A Deeper Narrative: Tongo Eisen-Martin’s Heaven Is All Goodbyes
These are not poems to read quickly, but to return to repeatedly.
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Posts Tagged: Miles Davis
Swinging Modern Sounds #102: Ten Influential Albums
Music columnist Rick Moody writes on ten albums that influenced him through his life.
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The Brink of Unbearable: Careen by Grace Shuyi Liew
[I]t is as if I am learning a new language with each poem.
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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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ENOUGH: Clara, Too
A Rumpus series of work by women and non-binary writers that engages with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
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Playing God: A Conversation with Daniel Olivas
Daniel Olivas discusses his recent short story collection, The King of Lighting Fixtures, writing humor, and the role of religion in his work.
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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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Wanted/Needed/Loved: Franklin James Fisher’s “Rhoda”
I have to work to get the sounds, but then the magic kicks in.
...moreNotable San Francisco: 4/12–4/18
Wednesday 4/12: Douglas Kearney reads for for UC Berkeley’s Holloway Series in Poetry. Free, 6:30 p.m., UC Berkeley, Hearst Field Annex. Joyce Carol Oates presents A Book of American Martyrs at Moe’s in Berkeley. It’s always a treat to encounter this author! Free, 7:30 p.m., Moe’s Books. Thursday 4/13: Shanthi Sekaran (Lucky Boy) reads at the Morrison […]
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Swinging Modern Sounds #78: Conceived as a Playlist
Shadowbahn […] is among the most unusual, and most extreme, in a literary career that has often been marked by its unpredictability.
...moreAlbum of the Week: Peter Silberman’s Impermanence
“It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.” This quote from Miles Davis is what inspired Peter Silberman during the make of his first solo album, Impermanence, out now via Transgressive. Forced by a temporary hearing impairment to leave Brooklyn, Silberman learned to deal with silence and its ungraspable dimensions in […]
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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.
...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 […]
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Swinging Modern Sounds #73: Prince Rogers Nelson, Guitar Player: A Symposium
I started thinking about additional, more slantwise ways we might talk about his legacy. What if I organized a bunch of guitar players?
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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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Five Stages of Prince Fandom
You don’t need to know him personally, you say. You get the best of Prince through his music. Maybe that’s the truth, and maybe it isn’t.
...moreSong 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 by composer Gil Evans for Davis and performed by bassist Paul Chambers, pianist Bill Evans, […]
...moreVault Release: Davis, Montgomery, and Ellington
Aquarium Drunkard has highlighted some incredible recent vault releases from the jazz masters, including archival footage that definitely merits a listen. From Miles Davis there’s a Bootleg Series spanning live performances from 1955–1975: four CDs of unreleased material of Davis at Newport Jazz Festivals over the years. Resonance Records is putting out an early pre-fame […]
...moreSong of the Day: “It Never Entered My Mind”
By now Miles Davis has become a cornerstone of modern music. We can’t get rid of him, which is good, because we would never want to. Miles Davis is inside us; he surrounds us, and permeates our collective consciousness. For that reason, it’s easy to take him for granted. But his ballads force us to pause and take in the […]
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The Cool School edited by Glenn O’Brien
Tyler Doyle reviews THE COOL SCHOOL, edited by Glenn O’Brien, today in The Rumpus Book Review.
...more40th Anniversary of Miles Davis’s On The Corner
At The Stranger, Dave Segal and other Seattle musicians commemorate the 40th anniversary of Miles Davis’s On The Corner. “Grooves solid as diamonds with freaked-out tendrils that wrap around your soul and poke at you where you least expect to be poked. Sometimes they draw blood. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? You’ll be okay—just let […]
...moreWho Cares When Your Record Was Digitally Remastered?
I’ll admit I’m obsessive about dates in general, and music-related dates most of all. So when I started using the music-streaming service Spotify, I was pleased to see a year listed next to the name of every album in their expansive library—presumably the year when the recording was released, which I consider crucial information.
...moreAural Fixations, The Rumpus Mixtape #9: Chilly Scenes of Winter
You can see the architecture of things in winter. Structures glisten. Naked trees drip with clear popsicles. We find ourselves alone with ourselves. Everyone else has gone away to someplace warmer/better/more fun or else they are tucked indoors. Even when you live in a relatively warm place, winter still haunts.
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