Blue (Moby Dick) - Jackson Pollock (1943)

Le Mer - Debussy (Boulez/Cleveland Orchestra)

A very good version of one of my favorite symphonic pieces. This is the La Mer I hear in my head; I have, however, run across different versions, and there certainly is a space for interpretation here. I may decide upon a different La Mer sometime down the line.

I Trust My Guitar, Etc. - Magik Markers (2004)

Dispatch From Mar-a-Lago - L7 (2017)

Happy Birthday Hoagy!: A Hoagy Carmichael Sampler

Hoagland Howard Carmichael 11/22/1899 - 12/27/1981

Myles Turner

Is he ready?

The Western Lands Mixtapes Part III: Klavier!

Next up in the Western Lands mixtape series: piano! Keyboards are perhaps the heart of western music, the site where composition often occurs. Its maestros are at the front of the orchestras, the rock stars of concert hall (Lisztomania!). Piano music is capable of the most delicate intricacies, the most overwhelming fiery explosions, and everything in between.

A side note: there are two African-American jazz composers/pianists included on these mixtapes. Cecil Taylor is up front about looking at the European tradition as much as the history of jazz; Monk, not as much. A purist would argue about their inclusion, but it is well known that 20th century composers by and large were eager to celebrate the contributions of jazz . . . Stravinsky, for instance, wrote pieces for "jazz orchestra" and is said to have championed Duke Ellington as the greatest composer as the 20th century. And though Monk may not display the chops of a Glenn Gould (okay, that's not fair, because who does?), the parallels between his brand of eccentricity and someone like Satie seems fairly clear.

So, enjoy this playlist as some of the all time greats tickle the ivories! As always, Spotify playlist tracks mixtapes as closely as reasonably possible.

Tape 5: Piano

Side 1

Ludwig Van Beethoven – Piano Sonata No.2: II Adagio cantabile (Glenn Gould)

Erik Satie – Trios Nocturnes (Aldo Ciccolini)

John Cage – Music of Changes III (David Tudor)

Cecil Taylor – Erzulie Maketh Scent: Part II (Cecil Taylor)

Side 2

Frédéric Chopin – Waltz Op. 34 No. 3 (Agustín Anievas)

Alexander Scriabin – Quatre Morceaux Op. 56 (Vladimir Ashkenazy)

Charles Ives – Piano Sonata No. 2: II Hawthorne (Gilbert Kalish)

Claude Debussy – Suite bergamasque (Walter Gieseking)

Sergei Prokofiev – Sonata No. 6: I Allegro moderato (Van Cliburn)

György Ligeti – Capriccio No. 1 (Irina Kataeva)

Tape 6: Piano Too

Side 1

Modest Mussorgsky – Pictures at an Exhibition (Sviatoslav Richter)

Charles Ives – Three Quarter-tone Pieces for Two Pianos (Herbert Henck, Deborah Richards)

John Cage – Third Interlude (for Prepared Piano) (Maro Ajemian)

Side 2

Conlon Nancarrow – Sonatina (Conlon Nancarrow – piano roll)

Henry Cowell – Dynamic Motion/What’s This?/Amiable Conversation (Henry Cowell)

Morton Feldman – Nature Pieces (Philipp Vandré)

Domenico Scarlatti – In B Minor, L. 33, Andante mosso (Aldo Ciccolini)

Karlheinz Stockhausen – KLAVIERSTÜCKE I (Herbert Henck)

Johann Sebastian Bach – Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914 (Glenn Gould)

Thelonious Monk – Pannonica (Thelonious Monk)

Aberdeen Mississippi Blues - Bukka White (1940/1967)

Booker T. Washington White, born this day sometime between 1904 and 1909

Veteran's Day

Veteran's Day
fades to red white & blue dark
   this the
   celebration of the betrayed

   (does the phrase
          "cannon fodder"
   ever truly go out of style?)

  what chance have they been given?

raise a glass
to the pebbles
beneath capital's feet

give them shitty steaks
at Applebee's

they didn't die for you
they died
for what will kill you

The Well-Tuned Piano in The Magenta Lights - La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela (2002)

The Western Lands Mixtapes Part II: Transfigured Night

My mother, in a well-intentioned (probably Dr. Spock influenced) effort to expose her firstborn to culture at a young age, made sure I listened to a copy of some sort of Disney-esqe classical music for children LP. It went well with the grey wool pants, suspenders, starched white shirt, bow tie, and sweater with a crest that I sported in my toddler pictures. Fortunately for everyone involved, she gave up on that by the time her other children showed up. I did, however, manage to pick up a couple orchestral favorites before I turned five: Handel's Water Music, and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. Neither are of major interest to me anymore, but I have copies on hand in case I ever want to revisit them.

