of the year’s truly great musical events begins Friday at 1 a.m. (EST)—the annual Bach Festival on WKCR-FM (Columbia University). All Bach, all the time, until midnight New Year’s Eve. If, after the last few months, you just can’t take any more clarity and light, you might want to skip it.
sounds of New York
Pulverize the Sound (Peter Evans, trumpet; Tim Dahl, bass; Mike Pride, drums), live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
Jackie Evancho, a 16-year-old singer who became famous after appearing on “America’s Got Talent,” announced last week that she would sing the national anthem at the inauguration.
—“Andrea Bocelli Won’t Be Singing at the Trump Inauguration,” New York Times, 12/20/16
sounds of New York
Charmaine Lee (vocal) & Nate Wooley (trumpet), live, New York, 11/20/16
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lagniappe
reading table
If novelists know anything it’s that individual citizens are internally plural: they have within them the full range of behavioral possibilities. They are like complex musical scores from which certain melodies can be teased out and others ignored or suppressed, depending, at least in part, on who is doing the conducting. At this moment, all over the world—and most recently in America—the conductors standing in front of this human orchestra have only the meanest and most banal melodies in mind. Here in Germany you will remember these martial songs; they are not a very distant memory. But there is no place on earth where they have not been played at one time or another. Those of us who remember, too, a finer music must try now to play it, and encourage others, if we can, to sing along.
—Zadie Smith, “On Optimism and Despair,” (“A talk given in Berlin on November 10 on receiving the 2016 Welt Literature Prize.”), New York Review of Books, 12/22/16 issue
sounds of New York
Eli Keszler & So Percussion, “Archway,” New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
“I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.”
—Daniel Duane, “The Tent Cities of San Francisco” (quoting Justin Keller), New York Times, 12/18/16
more
Joe Ligon (September 11, 1942-December 11, 2016) with the Mighty Clouds of Joy, “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired” (J. Cleveland), live, Charleston, S.C., 1996
sounds of India
Nikhil Banerjee (1931-1986), sitar, Raag Darbari (Alap), Raag Hemant (Gat), live (Dover Lane Music Conference), India (Kolkata), 1986
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
Chicago blues
day four
Magic Sam (AKA Samuel Maghett, 1937-1969)
“All Your Love,” “Lookin’ Good,” live (TV broadcast), Germany, 1969
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“All Your Love,” 1957
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“Love Me with a Feeling,” 1957
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“Everything Gonna Be Alright,” 1958
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“21 Days In Jail,” 1958
Chicago blues
day three
Otis Rush (1935-; vocal, guitar) with Fred Below (1926-1988; drums), et al., “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” live, East Berlin, 1966
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Here’s the original 1956 recording.
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lagniappe
reading table
On the first page of the course syllabus [for the class, taught at Columbia, on “The American Radical Tradition”], I always included the words of Max Weber, a rebuke to those who believe that critics of society should set their sights only on “practical” measures: “What is possible would never have been achieved if, in this world, people had not repeatedly reached for the impossible.”
—Eric Foner, “American Radicals and the Change We Could Believe In,” The Nation, January 2-9, 2017 issue
Chicago blues
day two
Junior Wells (1934-1998; vocal, harmonica), Buddy Guy (1936-; guitar), et al., “Cryin’ Shame” (AKA “Country Girl”), live, Chicago, 1970
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lagniappe
reading table
winter wind—
he can’t find his roost
the evening crow—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
music clip of the day 