jazz
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Mythic 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…
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More 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,…
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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.
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President 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…
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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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Swinging Modern Sounds #69: Meaning Yes
When in need of comfort, it’s always worth trying close reading.
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This Week in Posivibes: Bowie’s Blackstar
Before news hit about David Bowie’s passing, we had planned a post about the posivibes his most recent album, Blackstar, had received from the media. Although there is so much more to talk about in the wake of his death,…
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Sound & Vision: Tony Visconti
Legendary producer Tony Visconti talks to Allyson McCabe about working with David Bowie, his own touring musical super-group Holy Holy, and his thoughts on the music industry today.
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Jamming at the The Jazz Loft
A new documentary explores the New York jazz scene circa 1959 through the lens of W. Eugene Smith, the LIFE Magazine photojournalist, and the shows that sprang up in a squat in Chelsea’s Flower District. Read more about The Jazz Loft According…
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Another Lost Work by a Dead Writer
If it seems that “lost” books, short stories, and everything else are coming out of the woodwork, well, they are. The Strand magazine has just published Twixt Cup and Lip, an early play by William Faulkner written in the 1920s: The…
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Song of the Day: “So What?”
Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue is one of the most influential albums of all time, not just within the genre of jazz, but within the entirety of modern music. Perhaps the most highly recognizable song on the album, “So What?” was written…