Dave King (arr. O’Riley) ~ 1972 Bronze Medalist live on From the Top
David King is my favorite drummer in the world. He’s also a great composer and pianist. He plays often with The Bad Plus. This is a solo piano arrangement i performed at a From the Top live taping in OH a couple of years ago. Jacques, the eponymous French medalist promenading with his medal disported…
David King (arr. O’Riley) ~ Anthem for the Earnest
re-loading a lot of stuff from the old site to the shiny new one. i’ve done a number of songs by Dave King (of The Bad Plus). may be time, soon, to do a whole TBP record? here’s a live performance, taped at one of our From the Top live tapings:
Haruki Murakami ~ After Dark
Just finished reading Haruki Murakami‘s odyssey of the night, After Dark, a twilight time-scale similarly circumscribed by James Joyce in Finnegans Wake and Martin Scorsese in After Hours: minutes shy of Midnight to sunrise. It’s amazing how life-changing events take place in this book while so many millions sleep, and how sleep becomes the preferred…
Haruki Murakami ~ After the Quake
Just finished reading a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami, a Kundera-ean McGuffin, a bonfire, the search for rootedness, revenge/regret, a super-frog (easily the funniest/darkest of all Murakami’s tories, for me), storytelling/legendary friendships/loves, all under the shadow of the Kobe Earthquake (1995.01.16). Exquisite miniatures, all, from my favorite writer of the moment.
Andy Warhol’s Pictures of Me
Had a great time, early last March, playing a private concert in honour of Andy Warhol muse (and companion of Salvador Dali) Ultra Violet, at the home of a friend of mine who’d introduced me to Andy at our weekly chamber music soirees at his balconied Central Park apartment. I performed my arrangements of Lou…
Cyril Scott ~ Intermezzo 2014.04.26@Poncho Hall, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA
From the Top taped a show commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the opening of Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts in their Poncho Hall on April 26th. Pretty heady stuff, treading the boards where John Cage prepared his first piano, due to the stage being too small to accommodate the percussion ensemble he called for…
Cyril Scott ~ Courante from Pastoral Suite
From the Top did a most pleasurable Pacific Northwest sweep this week, with great kids from the area and beyond, first at Tacoma’s Tivoli Theater, then at the Cornish College for the Arts (got my honoris causa there last year) in Seattle. Gunther Schuller, my mentor of many years, on hearing my Radiohead et alia…
Haruki Murakami ~ Sputnik Sweetheart
In my current Haruki Murakami binge, just finished reading this exquisite daPontean Romance, Sputnik Sweetheart, a book resplendent with troubled and fantastical relationships, interactions and friendships with metaphysical consequence and resonance; Murakami at his most unabashedly musical; an otherworldliness as a Philip K. Dick-style alternate reality (much akin to PKD’s Exegesis, in the falling cards…
Reid Anderson ~ People Like You 2014.04.08 @New World Center, Miami Beach
From the Top taped at the home of Michael Tilson Thomas‘ New World Symphony, the New World Center in beautiful Miami Beach, FL. With South Florida’s finest Steinway in the sumptuous acoustic of the hall, it was high time (The Bad Plus‘ recent release of their Rite of Spring, nearly to the day) to revisit…
Haruki Marakami ~ South of the Border, West of the Sun
Just finished reading the first book I ever felt compelled to finish at all costs, as it happened, during 2 1/2hrs of StairMaster reading (i’d started it yesterday, read a little more half-heartedly on my flights home after 2hrs sleep); couldn’t NOT finish it: Haruki Murakami‘s novel, South of the Border, West of the Sun….