Celebrating Community
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 […]
If you Google “rock clubs, Brooklyn,” you’ll see more than a dozen, most of them in Williamsburg, Bushwick, Gowanus or nearby. But before any of them were there, Lauterbach’s, at 335 Prospect Ave. in the South Slope, had a thriving scene featuring original rock bands. None of the Lauterbach’s bands – Frank’s Museum, Chemical Wedding, Cryptic Soup, Formaldehyde Blues Train, […]
Imagine not hearing the majestic sounds produced by thousands of metal or wooden organ pipes echoing around you during a wedding, funeral, or Mass. That’s the reality some houses of worship are facing as an organist shortage unfolds nationwide, on the heels of a pandemic that brought in-person services to a screeching halt for months and has since affected attendance. […]
Just in time for your shopping lists, and just before you might, I hope, have some time off and can spend some of your evenings these dark days listening to fine music, here are my choices for the best jazz albums of 2022. I make this list because I think lists are useful, and year-end ones help focus the mind […]
Beauty runs deep. The surprise hit of the summer may turn out to be Kate Bush’s 1985 single “Running Up That Hill” which, after placement in an episode of the Netflix series Stranger Things, hit the top 10 in 14 countries and raced to the top of the Apple Music charts in the states. It’s not exactly a deep cut. […]
The story of the independent music artist is usually marked with challenges and hopes of eventually ‘making it big,’ and of course, signing a record contract with a major label. For rapper J.R.Clark, his path as an independent artist has brought challenges, but also success without a major label deal. Here’s how J.R.Clark found stability and success as an independent […]
Résistance and futility. Ultravox! is remembered, and rightly so, as a progenitor of synthpop, but what gets missed out in that compact musicological truism is their remarkable 1977 debut. The band’s early incarnation—with singer and principal songwriter John Foxx and with the exclamation point in the name—was a remarkable amalgam of glam and bits of Brit blues revivalism with punk […]
It’s surprising that Sonic Youth, gone now for more than a decade, have yet to go the deluxe/unreleased route. Their Bandcamp page is replete with live sets and rarities, but In/Out/In (out March 18 on vinyl, CD, cassette and download from Three Lobed Recordings) may mark a change in that missing tide. The album collects five tracks recorded between 2000 […]
Here’s a motto to listen by: it’s harder to write a song than a sonata. There’s a general perception both among outside listeners and musicians inside institutional structures that the sonata is one of the supreme formal achievements of classical music. And this is true, proven by how vital and enduring the form has been since composers like Haydn were […]
The idea of the “star,” a celebrated and famous performer, isn’t new in and of itself. It goes back at least to the career of pianist Franz Liszt, who in the mid-19th century caused such public sensations during his European tours that he begat a new word, “Lisztomania.” And before Lady Gaga and even Barbra Streisand, there was the first, […]