Darcy James Argue

@darcyjamesargue.com

3037 Followers 4602 Following

Composer-Ringleader • darcyjamesargue.com • With Every Breath I Take coming soon on Nonesuch Records

Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche in the poster for The Return
Downbeat 74th Annual Critics Poll Arranger of the Year Darcy James Argue - 175 Steven Bernstein 105 Miho Hazama 94 John Beasley 93 Tyshawn Sorey 76 Sullivan Fortner 71 Satoko Fujii 70 Terri Lyne Carrington 69 Anna Webber 68 Alan Broadbent 62 John Hollenbeck 50 Joshua Abrams 47 Arturo O'Farrill 47 Amir ElSaffar 46 Vince Mendoza 44 John Clayton 40 Myra Melford 39 Peter Apfelbaum 37 Ryan Truesdell 35 Ed Palermo 34 Jim McNeely (passed Sept. 26, 2025) 32 Robert Glasper 31 Christian McBride 30
Etching of Frederick Douglass
Album cover and 2 LPs for Cécile McLorin Salvant’s With Every Breath I Take
Bruegel the Elder’s The Tower of Babel
A throng of people at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, crowded around Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss
Flowers, candles, and a small picture of Jan Kubiś and Josef Gabčik at the base of the monument.
Monument to Operation ANTHROPOID at the Reinhard Heydrich assassination site: a tall, three-sided column topped with statues of three paratroopers with arms outstretched.
Album cover: Cécile McLorin Salvant’s With Every Breath I Take — high-contrast black & white photo of Cécile's face with chiaroscuro lighting
Early music vocal ensemble Vox Luminis at Bachfest
Early music vocal ensemble Vox Luminis at Bachfest
The Thomaskirche in Leipzig, with dramatic clouds in the sky
Darcy James Argue standing in front of the statue of Bach outside the Thomaskirche, Leipzig.
Photo of composer Darcy James Argue and saxophonist Walter Smith III
Photo of Walter Smith III scores, arranged by Darcy James Argue: Amelia Earhardt Ghosted Me Foretold You Lone Star Misanthrope’s Hymn quiet song Revive River Styx seesaw
Guitarist Bill Frisell
Saxophonist Walter Smith
From the liner notes to the album Dynamic Maximum Tension: “Of the music's inspirations, Argue said, ‘It feels like our culture today is headed in a profoundly dystopian direction - authoritarianism and disinformation metastasizing thanks to The Algorithm, the gig economy becoming the entire economy, OpenAl replacing human creative work. Either that, or the future is supposed to be all this janky, scammy bullshit: crypto, the metaverse, NFTs. By engaging with figures like Buckminster Fuller, Alan Turing, and Mae West, I was trying to connect to a more optimistic time, trying to reclaim a sense of agency, trying to rekindle my faith in our ability to grab the future and shape it ourselves.’”
A glass of sangria and a stirred cocktail on the bar at Ernesto’s
Mandalorian helmet with text "This Is The Way."
Display caseback of a Zeno automatic watch, revealing the movement
An automatic watch with a black dial from Zeno Watch Basel
Painting: "The Last Moments of John Brown," by Thomas Hovenden (1884), depicting John Brown being escorted from his cell to the gallows. He kisses a black child being held up by his mother as he descends the steps.
Artisan billboard: “Stop Hiring Humans. Hire Ava, the AI BDR”
Subway ad for Traversal talking smack about how Claude dangerously skips permissions
Kate Beaton’s “Show Us Your References” strip
Album cover of Cécile McLorin Salvant’s With Every Breath I Take: Cécile’s face in a high-contrast chiaroscuro black and white photo
Photo from the Jazzcampus Basel Focusyear concert, 23 April 2026: Alice Auclair (voc), Eliott Knuets (g), Wilbur Wittha (p), Eva Serrano (db), Dae Bryant (dr)
DJA standing outside the Basel Stadtcasino, holding a copy of Molly Crabapple’s wonderful book Here Where We Live is Our Country.
Diplo: “ You're not gonna win. There's no fighting AI. You have to just work your best to be the best at it right now. You're wasting your time. You're just wasting a year of being like, ‘Eh,’ because everybody else is gonna just use it and not give a fuck of what you think.”
Photos of Darcy James Argue & Aaron Diehl
Gilded equestrian statue of William Tecumseh Sherman, Augustus by Saint-Gaudens
Whether a response rate that is almost — but not quite — accurate should be celebrated is part of a widespread debate in Silicon Valley over the performance of A.I. systems. It speaks to the fundamental core of what we can trust online.
Darcy James Argue and Aaron Diehl
Bows on stage at the ElbPhilharmonie
Photo of the ElbPhilharmonie Hamburg exterior at night
Stephan Geering ‪@stephangeering.bsky.social‬ Challenge for those who are very confident that Claude isn't conscious: Explain how human consciousness works.
Darcy James Argue and Brad Mehldau
Photo of nine scores of Darcy James Argue’s arrangement of Brad Mehldau’s music
Glenn Greenwald: Every major presidential campaign is based on lies and knowingly false promises, but Trump made opposition to regime-change wars a central part of his political identity for a decade. His voters believed it. He's proven himself one of the most deceitful frauds in US history.👇 The American Conservative: Trump on the campaign trail: "We are finally putting America First. Our policy of war regime change and nation-building is being replaced by the pursuit of American interests… It is the job of our military to protect our security, not to be the policemen of the world."
Forbes Magazine headline: Why Kamala Harris Getting Elected Makes A Major War More Likely Steve Forbes warns that Vice President Kamala Harris’s foreign policy beliefs and talents would probably escalate geopolitical conflict, and could plunge the U.S. into serious major wars. By Steve Forbes, Forbes Staff
