music clip of the day

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Tag: music clip of the day

2013

Monday, April 8th

never enough

Von Freeman, tenor saxophone (1923-2012, MCOTD Hall of Famer); Jodie Christian (1932-2012), piano; Rufus Reid (1944-), bass; Jack DeJohnette (1942-), drums; “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” (E. Maschwitz & M. Sherwin), live, Harrisburg, Penn., 1994


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Your sound is who you are; it is what makes you different from me and any other saxophonist. We all have the same 12 notes. The only thing that differentiates us, one from the other, is our tone. If you don’t have a sound you can play a thousand notes and no one will hear you, but if you have a sound you can play only one note and everyone will hear you.

—Von Freeman

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2013

Saturday, April 6th

Composers, too, like singers, saxophonists, even drummers, have distinctive voices. Here’s one we haven’t heard in a while.

Morton Feldman (1926-1987), For Stefan Wolpe (1986), The Choir of Saint Ignatius of Antioch (Harold Chaney, cond.), Benjamin Ramirez & Thomas Kolor, vibraphones

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lagniappe

random thoughts

My father, gone since 1977, does he miss being alive?

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2013

Friday, April 5th

Jose James, “Do You Feel”
Live, KCRW Berkeley Street Session, Santa Monica, 12/17/12

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

R&B?

Jazz?

Pop?

We need a new vocabulary—or maybe none at all.

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2013

Thursday, April 4th

Feel like floating?

Steve Reich (1936-), Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76)
eighth blackbird, Third Coast Percussion, et al., live, Chicago, 2011

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2013

Wednesday, April 3rd

Rock drummers trying to play jazz usually sound like, well, rock drummers trying to play jazz. Jazz drummers trying to play rock are no different; they typically sound like tourists pretending to be natives. This guy, no matter the idiom (rock, jazz, gospel, whatever), sounds right at home.

Brian Blade and The Fellowship Band, live, Chicago, 3/14/13

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lagniappe

reading table

Maybe we think that nirvana is a place where there are no problems, no more delusions. Maybe we think nirvana is something very beautiful, something unattainable. We always think nirvana is something very different from our own life. But we must really understand that it is right here, right now.

—Taizan Maezumi, Appreciate Your Life (2001)

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2013

Monday, April 1st

Monk

Thelonious Monk Quartet (TM [1917-1982], piano; Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Larry Gales, bass; Ben Riley, drums), 1968


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lagniappe

reading table

opening day . . .
green of the field
through the ticket gates

—Randy Brooks (Baseball Haiku, Cor van den Heuvel & Nanae Tamura, eds.)

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2013

Saturday, March 30th

The other night, as Mitsuko Uchida was performing two of Mozart’s piano concertos (17, 27) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, there were moments so pure, so open, I would have liked nothing more than to disappear into one of the spaces between the notes and stay there.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, KV. 466; Mitsuko Uchida (piano and conducting), Camerata Salzburg, live, Germany (Salzburg), 2001

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2013

Thursday, March 28th

Most saxophonists play with their mouths and fingers.

Not this guy—he uses his whole body.

Mats Gustafsson, baritone saxophone, live, Romania (Bucharest), 2010


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Sunday afternoon, at an art gallery on Chicago’s west side (Corbett vs. Dempsey), I heard Gustafsson, who lives in Sweden, perform with the Chicago-based reed player Ken Vandermark. One-word review: mesmerizing.

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Sometimes discaholism is taken to its most further borders when the “holy 4″ is fulfilled:

When a vinyl has the holy 4 qualities: great music, great title, great rarity and an AMAZING cover and design!!!

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‘one piece of vinyl per day keeps the doctor away’

—Mats Gustafsson, Discaholic Corner

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2013

Wednesday, March 27th

What I love about the ’net is that sometimes, like yesterday, when I happened upon this, you find yourself being lifted out of your seat by something you didn’t even know existed two minutes ago.

Ned Rothenberg (clarinet, alto saxophone) & Samir Chatterjee (tabla), “Interstellar Duo #3,” live, New York, 2009

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lagniappe

reading table

The more I read, the less I understand.

—Charles Simic, “Serving Time” (New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012)

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2013

Tuesday, March 26th

I love the way he plays Mozart. Simply. Directly. There’s nothing fussy here. Nothing fey. Melodies unfold with the ease and grace of a bird flying from branch to branch.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Piano Sonatas & Fantasia,* Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000), live, Germany (Munich), 1981

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*Program (courtesy of YouTube):

0:00 – Nº4 in E flat major, K.282
14:35 – Nº9 in D major, K.311
32:58 – Nº12 in F major, K.332
55:54 – Fantasia nº4 in C minor, K.475
1:06:55 – Nº14 in C minor, K.457

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