Celebrating Community
John Zorn has been more than just a staple on New York’s creative musical landscape: he’s been a defining factor. Like an institution, flowing from one decade to the next, unchanging, yet always updating, he has been here. Flowing seamlessly between genres, linking half a dozen scenes together in a musical cauldron, he is also an artist defined by his […]
I’m at Vox Pop, an artist lounge and cafe-bar on Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn. It’s Sunday night, open mic. It’s 2009. Many of the performers are good. Some, like me, are playing solo and singing for the first time in front of an audience. I’ve been playing guitar for a long time, but never carrying the load by myself with […]
Buzzy Linhart passed away February, 13, 2020. He was 76. Buzzy was a musician and songwriter revered among the Greenwich Village scene of the ‘60s. He was also a muse of the hit-making singer-songwriter era. Mr. Linhart once sang “Get Together” at an open mic; it blew away Jesse Colin Young who was in attendance. Linhart taught the song to […]
Since the late 1950s, the Grammys have represented the summit of success in the music industry. Musicians all over the world have dreamed of holding a golden gramophone. The Grammy is considered one of the big four entertainment awards, alongside the Emmy (TV), the Oscar (film), and the Tony (theater). As a child in the early 2000s, I sat in […]
As all eyes, ears, and hearts prepare for the wild months ahead leading up to November, everyone everywhere is keenly aware of the political climate (hurricane?) that we’re living through. It’s often hard to know how to act, what to do, or how best to be helpful. Gone is the 24-7 in-the-streets mobilization from 2017, as everyone has been forced […]
Greg Fox sipped his own mix of green tea, honey and nettles as he spoke from his shared loft in Gowanus in what he describes as being “as professional a situation as a bedroom studio could be.” The large, sunny room is filled with drums and other instruments, recording equipment and the ephemera of the working musician and percussion instructor. […]
Habibi is an all-female psychedelic Iranian-American rock band originally from Detroit, Michigan, now based in Brooklyn, New York. They’ve been featured on NPR, have previously released an EP and a full-length album, and will be playing a show with Ice Balloons at Market Hotel in Brooklyn on Saturday, February 15, at 9 pm to celebrate their second full-length release, titled […]
My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that in 2020, the state of jazz is… well, I suppose it all depends on what you mean by “state.” In a country where the highest-paid public employees are football coaches and where artists are expected to work for the non-remuneration of “exposure,” jazz as a professional calling remains a daunting […]
Much in the same way as the madeleines that Proust wrote about so many years ago would involuntarily conjure memories from a single bite, hearing video game melodies takes me back to the safety of my childhood living room floor, to hours spent cross-legged, lost in digital adventures scored to these enduring songs. This is the power of the music […]
On December 31, the Amore Opera celebrated the incoming 2020 with a glorious New Year’s Eve gala of opera and dinner at St. Paul & St. Andrew’s Church in New York City. Nathan Hull welcomed one and all to the Amore Opera’s tenth seasons. Many received New Year hats and noisemakers to properly ring in the new decade. The event’s […]