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?
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.
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.
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
