summer in the (small) city
Tom Harrell Colors of a Dream,* live, Iowa City, 7/5/14
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*Tom Harrell, trumpet; Jaleel Shaw, alto saxophone; Wayne Escoffery, tenor saxophone; Esperanza Spalding, bass, vocals; Uganna Okegwo, bass; Jonathan Blake, drums.
last night in Chicago
He played this piece, among others, at Constellation.
Steve Reich (1936-), New York Counterpoint (1985), excerpts; James Falzone (clarinet), recording, 2014
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Here’s another take.
Evan Ziporyn (clarinet), live, London, 2012
sounds of Chicago
Victory Travelers, live, Chicago, 2013
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lagniappe
art beat
Lee Friedlander (1934-), Chicago, 1968
alone
Crazy what you happen upon in the middle of the night.
King Buzzo (AKA Buzz Osborne), “Boris,” “Ballad of Dwight Fry,” “Suicide In Progress,” live, Baltimore (Ottobar), 7/17/14
What I’m doing, it’s not folk music, it’s not heavy metal. It’s ‘molk,’ how ’bout that?
Drums, voice, piano—who needs more?
Fiona Apple, “Hot Knife,” 2013 (video)
sounds of Chicago & Norway & the Netherlands
Who needs coffee?
Lean Left (Ken Vandermark, reeds [Chicago]; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums [Norway]; Andy Moers & Terrie Hessels, guitars [Netherlands]), live, Belgium (Brussels), 2014
#1
#2
#3
#4
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lagniappe
musical (& other) thoughts
Ken Vandermark has a lot of interesting things to say about improvised music and life as a musician, about politics and movies and journalism and New York, as you can hear in this podcast-interview.
sounds of Norway
Maja S. K. Ratkje, live (music begins at 1:40), Norway (Punkt Festival, Kristiansand), 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
A Prison gets to be a friend —
Between its Ponderous face
And Ours — a Kinsmanship express —
And in its narrow Eyes —We come to look with gratitude
For the appointed Beam
It deal us — stated as Our food —
And hungered for — the same —We learn to know the Planks —
That answer to Our feet —
So miserable a sound — at first —
Nor ever now — so sweet —As plashing in the Pools —
When Memory was a Boy —
But a Demurer Circuit —
A Geometric Joy —The Posture of the Key
That interrupt the Day
To Our Endeavor — Not so real
The Check of Liberty —As this Phantasm Steel —
Whose features — Day and Night —
Are present to us — as Our Own —
And as escapeless — quite —The narrow Round — the Stint —
The slow exchange of Hope —
For something passiver — Content
Too steep for looking up —The Liberty we knew
Avoided — like a Dream —
Too wide for any night but Heaven —
If That — indeed — redeem ——Emily Dickinson (1830-1886; Franklin #456)
Why not begin the week with something beautiful?
Lou Harrison (1917-2003), Second Symphony (“Elegiac,” 1988); BBC National Orchestra of Wales
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lagniappe
reading table
never growing old
Mr. and Mrs.
Butterfly—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
four takes
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
Isaiah, live, Chicago, 2014
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Albert Ayler, recording, 1964
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Parliament Funkadelic (“Swing Down, Sweet Chariot”), live Houston, 1976
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Fisk University Jubilee Quartet, recording, 1909
