The 1956 Newport Jazz Festival’s schedule was adjusted slightly compared to the prior two outings. While still a three-day event with a focus on nighttime performances, it was moved up a day to begin on Thursday and end on Saturday while also having an earlier start time. Much of the festival took place under torrential […]
By 9:18 PM on the evening of July 17, 1954, Eddie Condon’s tribute to Dixieland finally began its delayed performance. Next was vocalist Lee Wiley, a jam session, and then a series of musicians who in hindsight left an indelible mark of music: the Modern Jazz Quartet with Horace Silver filling in for John Lewis, […]
In September of 1950, twenty-four-year-old George Wein used his college savings to open a nightclub, Storyville, at Boston’s Copley Square Hotel. The venue boldly planned to present jazz in a new light. Taking its name from the legendary New Orleans district of debauchery, brothels, and flophouses from whence the music came, the budding entrepreneur planned […]
Humanity has a longstanding fascination with incorporating the latest technological developments into music. This interest is perhaps most evident in the history of sampling. In the 1940s, Pierre Schaeffer started producing sonic collages by splicing and manipulating sound recordings. His works formed the base of an experimental form known as musique concrète, an avant-garde progenitor […]
This is the final segment of our four-part series celebrating the legacy of the landmark Bitches Brew on its Fiftieth Anniversary. Our prior pieces emphasized the album’s compositions, production techniques, and recent “jazz” albums it influenced. Each adopts the list format and follows two general guidelines: that the artist presented still performs today, and that […]
This is the penultimate chapter of our four-part series celebrating the legacy of the landmark Bitches Brew on its Fiftieth Anniversary. Our first piece focused on the album’s compositions, the second on production techniques, and our forthcoming final feature will emphasize its influence on “non-jazz” artists. Each adopts the list format and follows two general […]
This is the second of our four-part series of lists celebrating the legacy of the landmark Bitches Brew on its Fiftieth Anniversary. Our first piece focused on the compositions while forthcoming ones will emphasize the album’s influence on subsequent “jazz” and “non-jazz” artists. Each list follows two general guidelines: that the artist presented still performs today, […]
On March 30, 1970, Miles Davis shocked the world with his groundbreaking Bitches Brew (Columbia Records, 1970). Although the trumpeter had been increasingly trending towards merging jazz with rock since at least Miles in The Sky (Columbia Records, 1968), Brew destroyed any divide between the two. At the time, some close-minded critics accused him of […]
