2023: The best bits
Sometimes it takes me a while to catch up. This year I caught up with my late mother’s fondness for Death Comes for the Archbishop, a novel written by Willa Cather in 1927. A hardback copy had been on her bookshelves since I was old enough to notice, and she spoke often of how much she admired it. When she and my father died a few years ago, within months of each other, I took away her 1933 hardback edition as their house was cleared. And this year I finally got around to reading it.
Set in the mid-19th century, the story of two French priests sent by the Pope to New Mexico shows how Cather could paint on a vast canvas. Born in 1873, she was brought up in rural Nebraska, giving her a feeling for striking and often bleakly beautiful landscape and dramatic weather. The climate and the topography of New Mexico become an intrinsic part of her narrative, as alive as the characters. In that, and in a sudden, unexpected episode of shocking violence, I was reminded of Cormac McCarthy, who died in June, just as I was reading it.
I was reminded of him even more forcefully when I moved on straight away to Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy: O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia, written between 1913 and 1918, all very different, each with its own female protagonist, each casting a spell. McCarthy, of course, wrote a celebrated Border Trilogy in the 1990s: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain. None of his obituaries mentioned a possible influence, and it’s a long time since Cather (who died in 1947) was fashionable, but I’d be very surprised if he were not familiar with her work.
She could write about music and its effects, too. In The Song of the Lark her protagonist, Thea Kronborg, the young daughter of Scandinavian immigrants settled in the town of Moonstone, Colorado, and destined (although she has no idea of this yet) to become a great opera singer, is invited to a railroad workers’s ball by a character called Spanish Johnny:
The Mexican dance was soft and quiet. There was no calling, the conversation was very low, the rhythm of the music was smooth and engaging, the men were graceful and courteous. Some of them Thea had never before seen out of their working clothes, smeared with grease from the round house or clay from the brickyard. Sometimes, when the music happened to be a popular Mexican waltz song, the dancers sang it softly as they moved. There were three little girls under twelve in their first communion dresses, and one of them had an orange marigold in her black hair, just over her ear. They danced with the men and with each other. There was an atmosphere of ease and friendly pleasure in the low, dimly lit room, and Thea could not help wondering whether the Mexicans had no jealousies or neighbourly grudges as the people in Moonstone had. There was no constraint of any kind there tonight, but a kind of natural harmony about their movements, their low conversations, their smiles.
NEW ALBUMS
1 Billy Valentine and the Universal Truth (Flying Dutchman/Acid Jazz)
2 Matana Roberts: Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden (Constellation)
3 Sylvie Courvoisier: Chimaera (Intakt)
4 Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension (Nonesuch)
5 Blind Boys of Alabama: Echoes of the South (Single Lock)
6 Fire! Orchestra: Echoes (Rune Grammofon)
7 Vilhelm Bromander: In This Forever Unfolding Moment (Thanatos)
8 Steve Lehman & Orchestre National de Jazz: Ex Machina (Pi)
9 Bob Dylan: Shadow Kingdom (Columbia Legacy)
10 PJEV/Hayden Chisholm/Kit Downes: Medna Rosa (Red Hook)
11 Tyshawn Sorey Trio: Continuing (Pi)
12 Sebastian Rochford: A Short Diary (ECM)
13 Paul Simon: Seven Psalms (Owl)
14 The Necks: Travel (Northern Spy)
15 Ambrose Akinmusire: Beauty Is Enough (Origami Harvest)
16 Cécile McLorin Salvant: Mélusine (Nonesuch)
17 Alexander Hawkins Trio: Carnival Celestial (Intakt)
18 jaimie branch: fly or die fly or die fly or die ((world war)) (International Anthem)
19 Aaron Diehl & the Knights: Zodiac Suite (Mack Avenue)
20 Julian Siegel Jazz Orchestra: Tales from the Jacquard (Whirlwind)
REISSUE / ARCHIVE
1 John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy: Evenings at the Village Gate (Impulse)
2 Mike Osborne: Starting Fires (British Progressive Jazz)
3 Miles Davis: In Concert at the Olympia Paris 1957 (Fresh Sound)
4 Bruce Springsteen: The Live Series: Songs on Keys (nugs.net)
5 Chris Cutler: Compositions and Collaborations 1972-2022 (ReR Megacorp)
6 Evan Parker: NYC 1978 (Relative Pitch)
7 Pharoah Sanders: Pharoah (Luaka Bop)
8 Derek Bailey & Paul Motian: Duo in Concert (Frozen Reeds)
