The Dancing Architect: Writing about Music/Culture
As for me, I play music and absorb cultural products all the time which has always inspired my writing and thinking...and vice-versa. This blog, then, will be a forum to blather on about my own spheres of interest - to present ideas and link to illustrative internet destinations. I love music and culture broadly, but I tend to be focused in jazz, R&B of many eras, hip-hop, movies, and smart comedy. As an academic, some posts will be kind of "thinkpieces" (ie. have too many academic words) but, trust me, there's jokes on the way too.
Likes
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All the video games @peteholmez mentioned in his podcast You Made It Weird. The podcast has...
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Is it possible that De La Soul are getting better with age?
Not as revolutionary, certainly. But...
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Pretty Funny (Minus the Funny)
I don’t understand a lot of things. I don’t understand why my...
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Madrigal!
As the child of a white lady with a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies, who...
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Following
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Sonny Clark.
A man who has taught me a thing or two about why the middle of the road is sometimes exactly where that bus needs to go. Check his trio version of “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” or his comping (a.k.a. jazz “accompanying”) behind any soloist on any record while he was alive. Take this for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prHxoFepR0A -
This promo for a major electronic music festival is amazing (and adorable).
Seriously, parts of it are better than the worst new music concerts I’ve attended. In any event, pretty amazing. Big fan of the most “alternative techniques” used.
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A photoset—just recently unearthed—of Miles playing live, just after recording Milestones
…but before recording 1958 Miles and Porgy & Bess. Kind of Blue was just around the corner in early 1959. Apparently, Life magazine didn’t feel these were worthy of publication at the time. Wow. I do wish the photographer had taken a shot of the pianist at the time, who was either Red Garland or Bill Evans, as it was right around the time of that transition.
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Hey, have a good weekend.
Indeed. F***, Nicholson truly was - and at times still can be - the very embodiment of cool.
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An admirably positive response to the BadBadNotGood issue...
…from NPR music journalist PATRICK JARENWATTANANON. That is, he makes suggestions for other listening from other piano trios using overlapping concepts to BBNG. He also takes pains to not simply “pile on” to the chorus of criticism in the wake of the band’s over-the-top rhetoric in interviews.
Key pull-quote:
I do admire BADBADNOTGOOD for making original music that feels personal to its members, and articulating its connection with the zeitgeist. Frustrated by a flat-footed prevailing order that wasn’t comprehending its ideas, the band took its message directly to fans. That’s a lesson in hustle many in jazz might learn from.
But I also believe that plenty of astounding bands have a similar outlook when it comes to creativity. All of those mentioned here have more years of study and bandstand experience under their belts, which translates to greater depth of creative possibility. -
George Colligan gives some needed perspective on the jazz education backlash
Pianist George Colligan, who teaches at U Manitoba, points out that the notion of schools being “cookie-cutter” in their approach is probably overblown. I think this is especially in true in this day and age given the shift in curricula I’ve seen in recent years at many prominent institutions.
