what’s new
Cory Smythe (piano) with Sofia Jernberg (voice), Joshua Modney (violin), Tomeka Reid (cello), Peter Evans (trumpet), Zekkereya El-magharbel (trombone), Ryan Muncy (alto saxophone), Ingrid Laubrock (tenor saxophone), David Leon (alto and baritone saxophones, clarinet), Jessie Cox (drums and percussion), Stephan Crump (bass), “Combustion 2” (Frank Heath, video), 12/2/22 (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes)
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lagniappe
random sights
last night, Chicago

sounds of New York
Craig Taborn (piano, electronics), Cory Smythe (piano, electronics), “X’s and Y’s,” live, New York, 2018
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lagniappe
reading table
SHOE FROM THE WAVES
oh he got a shoe from the waves
—Robert Grenier (1941-), A Day at the Beach (1984)
more
Tyshawn Sorey Double Trio (TS, composition, conducting, drums; Cory Smythe, piano; Chris Tordini, bass; Fung Chern Hwei, violin; Kyle Amburst, viola; Rubin Kodheli, cello), “The Inner Spectrum of Variables” (T. Sorey), live, Ojai, Calif., 2017
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lagniappe
art beat
other day, National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago
Nicolas de Jesus (1960-), La ofrenda (The Offering), 2009 (Día de Muertos: A Spiritual Legacy, through December 9th)
spellbinding
Tyshawn Sorey Trio (TS, compositions, drums [2017 MacArthur Fellow]), Cory Smythe (piano), Chris Tordini (bass), live, New York, 2015
This I could listen to—I could lose myself in—for a long, long time.
They’re playing Thursday night at the University of Chicago.
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lagniappe
random sights
last night, Oak Park, Ill.
trumpet festival
day two
Peter Evans (trumpet) & Cory Smythe (piano), International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), live, New York, 2014
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If your appetite for new music is insatiable, what better time to be alive?
Tyshawn Sorey (1980-), Quartet for Butch Morris (2012); International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), featuring Erik Carlson (violin); Joshua Rubin (bass clarinet), Eric Lamb (flute), Cory Smythe (piano); live, New York, 2012
Six decades of listening and, until yesterday, I’d never heard this particular combination of instruments. You?
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
James Ensor (1860-1949), Rooftops of Ostend, 1884 (Temptation: The Demons of James Ensor, through January 25th)
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reading table
Nature, the sky above us, is conducting no mean politics when it presents beauty to all, without discrimination, and nothing old and defective, but fresh and most tasty.
—Robert Walser (1878-1956), “Snowdrops,” excerpt (translated from German by Tom Whalen and Trudi Anderegg)
composer, n. somebody who wants to hear sounds nobody’s ever heard before.
Mario Diaz de León (1979-), Prism Path; International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE),* live, New York, 2011
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*Claire Chase, flutes; Eric Lamb, flutes; Joshua Rubin, clarinets; Cory Smythe, piano; Nathan Davis, percussion; Mario Diaz de León, electronics.