9 Jon Hassell: Further Fictions (Ndeya)
10 Joy: Joy (Cadillac)
LIVE PERFORMANCE
1 Northern Soul Prom (Royal Albert Hall, July)
2 Mette Henriette + Charles Lloyd trios (Barbican, November)
3 Rickie Lee Jones (Jazz Café, June)
4 Kronos Quartet (Barbican, October)
5 Tyshawn Sorey / Pat Thomas (Café Oto, November)
6 Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin (Ronnie Scott’s Club, August)
7 Ethan Iverson: Ellington: Stride to Strings (Grange Festival, June)
8 Empirical (Vortex, May)
9 Decoy + Joe McPhee (Café Oto, July)
10 Mike Westbrook’s Band of Bands (Pizza Express, September)
MUSIC BOOKS
1 Henry Threadgill: Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music (Alfred A. Knopf)
2 Laura Flam & Emily Sieu Liebowitz: But Will You Love Me Tomorrow? (Hachette)
3 Richard Morton Jack: Nick Drake: The Life (John Murray)
4 Peter Watts: Denmark Street (Paradise Road)
5 Ray Padgett: Pledging My Time: Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members (EWP Press)
FICTION
1 Rose Tremain: Absolutely & Forever (Chatto & Windus)
2 Jon Fosse (tr. Damion Searls): A Shining (Fitzcarraldo)
3 Michael Bracewell: Unfinished Business (White Rabbit)
NON-FICTION
1 Laura Cumming: Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death (Vintage)
2 Ned Boulting: 1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession (Bloomsbury)
3 Marc Kristal: Pauline Boty: British Pop Art’s Sole Sister (Frances Lincoln)
FILMS
1 Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scorsese)
2 One Fine Morning (dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)
3 Oppenheimer (dir. Christopher Nolan)
EXHIBITIONS
1 Nicolas de Staël (Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris)
2 Impressionists on Paper (Royal Academy, London)
3 Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris (Pallant House, Chichester)
thebluemoment.com 
I’d never made the connection between Cather and McCarthy but it’s an interesting and valid one. There’s a new biography of Cather: Chasing Bright Medusas by Benjamin Taylor. It’s reviewed in this week’s TLS.
Thanks, Chris. I’ll investigate.
Willa Cather is one of my most favorite authors of all time as is Cormac McCarthy. They are both the epitome of why being a reader is so enjoyable – so descriptive of real life and people – and teaches so much about the joys and struggles of ordinary people.
Absolutely agree about Thunderclap. A wonderful book.
I’m with you ( and Richard ) . Let me also suggest “Immortal Thoughts ” by Christopher Neve.
I also loved Unfinished Business . Memorable excerpt : ” Same again ? she smiled , defining an epoch “.
Let’s not forget My Mortal Enemy . Music : yes , Valentine , Osborne , Fire! Orchestra , Necks ..Exhibition : Marcel Duchamp at Venice’s Guggenheim.
Re Willa Cather the first book I read by her was My Antonia. Then I read Sapphira and The Slave Girl. The latter was a hard read the cruelty of the mistress was horrific.
You’re a fortunate man!
That Tyshawn Sorey gig was great, wasn’t it.
Hi Richard,
Is there a postal address I could ask Rough Trade to post you a physical copy of my new album? –
best as ever, Tot
Tot Taylor 07794 629 188 tot@riflemaker.org
Thanks for the tip, Robert. Will read a book of her in the future. There’s a song by Paul Siebel which is called Spanish Johnny, btw.
I love it when someone highlights a treasure that I was completely unaware of
I’ve enjoyed Cormac McCarthy but never heard of Willa Cather before – thanks for the tip!
A blogging friend pointed me to your post, Richard.
For more Cather, I’d esp. recommend The Professor’s House. I think it’s the novel I’ve re-read more than any other (by anyone).
Thanks — I read it a few weeks ago. Much enjoyed the London scenes.
Maybe you’re thinking of Alexander’s Bridge? (There are just a couple of passing references to London in TPH.)
You’re right — I got confused. I enjoyed ‘Alexander’s Bridge’. ‘The Professor’s House’ is with ‘One of Ours’ on my next-to-read list.
Thank you thank you Richard.
Means so much to us.
Bob
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Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm for so much wonderful music this year – and for the ‘best bits’ inclusion of a recording that I would almost certainly have otherwise overlooked, ‘In This Forever Unfolding Moment’ by Vilhelm Bromander. A personal favourite this year – Sinikka Langeland’s beautiful settings for the poetry of Jon Fosse on ‘Wind and Sun’.
Best wishes for Christmas and for 2024.
I have enjoyed McCarthy’s books but Willa Cather is a new name for me to pursue. Thanks as ever for all your tips and recommendations throughout the year, Richard, and the best to you in 2024.