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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.” ♫
The second Goat Rodeo record is fine, but the first one is absolutely sublime, and I’m re-listening. A while back I wrote a post about my favorite song on that record. ♫
Annotating Augustine’s City of God 📚 and listening to Dilla’s Donuts ♫. As one does.
Currently listening: Ry Cooder - Jazz. One of my all-time favorites. ♫
Currently reading/listening: Glenn Gould - The Goldberg Variations - The Complete Unreleased Recording Sessions June 1955. An extraordinary experience. 📚 ♫