soundtrack to a dream I’d love to have
Jon Hassell (1937-, trumpet), “Sketches of the Mediterranean” (with Paolo Fresu, trumpet, flugelhorn; Rick Cox, guitar; Kheir-Eddine M’Kachiche, violin; Peter Freeman, bass), live, France (Junas), 2013
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago
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reading table
a knotwood-eating bug
likes what it likes . . .
evening dew—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
It’s easy to play a lot of notes; what’s hard is to play a few.
Jon Hassell (trumpet), “Last Night The Moon Came,” live, Switzerland (Lausanne), 2009
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lagniappe
reading table
Barn’s burnt down—
now
I can see the moon.—Mitzuta Masahide, 1657-1723 (translated from Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto)
Musicians (and composers) fall into two camps: less-is-more and more-is-more.
The less-is-more camp may, in turn, be divided into the less-less-is-more and the more-less-is-more.
And the less-less-is-more . . .
Jon Hassell and Maarifa Street (Jon Hassell, trumpet; Peter Freeman, bass, laptop; Hugh Marsh, violin; Steve Shehan, percussion, laptop), live, Serbia (Belgrade), 2006
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Want more? Here.
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. . . Jon Hassell’s ideas and techniques have so thoroughly permeated lo- and hi-brow contemporary electronic music, albeit often in a third or fourth hand way . . . that it’s difficult to think what contemporary music would sound like without his influence. . . . there’s categorically no doubt that Hassell has had as an important effect on contemporary music as Miles Davis or Jimi Hendrix or James Brown or the Velvet Underground.—The Wire
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More on John Berryman (12/28/09): Here Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Philip Levine recalls John Berryman (also Robert Lowell) as a teacher at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
He [John Berryman] took that class with a seriousness I had never seen before. . . . He was entrancing. He was magnetic. . . . He had a marvelous sense of humor. . . . He really took this seriously. He was a great teacher. He was the greatest teacher I ever had—and an inspiration.—Philip Levine
Philip Levine, live, England (Aldeburgh), 2009
music clip of the day 