As a teenager, I became obsessed with rock, mainly hard rock/heavy metal. Led Zeppelin was never far from the turntable, nor were The Who, Hendrix, or the Rolling Stones. Eventually, Frank Zappa became an obsession, which led to my second brush with classical music: I had his first London Symphony Orchestra record, 200 Motels, and Orchestral Favorites (one of the Läther releases). I didn't really "get" it, I didn't know if it was supposed to be good or not (because lord knows you can't count on Zappa fans for a reasonable critique of his "genius"). It occurred to me to start listening to classical music as a way to acquire more knowledge of music - which was quickly becoming my main fascination - and to that end, I picked up a couple cheap classical cassettes. One, Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites, remains a favorite to this day; a second, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, is also a piece that still stays with me.

But then, punk rock happened to me, and I took a different track.

A few years into punk, I headed hard in the noise direction. At some point someone pointed out that there were "modern classical" composers who were even more obnoxious than Einstürzende Neubauten, and I discovered Turnabout's infamous Electronic Music LP, which featured Cage's "Fontana Mix", Berio's "Visage", and Mimaroglu's "Agony". Not far behind were Varèse, Stockhausen, Penderecki, Xenakis . . .

From there, I decided to start listening to classical music in a somewhat more systematic way. One gray day I ended up in Ars Nova/The Glass Harmonica, a classical music store (sheet music as well as classical LPs, cassettes, and the then-new medium of CD) just off Third Street down by Indiana University's School of Music, poking around to find something that might catch my interest. I found a tape from the so-called Walkman Classics series that featured Arnold Schoenberg. The only thing I know about Schoenberg is that a classical music snob I knew went on and on about how terrible he was, and said I should listen to everything by Mozart before anything else. I hated the Mozart I heard, so I guessed that I would like the guy he hated. That tape turned out to be one of the most deeply influential music pickups I ever made: Verklärte Nacht is one of my favorite pieces, but the other stuff blew me away as well: Ligeti's Lux aeterna, Nono's Como una ola de fuerza y luz, some Alban Berg . . . and a Stravinsky piece I didn't care for much. Maybe it was how the music perfectly sliced through the fog of the day, maybe it was the mood I was in; whatever the reason, that tape (pictured above) sent me on my quest to grasp classical music. Transfigured night, indeed.

I tell people all the time that I got into classical music backwards, starting with "difficult" modern composers and going backwards to more traditional classical music icons. I really don't go back to much further than Beethoven. I still hate most of the Mozart I hear (with the notable exception of his Requiem), and Bach sounds like math to me unless it is played by a transcendent musician such as Pablo Casals or Glenn Gould. But there is plenty of the romantic that I like - Debussy, Ravel, Mahler, Grieg, Sibelius - and I'm down for the mixing of melody, atonality, and just plain insanity of composers from Shostakovich to Cowell and Ives.

This, then, would be a reckoning. 

As always, the Spotify playlist hews as close to the tapes as possible, but it is not always possible to find the exact version that I have. And yes, there are more to come: as I write this, I am up to tape 9.

Tape 3

Side 1

Luigi Nono – Y su sangre ya viene cantando (Maderna/Rome Symphony Orchestra)

Giacinto Scelsi – Canti del Capricorno No. 2 (Michiko Hirayama, voice)

Arnold Schoenberg – Verklärte Nacht (Boulez/Ensemble InterContemporian)

Side 2

Henry Cowell – Toccanta: Moderato pomposo ma vivo

Ludwig Van Beethoven – String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4 (Budapest String Quartet)

Krzysztof Penderecki – Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (Penderecki/Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra)

Charles Ives – They are There! (Ives, piano and voice)

Johann Strauss – The Blue Danube (Von Karajan/BPO)(OST – 2001: A Space Odyssey)

Tape 4

Side 1

La Monte Young – Sarabande (Just Strings)

Claude Debussy – La Mer (Szell/Cleveland Orchestra)

Béla Tardos – Evocatio (Erdély/Hungarian State Orchestra

Henryk Górecki – Symphony No. 3, Op. 36: II. Lento e largo - Tranquillissimo (Zinmann/London Sinfonietta)

John Lurie – Bella by Barlight (Kronos Quartet)

Side 2

Edgar Varèse – Ionisation (Boulez/New York Philharmonic)

Arvo Pärt – Tabula Rasa (Studt/Bournemouth Sinfonietta)

Ludwig Van Beethoven – Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major, Op. 55: IV Finale (Walter/Columbia Symphony Orchestra)

Bonzi Colson

is it college hoop season yet?

late.  I take a little detour
windows down, top open,
roll up on The Captain's Locker,
pay too much for booze after two a.m.

I miss the turn the first time;
it's been awhile.
I'm surprised at all the cars,
then remember I was always surprised
  by all the cars,
  a parking lot jammed and stretched back
  winding along Hillside, a little up and down
for its twist.

I have a bottle beside me on the seat.
A small one.  We're older now.
I caught your porch out of the corner
    of my eye
I had to turn around butt first
in the last drive and cruise it again.
You weren't out there.  Of course you weren't.
You don't smoke anymore.

Happy Birthday!

Eugene Debs born in Terre Haute, IN

November 5th, 1855

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1961 (watercolor on paper)

The Bird Song - Muhal Richard Abrams (1967)

RIP  Muhal Richard Abrams September 19, 1930 - October 29, 2017