Swinging Modern Sounds #104: Paradise
For me, performance is a conversation with the sacred and timeless, the sublime.
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Posts Tagged: jazz
Swinging Modern Sounds: Observations on the Occasion of a 100th Column
The clash of opinions about music is music itself.
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What to Read When You Want to Read Lolita
Alisson Wood shares a reading list to celebrate her debut memoir, BEING LOLITA.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #103: Song Turned Blue
I’m not writing confessionals; I’m trying to write hooks.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #101: A Really Big Band
Zappa, on the other hand, was never sentimental.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #99: One of These Days It’s Gonna Set You Free
I’m just being an artist. I’m just being creative.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #98: Against Jazz
Nate Wooley, the reason for this piece, is a essential force in the contemporary music.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #94: I Think I Might
This is a deep dive, therefore, into the site of brilliant, uncompromising contemporary work.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #93: Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy
I see both subjectivity and objectivity as constructions.
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Sweet Bird
Every story needs to begin in a place of stasis, a comfortable zero.
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What to Read When You Want to Run Away with the Circus
Tessa Fontaine shares a list of books to celebrate her forthcoming debut memoir, The Electric Woman.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #84: Music for Spaceships
Perhaps space is an inevitable resting place for music of this kind, because time is completely different when conceived of in the vastness of space, and not only because of relativity.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #82: Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark: A Symposium
…yet she did what she did, and in the process made the most successful album of her career.
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My Life with Annie Lennox: Nostalgia
I don’t use the term “lifelong hero” frivolously. There are a lot of people I respect and wish to emulate; Annie Lennox, however, is the only “lifelong hero” I’ll ever have. I need her.
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The Rumpus Interview with Joe Okonkwo
Joe Okonkwo discusses his debut novel Jazz Moon, the quest for self-discovery, creative inspiration, and what it means to build a family when home is so very far away.
...moreSong of the Day: “Me and My Gin”
Though the British blues-rockers The Animals recorded a gritty version of a song called “Gin House Blues” in 1966, the tune was originally released by Bessie Smith in 1928 under the name “Me and My Gin.” Smith, the storied blues singer of the Prohibition and Great Depression, did record another song a few years earlier that may have confused other […]
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Tara Betts
Tara Betts discusses her newest collection, Break the Habit, the burden placed on black women artists to be both artist and activist, and why writing is rooted in identity.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Chris Santiago
Chris Santigo on his new collection Tula, writing a multilingual text, and the connections between music and writing poetry.
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Sound Takes: A Charlie Brown Christmas
But what distinguishes Guaraldi from his superiors is his respect for the tried and true. If “O Tannenbaum” has worked for a few hundred years, maybe it’s worth kicking around the block a time or two.
...moreSong of the Day: “The Frim Fram Sauce”
One of the most entertaining things about the early days of recorded jazz music is the clever way musicians worked around the conservative mores of the time. The well-loved etymologist William Safire, in a 2002 article, diligently attempts to decode the playful gibberish sung so beautifully by Nat King Cole in his suggestive tune, “The […]
...moreAlbum of the Week: Jay Daniel’s Broken Knowz
When it comes to musical legacies, Detroit’s is singular: talking about “Detroit sound” can refer to a jump into Motown’s soul vibes or a dive into the roots of techno’s hammering basses, two apparently distant and antipodal hearts that have more in common than we might think. Jay Daniel, 25 years old and son of Planet E […]
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America Again
I felt urgently that it was the moment to tell the story of what I’ve learned about American music—or maybe about being an American.
...moreI Called Him Morgan
A new jazz documentary is making its way around the festival circuit. Directed by Kasper Collin, I Called Him Morgan traces the career of trumpet player Lee Morgan, who worked with greats like Art Blakey and Dizzy Gillespie before being murdered—shot dead on stage mid-performance—by his wife. Part jazz chronicle, part murder mystery, the one thing we do know […]
...moreParis and All That Jazz
While Fitzgerald’s haunts have certainly evolved over the years, and some have disappeared altogether, visitors to Paris can still relive the old-fashioned glamor of Fitzgerald’s Paris. It requires imagination, champagne, and a touch of despair. In an article for Travel + Leisure, Jess McHugh writes about the Paris of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and how visitors […]
...moreMythic Betty Davis Sessions Released
For years, people have been referring to lost sessions featuring Betty Davis and her former husband Miles Davis playing with bending genres, with Betty Davis introducing the jazz giant to Jimi Hendrix and the sounds of psychedelic rock. Recorded from 1968-1969 at Columbia’s 52nd Street studios, the mythic sessions laid the groundwork for the mix of jazz and […]
...moreMore Magic Than Movies
Books live in our collective unconscious as well as our individual imaginations. It’s best to air these stories occasionally so that we may examine the myths we hold dearly. Movies may be messy but they can be viewed en masse, which makes them the perfect medium for this analysis. But there’s a bigger reason we […]
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Discovering Septimania
I set off for Rome with my fiddle and a backpack, planning to busk as long as the tourists could stand it.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #72: Urban Pastoral
It’s like a landscape that you can’t know until you’ve seen it through four seasons, until you’ve seen it on days gray and bright.
...morePresident Obama’s Favorite Musicians Play His Backyard
The fifth International Jazz Day All-Star Global Concert took place on the White House’s South Lawn on Friday, featuring performances from giants Herbie Hancock and Aretha Franklin alongside an all-star band made up of musicians from around the world. President Obama gave a speech welcoming the UNESCO concert back to the US. He celebrated the “all around […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Jay Deshpande
I try to make sure no one’s around when I talk out loud to books.
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