Memorial Day

I'm sure you will indulge if I skip the salute to people in uniform and instead honor a musician. Tom Cora was an avant garde improvising cellist who played with just about every experimental musician in New York and beyond throughout the '80s and '90s. The music is all over the map, and a lot of it is excellent and exploratory work. He died of cancer in 1998, and shortly afterward John Zorn released a retrospective of his music. You should own it. I put it on recently for the first time in years and was totally stunned, track after track.

Here's a piece from that comp recorded just after Cora's death. I find it genuinely poignant. Probably not so great for barbecue listening though. See you back Tuesday.

Thierry Azam - The Week Tom Died