A tequila cocktail with a tajin rim, at an airport lounge bar
Cover of Willie Colon’s seminal 1969 album Cosa Nuestra, featuring Colon dressed as a trombone case-toting Mafioso
Brian Davids: You devoted nearly a decade of your life to making Star Wars … Tony Gilroy: Oh God, don’t say it like that. (Laughs.)
From: President < To: Jeffrey Epstein <jeevacation@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Hello Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 12:35:13 +0000 I just thought of an easy answer in her case. Tell her to enter or try to enter any international competition of which there are several each year, and see how far she gets if anywhere. She won't get to base 1. What I was going to say is I have often said to someone like her---look, I am no prophet but if you ask me you will never be a star. So you have two choices 1 you can prove me wrong and do so pretty quickly or 2 stick to the profession, but in that case know that you should only choose a profession if you are prepared to be content to do the most modest tasks that profession permits: teaching math not doing it, having a local law practice not being on the Supreme Court; writing advertising copy not editing the New Yorker: being a local doc not a big shot at Hopkins being an accountant not Jeffrey Epstein. In other words choose a profession because you love it not because you are gambling to be famous. A great musician is compelled to think music and live it---add ambition and you have something. Without the ambition you still have something. She has some talent no real fanatical passion but Hollywood style outsized ambition. Hope this is helpful. Sent from my iPhone
Encountering the novel in my twenties, I was unaware that I was committing a form of gender treason; I knew only that little or nothing I’d read had come close in terms of sheer pleasure. The book had more brio, heart, and humor than I thought possible on the page. It was bizarrely grotesque and howlingly sad; it was sweet, silly, and vertiginously clever. It was also, by virtue of its relentlessly entertaining scenes and the high-low virtuosity of its language, a work that enacted its own theme of addiction. When I finished, I experienced withdrawal: Where to go after “Infinite Jest”? It was, in short, a supposedly unfun thing I would do again, and did.
Engraving of Ned Ludd, Leader of the Luddites, 1812
his image is a collage designed as a parody of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast branding. At the center is a circular graphic that reads "THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN EXPERIENCE," featuring a stylized, orange-toned illustration of Jeffrey Epstein’s face with a "third eye" symbol on his forehead. Radiating outward from this central graphic are six individual thumbnails of guests who have appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast, each labeled with their episode number and the official podcast branding. The guests included are: * Top: #2190 Peter Thiel * Top Right: #2219 Donald Trump * Bottom Right: #938 Lawrence Krauss * Bottom: #1743 Steven Pinker * Bottom Left: #2054 Elon Musk * Top Left: #1961 Peter Attia In the bottom right corner, there is a small X (Twitter) watermark for the handle @TaroWheel. #4R
Bloom County: first strip featuring Senator Bedfellow
Don’t tread on me I tread on you
Sinatra cheers
Cobra Commander holding a small globe
Don’t tread on me I tread on you
Cover: AC/DC. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Still from Girl with Hyacinths
First page of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
Hathaway: In his press conference, Trump said that the United States would “run the country.” And he made it clear that he was not “afraid” to put boots on the ground—for years, if necessary. That’s nothing like the operation to seize Noriega from Panama, which was short-lived. And it’s nothing like anything Trump has done before today. His previous illegal uses of force were all over shortly after they began. The scale of the operation that will be required is massive, and it means putting U.S. soldiers at long-term risk. He also claimed that we would take the oil in Venezuela. He even suggested that some of the oil would be taken to pay the United States back for oil “stolen” from us—presumably a reference to nationalization of the oil companies in the nineteen-seventies. That is looting, plain and simple, and clearly unlawful. It also makes clear that this is not about what’s best for the Venezuelan people. It’s all about the oil. Chotiner: Yes, Trump also just said on Fox News that this was a message to Mexico and that his Administration may have to follow up by doing something in Mexico. I don’t think he meant removing Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum, but still. OH: Yeah, that’s the danger. And, just to be clear, this is catastrophic as a shift away from a world in which we deal with our problems peacefully toward a world in which we deal with our problems using military force. IC: I’m not sure that the United States for any extended period of time has ever dealt with its problems in Latin America peacefully. OH: But it has not invaded countries and got rid of their leaders as a way of dealing with problems like drug trafficking. This is a different level. IC: It did support numerous coups. OH: Yeah, absolutely. Look, the U.S. has not got a perfect record. There’s no doubt about that, and it has betrayed its values many times, but this is of a different order. This is just a blatant throwing-the-whole-thing-out and making a claim to be able to use force w…