As Arnold Schoenberg once noted, “Intelligibility in music seems to be impossible without repetition.” Repetition is a shared facet of all music. And it seems an attraction to repetition is an innately human response. Repetition transcends style. Repetition transcends culture. Repetition transcends era. But things are not exactly as they seem. Merely copying a sound […]
We continue our conversation with NEA Jazz Master George Coleman (read part one here) by continuing to discuss his time with Miles Davis, Donald Byrd, the recording session for Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, working with organists, and ballads. PostGenre: There is a famous story about your time with Miles. Tony Williams, especially, had been giving […]
Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way of interviews making it to print. This interview with the legendary George Coleman, which took place on May 19, 2023, is one such conversation. At the time, the NEA Jazz Master was promoting his latest live recording, Live at Small’s Jazz Club (Cellar Live, 2023), an electrifying quartet recording with […]
On March 28, 2023, the world lost one of its great composers, Ryuichi Sakamoto. Although emotionally powerful, Mr. Sakamoto’s work is difficult to characterize. He drew inspiration from Western classical music, including minimalism. But he was also an electronic music pioneer. In fact, it was not uncommon for his acoustic work to almost sound electronic […]
For over a century, New York City has been the epicenter of jazz music. While many artists develop their craft elsewhere, it is in the City that Never Sleeps that they often reach their creative zenith. The artistic power of New York comes partly from the powerful culture of creativity birthed there. This same environment […]
The Philosopher G.K. Chesterton once commented, “There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.” Here on the ground, architects must follow rigid rules and principles to ensure the sturdy erection of their vision and avoid collapse. But what happens when you work in a place where it is safe for some […]
For centuries, music has served as an empowering call for the oppressed and alienated. The origins of Blues, jazz, and rock all have their core in the subjugation of Black America. In Nazi Germany, youths would covertly undermine the Reich by playing verboten swing music in hidden corners of their community. Fela Kuti used Afrobeat as […]
One would be hard-pressed to find a figure that better represents the evolution of modern improvisation-based music than Eddie Henderson. At age nine, the trumpeter studied with the master of the jazz idiom – Louis Armstrong. Eight years later, Henderson met Miles Davis, who shifted his focus away from European classical music. Later, Henderson became […]
From advertising jingles to a neighbor’s booming subwoofer we are continually surrounded by music. in modern life But what is “music”? Cannot a sound without a “musical” intent nevertheless have a musical element? Consider something as innocuous as taking a shower. If one truly listens to the water steadily pouring overhead, one can sense gravity […]
For several decades starting in the late 1940s, one could frequently find a blind, long-bearded, mysterious figure – cloaked with a horned helmet and spear – surveilling the looming highrise towers of his urban midtown Manhattan kingdom. Dubbed the “Viking of Sixth Avenue”, many passers-by wrote the man off as an eccentric madman best ignored. […]
