With all he does, this can get lost: on guitar, he’s a killer.
Cee Lo Green, “Crazy,” live (with Prince, guitar), New York, 2011
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Stevie Wonder, “Superstition,” live (with Prince, guitar), Paris, 2010
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lagniappe
reading table
I am alive—I guess—
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), #605 (Franklin), first line
astonishing
Lee Hyla (1952-2014), String Quartet No. 4 (1999); Spektral Quartet, live, Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.), 2011
yesterday in Chicago
He played a version of this, wonderfully, along with Steve Reich’s “New York Counterpoint” and Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday,” at the Chicago Cultural Center.
James Falzone, “Sighs Too Deep For Words,” live (studio performance), 2011
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Why settle for a mirror when you could have a window?
This I could listen to all day.
Daniel Lanois, “Senegal,” “Opera,” “The Collection of Marie Claire,” live (studio performance), Washington (Shoreline), 2/27/15
MCOTD Hall of Fame
Dorothy Love Coates (1928-2002), “How Much More”
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Ashland Ave. at 19th St., Chicago
sounds of Ghana
Prince Buju (vocals, kologo), “In the War,” live, Ghana (Accra), 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
[W]hat counted was how you behaved while death let you live, and how you met death when life released you.
—Edith Pearlman, “Blessed Harry” (Honeydew)
only rock ‘n’ roll
Makthaverskan, “Antabus,” live, London, 11/29/14
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lagniappe
reading table
Spring at last moistened the town. Impasto leaves replaced pastel buds. He considered self-improvement. He might become a vegan. Let the mouse have his cheese.
—Edith Pearlman, “Tenderfoot” (Honeydew)
Need a jolt?
Felipe Lara (1979-), Corde Vocale (2006)
Mivos Quartet, live (studio performance), New York, 2013
This I listened to for the first time yesterday. Then I listened again. And again.
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lagniappe
radio
Tuesday is the centennial of Billie Holiday’s birth and WKCR (Columbia University) is celebrating in the best possible way, featuring her music all day tomorrow and, because twenty-four hours just aren’t enough, the next day too.
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taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
father & son
Pastor Brady Blade Sr. (with Brian Blade [guitar] and Mama Rosa), “Amazing Grace,” live, Shreveport, La., 1/30/15
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lagniappe
reading table
God’s Grandeur
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)The world is charged with the grandeur of God.It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oilCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soilIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;And though the last lights off the black West wentOh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —Because the Holy Ghost over the bentWorld broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
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random sights
last night, Nelson St. near Western Ave., Chicago
sounds old and new
Nathan Davis (mbira, electronics), Simple Songs of Birth and Return
Live, Chicago, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
In the fifth century, the sun used to rise every morning and lie down to sleep every evening just as it does now. In the morning, as the first sunbeams kissed the dew, the earth would come to life and the air would fill with sounds of joy, hope, and delight, while in the evening the same earth would fall silent and be swallowed by stern darkness. Day was like day, night like night.
—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), “Without a Title” (translated from Russian by Robert Chandler [Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories, Cathy Popkin, ed.])
music clip of the day 