Celebrating Community
A step ahead at looking back. In April, I wrote about Joe Jackson’s 1981 album Jumpin’ Jive in a review of Taj Mahal’s recent album of early jazz songs. Since then, Rickie Lee Jones has issued a respectable collection of crooner tunes, and countless rockers-of-certain-ages have done so before, generally with far lesser results than Jackson, Jones and Mahal (special […]
In art music (meaning music not designed for mass commercial success), there used to be a general consensus about forms and styles. That’s obvious when you look at classical music, but also things like folk music (in the English speaking world) and the blues; things were generally done within certain guidelines and outliers were less revolutionaries than eccentrics and avant-gardists, […]
At this year’s New York Film Festival, the marquee documentary event was the American premiere of 93-year-old Frederick Wiseman’s latest opus, Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros. La Maison Troisgro, a three-star Michelin restaurant in central France, is at the center of the film, which radiates outward to explore the supply chain of farms that provide much of the place’s food and the […]
Review of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride (Riverhead Books; 2023; 386 pages; $28) Reviewed by Michael Quinn Two kinds of people live in Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania: immigrant Jews and Blacks. These two groups eye each other warily, thinking they have nothing in common. Neither is especially thrilled to be there. It’s a rundown place, cut off […]
Who says a jazz band can’t play rock music? That question was implied, if not directly posed, within the lyrical permutations of Funkadelic’s 1978 “Who Says a Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?” Genre lines might be a bit blurrier 45 years later, but they’re still there to be crossed. Bassist Hannah Marks has worked for some highly regarded jazz bosses (Terri […]
What does it mean to make an album in 2023? They’re still being made, Billboard magazine still tracks their sales, but just what is that thing itself, the album, and why are they made as albums? The subject on this page each month is jazz, but these thoughts apply to all kinds of music, and are especially relevant to popular […]
The New York Film Festival hits at a strange moment in the calendar. By the time the 61st edition opened on September 29, Cannes, Venice, and Toronto had all hosted their festivals (in May, August, and September, respectively). Many of the year’s banner titles — Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Hayao Miyazaki’s […]
A band everyone should like. There was a time, back in the distant 1980s and ’90s, when recording and distribution outpaced the spread of information. The post-punk DIY movement encouraged artists and fans to seize the means of production and make their own records and zines but there was no guarantee they’d end up in the same places. As a result, […]
Pianist Matthew Shipp has had such a consistent, sustained career, nearly 40 years as one of the foremost free jazz players, that it’s easy to lose sight of what he’s done as a musician. His built a grand discographical forest through his own albums and those on which he’s part of another ensemble—coming up with the important David S. Ware […]
New York is marking the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop at a Bronx block party in 1973 with a packed program of IRL and virtual events, series, and celebrations across the city. (There’s even a special edition New York Public Library library card.) Most of these are centered, obviously, on the music. But at the Museum of the […]