Yesterday, after stumbling upon this sound-world, I didn’t want to leave.
Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972), String Quartet (1969): Curtis Macomber (violin), Theodore Arm (violin), Toby Appel (viola), Fred Sherry (cello), rec. 2006 (published yesterday)
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Illinois
Let’s go to church.
“Until I Die,” Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, Winston-Salem, N.C., 2001
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lagniappe
reading table
On the Death of Friends in Childhood
We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven,
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
Forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands
In games whose very names we have forgotten.
Come, memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.
—Donald Justice (Collected Poems, 2004)
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“[We find] it impossible, when we have to analyze death, to imagine it in terms other than those of life.”
—Marcel Proust, The Fugitive (translated from French by Peter Collier)
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listening room: (some of) what’s playing
• The Dirtbombs, Ultraglide In Black (In the Red Records)
• Wild Flag (Merge Records)
• That’s What They Want: The Best of Jerry McCain (Excello)
• The Best of Slim Harpo (Hip-O)
• Ambrose Akinmusire, When the Heart Emerges Glistening (Blue Note)
• Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, I Only Have Eyes For You (ECM)
• Anthony Braxton, 9 Compositions (Iridium)
• Chicago Tentet, American Landscapes 1 & 2 (Okka)
• Steve Lehman Octet, Travail, Transformation, and Flow (Pi Recordings)
• Joe McPhee, Nation Time (Unheard Music Series)
• Weasel Walter, Mary Halvorson, Peter Evans, Electric Fruit (Thirsty Ear)
• J. Berg’s Royal Rarities Vols. 2-3; A Cappella Archives, Vol. 3; Gospel Goldies, Vol. 2 (Rare Gospel)
• The Fisk Jubilee Quartet, There Breathes A Hope (Archeophone)
• This May Be My Last Time Singing: Raw African-American Gospel On 45 RPM 1957-1982 (Tompkins Square)
• Bach, Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, Pierre Fournier, (Archiv Production/DG)
• Mozart, Piano Sonatas Nos. 16 and 17, Peter Serkin, piano (Pro Arte)
• Arnold Schoenberg, Das Klavierwerk, Peter Serkin, piano (Arcana)
• The Art of Joseph Szigeti (Biddulph Recordings)
• Anton Webern, Five Movements For String Quartet, Op. 5; Six Bagatelles For String Quartet, Op. 9; String Quartet, Op. 28; Quartetto Italiano (Philips)
• Anton Webern, Complete Works for String Quartet and String Trio, Artis Quartet Wien (Nimbus)
• Music of Stefan Wolpe, Vol. 6, David Holzman, piano (Bridge)
• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)
—Rag Aur Taal (various, Indian)
• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Cherry Blossom Clinic (Terre T, rock, etc.)
—Fool’s Paradise (Rex; “Vintage rockabilly, R & B, blues, vocal groups, garage, instrumentals, hillbilly, soul and surf”)
• WHPK-FM (broadcasting from University of Chicago)
—The Blues Excursion (Arkansas Red)
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radio
Happy Birthday, Duke!
Music doesn’t care who you are, where you come from, what you know. It asks only that you pay attention.
Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972), Piece in Three Parts for Piano and Sixteen Instruments (1961), Peter Serkin (piano), Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (Oliver Knussen, cond.)
More? Here.
Gospel, soul, blues—sometimes they seem inseparable.
Willie Banks and The Messengers, live, Mississippi (Jackson), 1990
“Things I Can’t Change”
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“God Is Still In Charge”
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lagniappe
listening room: what’s playing
• Talib Kweli, Gutter Rainbows (Javotti Media/3d)
• Art Ensemble of Chicago, Full Force (ECM)
• Anthony Braxton Quartet, (GTM) 2006 (Important Records)
• John Coltrane (with Rashied Ali), Interstellar Space (Impulse!)
• The Lester Young/Count Basie Sessions (1936-1940) (Mosaic)
• Various Artists, Ska Bonanza: The Studio One Ska Years (Heartbeat)
• Stefan Wolpe: Compositions for Piano (1920-1952), David Holzman, piano (Bridge)
• Ann Southam: Simple Lines of Enquiry, Eve Egoyan, piano (Centrediscs)
• Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa); John Tilbury, piano, Morton Feldman, All Piano (London HALL)
• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Out to Lunch (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Profiles (Various, jazz)
—Jazz Alternatives (Various, jazz)
—Afternoon New Music (Various, classical and hard-to-peg)
—Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)
—Rag Aur Taal (Various, Indian)
—Morning Ragas (Various, Indian)
—Amazing Grace (Various, gospel)
—Live Constructions (Various, hard-to-peg)
• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Give The Drummer Some (Doug Schulkind, sui generis)
—Transpacific Sound Paradise (Rob Weisberg, “popular and unpopular music from around the world”)
—Daniel Blumin (sui generis)
—Airborne Event (Dan Boodah, sui generis)
—The Push Bin with Lou (Lou Z., sui generis)
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art beat
One of the great things about having friends is that they invite you to things you’d never get to, or even know about, otherwise—like, for instance, this wonderful exhibit of illustrated architecture books (dating from 1511), something I wouldn’t have gotten to but for my friend Bob Blythe.
What would it be like to wake up in the morning, have a cup of coffee, then sit down at the piano and try, again, to open this up, let it breathe, let it sing?
David Holzman, piano/recording session, 7/10/10
Music of Stefan Wolpe, Volume 6 (Bridge Records), 2011
Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972), Four Studies on Basic Rows (Passacaglia)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
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lagniappe
I asked him to teach my class of young English student composers—feeling really that he at least would give the students one worthwhile class. He started talking about his Passacaglia, a piano work built of sections each based on a musical interval—minor second, major second, and so on. At once, sitting at the piano, he was caught up in a meditation on how wonderful these primary materials, intervals, were; playing each over and over again on the piano, singing, roaring, humming them, loudly, softly, quickly, slowly, short and detached or drawn out and expressive. All of us forgot time passing, when the class was to finish. As he led us from the smallest one, a minor second, to the largest, a major seventh—which took all afternoon—music was reborn, new light dawned, we all knew we would never again listen to music as we had. Stefan had made each of us experience very directly the living power of these primary elements. From then on indifference was impossible. Such a lesson most of us never had before or since, I imagine.
music clip of the day 