Jason Moran (and Monk)
Sean MurphyOver at PopMatters Will Layman has a great piece on pianist Jason Moran. Highly recommended. It also includes a wonderful video where Moran talks about his relationship with the music…
Hey Gibson, Let’s Talk Guitar Albums
Okay. Gibson (the fine folks who bring us some of our best guitars) has recently announced their selections of what they deem the Top 50 Guitar Albums ever. Now, as…
Daniel Bard: Sports Porn
Describing what music sounds like is difficult enough. Trying to articulate what Daniel Bard is capable of doing with a baseball is pretty much impossible. Fortunately, a picture is worth…
Essential Performance: Gene Hackman in ‘The Conversation’*
Harry Caul is a man less concerned with the answers to uneasy questions than the questions themselves. He is a well-regarded surveillance specialist; a self-employed spy who builds his own…
Sue Mingus and the Mingus Big Band: Letting Our Children Hear Music
The Mingus Big Band is bigger than most big bands because they play the music of Charles Mingus. Of the many words one could use to describe Mingus, (and one…
Forever Never Changes: Remembering Arthur Lee
Arthur Lee died almost exactly four years ago (August 3, 2006). I not only am keen to remember --and celebrate-- his life and work, I also appreciate the fact that…
Party Music for the Apocalypse: Mikey Dread’s ‘Beyond World War III’
If Mikey Dread (Michael Campbell) had never decided to pick up the microphone and sing, his status would be secure in reggae history. His groundbreaking weekly show on Jamaican radio,…
Celebrating Chinatown: The Ultimate Summer Movie (and the Perfect American Movie)
Chinatown does not usually make the short list of best American films. In fairness, it probably shouldn’t. It will have to settle for merely being the only perfect American film…
Remembering the USS Indianapolis, Robert Shaw and The Scene
On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.…
July 28, 1979: The Long Way Home (Revisited)
If I ever need to check myself and consider what a privileged life I've led, I simply need to recall that moving across town in the summer of '79 was…