sounds of Chicago
Hamid Drake (drums and percussion [MCOTD Hall of Fame]) & Michael Zerang (drums and percussion), et al., live, Chicago (Constellation), 12/21/22 (1st set, 23:40-: Michael Zerang, The Velvet Bell [solo] + Velvet Bell Ensemble; 2nd Set, 1:42:40-: Hamid Drake’s Indigenous Mind)
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random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
what’s new: sounds of Chicago
Hamid Drake (drums and percussion [MCOTD Hall of Fame]) & Michael Zerang (drums and percussion) with Mark Feldman (violin), Josh Berman (cornet), Mabel Kwan (piano), Kent Kessler (bass), Zahra Glenda Baker (voice), et al., live (performance begins at 32:30), last night, Chicago (Constellation)
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
sounds of Chicago
Fresh Palette Ensemble (Hamid Drake [MCOTD Hall of Fame], drums, percussion, voice; Michael Zerang, drums, percussion; Joshua Abrams, bass; Jason Adasiewicz, vibraphone; Aoki, taiko drums; Tatsu Aoki, shamisen, conduction; Zahra Glenda Baker, voice; Angel Bat Dawid, voice, clarinet, keyboards; Mai Sugimoto, reeds), live (performance begins at 13:30), Chicago, last night
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random sights
other day, Chicago
sounds of Chicago
Hamid Drake (drums, percussion, voice; MCOTD Hall of Fame [right]) and Michael Zerang (drums, percussion [left]), live, Chicago (Constellation), last night (performance begins at 7:00)
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random sights
yesterday, outside Chicago
more
Hamid Drake (drums, percussion; MCOTD Hall of Fame), Michael Zerang (drums, percussion), Joshua Abrams (bass, gumbri), Ayako Kato (movement), live, Chicago (Constellation), last night
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago
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reading table
Don’t say my hut has nothing to offer:
come and I will share with you
the cool breeze that fills my window.—Ryokan (1758-1831), translated from Japanese by John Stevens
sounds of Chicago
Not until this morning did I realize how much I needed this.
Hamid Drake (percussion, MCOTD Hall of Fame) and Michael Zerang (percussion), 30th Anniversary Winter Solstice Concert, live, Chicago, this morning (6:30 a.m., CST)
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random sights
yesterday, Chicago
testify!
United House of Prayer Shout Bands, live, published 2011
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random sights
a while ago, Ireland (Dingle Peninsula)
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reading table
Do you sometimes imagine that you’re getting used to the emergency? I think I can guarantee that you’re not, burdened by states of mind that will be comprehensible only retrospectively, when they no longer pertain. The world going on nonetheless, as the world will, feels bizarrely conditional, subject in thought and action to a blanketing subjunctive mood: things as we wish they were. We are waiting this out with nostalgia for lost freedoms, fear and empathy in the present, and, perhaps, vague anticipation of eventual survivor’s guilt. Never has social privilege seemed more unfair while being clung to so tenaciously. Some of us—artists—are undergoing the siege in ways that can alert us to the subjective dimensions of an objective calamity. We should want those people to keep it up as best they can.
—Peter Schjeldahl, “The Art World: The Melancholy Gestalt of Isolation” (reviewing 100 Drawings from Now, Drawing Center, New York), New Yorker, website (12/14/20), 12/21/20 issue (“The Fix We’re In”)
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streaming
Tomorrow, 6:30 a.m. (CST): the 30th annual winter solstice concert by Chicago-based percussionists Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake (MCOTD Hall of Fame).
sounds of Chicago
Solstice Drum Quartet (l-r: Michael Zerang, Mike Reed, Hamid Drake [MCOTD Hall of Fame], Avreeayl Ra) & Guests (Mars Williams, Nick Mazzarella, saxophones; Dan Phillips, guitar; Tatsu Aoki, bass), live, Chicago, 2016
sounds of Chicago
Here’s one of my favorite drummers, leading his own band, playing his own compositions.
Michael Zerang & The Blue Lights, live, Germany (Dortmund), 2015*
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art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), Untitled (Hôtel de la Duchesse-Anne), 1957
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*MZ, drums, compositions; Dave Rempis, saxophones; Emil Strandberg, trumpet; John Dikeman, saxophones; Kent Kessler, bass.
sounds of Chicago and Switzerland
Need a jolt?
Easel (Christoph Erb, tenor saxophone [Switzerland]; Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello, electronics [Chicago]; Michael Zerang, drums [Chicago]), live, Moscow, 2015
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Note to self: Listen, always, as if it was the first time—and the last.
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random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
music clip of the day 