In his magnum opus, “Southern Nights,” the great Allen Toussaint sets not only the vivid imagery of natural beauty but leaves a lyrical thought deep of wonder: “Its precious beauty lies deep beyond the eye. Goes running through your soul. Like the stories told of old.” This line does more than portray the scenery of […]
In an age where the romanticized façades and angered “hot takes” of social media dominate the interpersonal, meaningful relationships- platonic, professional, or otherwise – are a treasured rarity. Paradoxically, those connections are essential for societal improvement and the existence of a robust community. Why should one care about social change if they have no reason […]
By the early 1980s, artists had too much freedom to express themselves through sound. The consequences of avant-garde experimentalism were too esoteric. The fusing of jazz with rock was somehow too mainstream. No, we needed an art form that would still appeal to exactly slightly less than 1% of the market. No more no less. […]
Computer scientist Alan Kay once noted, “Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower.” Despite consistently recurring alarmist narratives, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will never truly supplant humanity. While the emerging technology will present […]
Western music is built around concepts of melody and harmony – the idea that one form of sonic expression should come to the fore and the other to sit behind in support. But what if those concepts are not as important as we are led to believe? What if, instead, there is a dynamically evolving […]
Many define “jazz” as the meeting of African rhythms and European harmonies. In a sense, this narrative is accurate – if you remove the influence of the church, songs of the field, or cues from the homeland – the form would cease to exist. But, in another sense, this effort to identify broad sources subjugates […]
The process of mining – digging deep into the earth to find an essential material – dates back at least forty-three thousand years. However, the process was not modernized until the adoption of rail in the 1550s. Carts would accumulate the laborers’ findings and move them to the surface. Two centuries later, James Watt used […]
Far too often, people tend to compartmentalize and localize matters of concern. However, such an approach minimizes the true scale of what is before us. Only in perceiving the big picture of an issue can truly substantive and meaningful reform occur. As one example, slavery in America and its vestiges are frequently removed from the […]
In pieces reviewing a year past, writers often try to find a few narratives and blanketly apply them. The problem with this approach, however. While providing some coherence, such simplification completely overlooks much of what happened that year. One can posit how, through albums like Mary Halvorson’s ‘Cloudward’ or David Murray’s ‘Francesca’, avant-garde music was […]
In the late 1850s, two decades before Thomas Edison’s phonograph, French inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville created the first sound recording device. In the generations since, the interrelation between recorded sound and new creation have continually been a matter of great controversy. When recorded music first emerged, many musicians became dismayed that it would end […]
