You don’t need a lot of different words.
You don’t need the piano to be in tune.
Intensity will carry you.
Rev. George Oliver, “Coming Up Lord Just To Hear My Tune”
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
In Chicago last night, at Constellation, I heard her play. One-word review: riveting. How many musicians create their own vocabulary, their own syntax, their own inflections?
Okkyung Lee, cello
Live, London, 2009
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Live, Latvia (Riga), 2014
Who needs instruments?
McCauley Spiritual Singers, c. 1960
“Jesus Gave Me Water”
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“Jesus Said Live Holy”
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lagniappe
reading table
A word that breathes distinctly
Has not the power to die—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 1715 (Franklin), fragment
(Taking a break—back in a while.)
This is a sound-world I’d be happy to inhabit all day.
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir (1977-), Ró (2013); Esbjerg Ensemble, live
only rock ‘n’ roll
Dog Faced Hermans, live, Lincoln, Neb., 1994
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday, Art Institute of Chicago
Vincent van Gogh, A Corner of the Asylum and the Garden with a Heavy, Sawed-Off Tree, 1889 (Van Gogh’s Bedrooms, through May 10th)
sounds of Chicago
Ralph Shapey (1921-2003), Three for Six (1979); Oerknal!, live, Netherlands (The Hague, Amsterdam) 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
He ate and drank the precious Words—
His Spirit grew robust—
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust—
He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book—What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings——Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 1593 (Franklin)
14 strings + drums
Tomeka Reid Quartet (TR, cello, compositions; Mary Halvorson, guitar; Jason Roebke, bass; Tomas Fujiwara, drums), live, New York, 3/8/16
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
two takes
“Trouble Will Soon Be Over”
Blind Willie Johnson, 1930
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Sinead O’Connor, 2016 (God Don’t Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson)
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
passings
Lonnie Mack, guitarist, singer, songwriter, July 18, 1941-April 21, 2016
“Memphis” (C. Berry), 1963
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“She Don’t Come Here Anymore,” 1966
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“Farther on Down the Road,” live (with Albert Collins, Roy Buchanan), New York (Carnegie Hall), 1985
music clip of the day 