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 […]
Due to the nation’s rich jazz history, it may appear surprising that a 2020 release – Nduduzo Makhathini’s Modes of Communication: Letters from the Underworlds (Blue Note Records, 2020) – is long-standing labels’ first by a South African musician. While the pianist will receive much coverage based on this fact alone, that singular focus improperly […]
On Purple Moonlight Pages, R.A.P. Ferreira is extremely loose and free, at times even nonchalant, but he is always impressive and in control. The emcee’s intriguing abstract nature, wit, confidence and unwavering commitment to the craft of imaginative rhyming all combine in a performance that will undoubtedly go on to be remembered as one of […]
In the over fifty years since John Coltrane’s death, dozens, if not hundreds, of recordings have honored his artistic genius. The sheer quantity seemingly dwarfs even the number of releases by the saxophonist during his lifetime. This, of course, raises a fairly simple question: does the world truly need yet another homage to Coltrane? If […]
In January 2013, Brian Shimkovitz, the head of Awesome Tapes From Africa, found a cassette tape in a shop in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia titled Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument. Its combination of the nation’s traditional music with funk and jazz completely blew him away and he undertook a quest to share it with the […]
For one unfamiliar with Charles Lloyd’s illustrious discography, an octogenarian NEA Jazz Master may seem like an odd focal point for a site focused on music that pushes beyond categorical lines. However, the saxophonist has spent his entire career defying convention. From his early sideman recordings with Chico Hamilton to his more recent Marvels group, […]
Ralph Waldo Emerson once noted that “to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Whether one’s expectations on another person, of an artist’s output as a certain type, or one’s inflated self-perception, far too often images are depicted and enforced which do not align […]
The historic Newport Jazz Festival has released a list of 36, out of approximately 60, groups which will appear across its four stages at Fort Adams this summer. As the first modern music festival, one may mistakenly assume that most of the acts reflect a more traditional view of jazz. While some masters of this […]
The human brain is incredibly powerful. It controls every function of our bodies, allows us to reason, and permits us to both create and appreciate art. To do so, it uses 100 billion neurons, each of which fires around 200 times every second. Given its necessary complexity, it should come as no surprise how frequently […]
On February 1, 1968, a malfunctioning garbage truck fatally crushed two black Memphis sanitation workers – Echol Cole and Robert Walker. Their passing was in many ways directly the fault of Henry Loeb, the city’s white supremacist mayor. Loeb previously served as the Memphis’ Public Works Commissioner, a role in which he undertook several steps […]
