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Kathleen Guthrie, Flowers with Fish
Despite Montaigne’s concerns, we cannot help but comment upon one another. We are irrepressible commenters. (In the essayist’s case, he simply turned to making learned comments about himself.) The trouble now is not that we make so many comments; it’s that we’ve lost the conversation partners — the IRL kind — implied in Bakhtin’s public scenarios. We make our comments while sitting alone at our tiny command centers, and increasingly the machines are the only ones attending.
Jamie Smith on what to expect from an Augustinian pope:
Already in his first “Urbi et Orbi” address, for example, one could hear Pope Leo’s vision for faith on the move. “So let us move forward, without fear,” he encouraged the flock, “together, hand in hand with God and with one another.” When Pope Leo described himself as “a son of Saint Augustine,” he pictured faith as a pilgrimage: “So may we all walk together towards that homeland that God has prepared for us.” Faith as “walking,” discipleship as a journey, the Christian life as a long pilgrimage—these are deeply Augustinian metaphors.
Further adventures in analog: Currently listening to John Coltrane, Ballads, on vinyl. ♫
Currently listening: Nujabes, Spiritual State ♫
Currently listening: Bill Evans, The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961 (Live) ♫. Of the many glorious performances on this record, perhaps the most glorious is “I Loves You, Porgy.” Heartbreakingly beautiful … and all the time the tiny audience is chattering away in the background. I don’t blame them — there was no way for them to know that one of the definitive recordings in jazz history was being made right before them — but I just want to teleport into the room to scream “SHUT UUUUUUPPPP.”
After you listen to “I Loves You, Porgy” a few times, go back one more time and listen just to the bassist, Scott LaFaro. He was a great genius, and would die in a car accident eleven days later, at the age of twenty-five.
Listening to: Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles ♫
I linked to this before, I think, but I continue to listen obsessively to Alec Goldfarb’s new record Fire Lapping at the Creek — which is, let the listener beware, microtonal blues. Which is crazy, except that blues blues has microtonal elements. What a record. ♫
I am aware that microtonal jazz-blues might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I love the new Alec Goldfarb record. ♫
Currently listening: Danish String Quartet, Last Leaf. One of my most-listened-to records of the past five years. ♫
Recent listening: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s wondrous Fifth Symphony. ♫
Playing this morning: Khruangbin’s A LA SALA. ♫
I love to see this terrific profile of Khruangbin, one of my favorite current bands, but I miss the days when listening to Khruangbin felt like a secret pleasure that you didn’t really want to share widely. ♫
The Queen and the Duke ♫
Miles and Pops ♫
Fascinating from Ethan Iverson on the Duke: “Who even knows the right changes to Ellington hits? I remember my first attempts to learn famous Ellington tunes: when I eventually heard the Ellington versions, they seemed wrong, since the changes were so different than what were in the fakebooks and on everybody else’s records. Even functions as obvious as tonic and dominant could be reversed. And Duke’s middle voices — his counterpoint! — frequently went by too thick and too fast to be reducible to changes. (Of course, that’s true of any reasonably sophisticated big band writing, but my gut tells me it’s harder to make a really good cheat sheet of Duke than just about anybody else.)” ♫
I’m on a Duke Ellington kick at the moment — there may be posts and links forthcoming — but right now I’m remembering one of the classiest and coolest catchphrases ever, Duke’s habitual goodbye to his audiences: “You are very beautiful, very sweet, and we do love you madly.” ♫