music clip of the day

Roy Hargrove Quintet,* “Strasbourg/Saint Denis,” live, Paris, 2008

What better way to begin the new year than with live music, which is what I did last Sunday (with my wife Suzanne and older son Alex), catching these guys at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase, where they played an ebullient set for the overflow crowd.

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lagniappe

reading table

In January baseball lives in the imagination.

Now he was stuck at this ramshackle ballpark between a junkyard and an adult bookstore on the interstate outside Peoria.

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“The shortstop is a source of stillness at the center of the defense. He projects this stillness and his teammates respond.”

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When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see?

—Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding (2011)

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*RH, trumpet; Justin Robinson, alto saxophone; Gerald Clayton, piano; Danton Boller, bass; Montez Coleman, drums