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 a little more polite sounding in 2024. Travis Laplante’s long-form piece, ‘The Golden Lock’ would also add credence to this view. But what about Ches Smith’s Laugh Ash or Brian Marsella’s latest trip to the iMAGiNARiUM? Both were many things but hardly tranquil. Many string players who originally came from the Western classical tradition – Josh Modney, gabi fluke mogul, Jason Kao Hwang, and Jessica Pavone – often did not shave down their sharp edges either.
Even beyond these string players, in 2024, our site significantly covered influences from Western classical music. This incorporated everything from an opera about a controversial Beethoven work to voyages through Béla Bartók’s folk transcriptions. From a project by a Pulitzer Prize winner syncing orchestral music to geolocation to a collaborator remembering the late Ryuichi Sakamoto. As to the last of these, Rubin Kodheli was hardly the only cellist we spoke with this year. Actually, we spoke to three more – Christopher Hoffman, Janel Leppin, and Tomeka Reid – each going in wildly different yet equally exciting directions on their instrument of choice.
Both of Leppin’s projects we covered featured her frequent collaborator and husband, Anthony Pirog. The guitarist is also a member of the Messthetics, the punk-jazz band that, with James Brandon Lewis, gave an excellent performance at this summer’s Newport Jazz Festival. As in past years, we did significant coverage of Newport – the Festival’s seventieth year – with conversations with several of the artists who booked to perform there: Amaro Freitas, Riley Mulherkar, Jaleel Shaw, Donny McCaslin, Braxton Cook, Thievery Corporation’s Rob Garza, Fred Wesley, Music Education Manager Leland Baker, and Artistic Director Christian McBride. We even talked to Ron Cudworth, a native Newporter who has been part of the Festival’s security team for decades. And once at the Fort, we had a very special conversation with John Patitucci and Danilo Perez on the legacy of Wayne Shorter.
Some of the most interesting interviews for the site this year, like Perez-Patitucci, featured multiple artists. We explored the intersectionality of music and film with Bill Frisell and Bill Morrison, examined the relationship between acoustic and electronic music with Evan Parker and Matthew Wright, experienced spontaneous improvisation combustion with Tim Berne and Chloë Sobek, and leisurely strolled through Central Park with Wadada Leo Smith and Amina Claudine Myers. While two separate interviews months apart, we also discussed the fusion powerhouse Return to Forever with Lenny White and Stanley Clarke.
Clarke and Myers were only two of the NEA Jazz Masters we spoke to this year. We also spoke to Dave Holland and Kenny Garrett. And, of course, there are the many legendary artists who do not have such recognition: Terry Gibbs, James Blood Ulmer, Fred Frith, and Kahil El’Zabar. Also, a longtime personal favorite, we spoke to John Lurie. But we also did not shy away from younger talent. Consider Chief Adjuah, Luke Stewart, Karriem Riggins, Patricia Brennan, Molly Miller, Aaron Parks, David Leon, Lakecia Benjamin, Steph Richards, Josh Johnson, Isaiah Collier, Alfredo Colon, Nate Mercereau, or Kalia Vandever. We also spoke to established artists – Nicole Mitchell, Alan Braufman, Brandon Ross, and Deron Johnson– who continue to push the boundaries along with concert producer Brice Rosenbloom and record producer Zev Feldman.
Although I have listened to improvisation-based music most of my life, 2024 marks five years of my writing about it. It was also the most active this site has been since its founding. I even had one of my interviews with Mary Halvorson published in the great Jazz Journalists Association’s Jazz Omnibus. I’m excited to see what 2025 has to offer. As a sneak peek, the future includes conversations with George Burton, Jeff Parker, Ebo Taylor, and Jason Miles on Grover Washington, Jr.
In general, however, my sole guide for deciding to interview a particular artist is whether their work speaks to me. As such, it should come as no surprise to see many of the people I’ve spoken to in 2024 included on the list (covering Thanksgiving 2023 to Thanksgiving 2024) below. As in past years, my top ten in ascending order, followed by twenty-five more worthy of mention.
10. Lights on a Satellite – Sun Ra Arkestra (In + Out)
2024 was a standout year for the Arkestra’s longtime leader, Marshall Allen. He became a centenarian, a milestone reached by few. He was given the long overdue designation of NEA Jazz Master. And he had Lights on a Satellite – the Arkestra’s finest recording since Sun Ra returned to Saturn thirty-one years ago – dedicated to him. Due to how open Sun Ra was to experimentation, the hard swinging of his big band has been far too often overlooked in the years since Ra’s death. But that swing is a central part of albums like the classic Jazz in Silhouette (Saturn, 1959). Lights places this element at the forefront. The album also underscores the ties the Arkestra has to the broader lineage of great Black music, from the Blues of “Baby Won’t You Please Be Mine” to the traditional jazz of “Way Down Yonder In New Orleans.”
9. Cloudward – Mary Halvorson (Nonesuch)
Halvorson has long had one of the most distinctive voices on her instrument. Some have referred to her use of effects as making her guitar seem like it is being played underwater or as though her sound is coming through on a warbled interplanetary transmission. While Cloudward still displays her idiosyncratic perspective, her 35th recording is also markedly different from those of her past. Quiet and space – terms too infrequently associated with her work – play central roles on this record. This sextet with Patricia Brennan, Adam O’Farrill, Jacob Garchik, Nick Dunston, and Tomas Fujiwara continues to evolve in its quest for notes that will lift you into the ether.
You can read my interview with Mary on this album, here.
8. The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (Impulse!)
The relation between the fierce individualism of avant-garde jazz and the f—k the system attitude of punk is criminally underappreciated. Featuring the Fugazi rhythm section, this ensemble does not shy away from such an intersection. But the album is more than a hard headbanging affair. Each piece is intricately composed and moments of serenity emerge, from the laid-back countrified blues of “Railroad Tracks Home” to the majestic sailing of “Boatly.”
You can read my interview with Messthetics guitarist, Anthony Pirog, on this album, here.
7. Bird’s Eye – David Leon (Pyroclastic)
In melding Afrocuban folkloric, Korean traditional, and Black American music, Leon’s trio carves out a space wholly its own. While the leader has great success in bending the tones out of his alto saxophone, it is still ultimately tied to concepts of Western temperament. This contradictory nature of his approach provides a rich foil to DoYeon Kim’s gayagum’s naturally malleable tones. Under them, Lesley Mok’s rhythms provide a feeling of floating weightlessness, driven by abstract concepts of space and air, yet keeping the group progressing forward.
You can read my interview with David on this album, here.
6. Breaking Stretch – Patricia Brennan (Pyroclastic)
True to its title, Breaking Stretch demands its performers work at the outer edges of their capabilities. Instead of cracking under the pressure, the septet excels at the challenge. From the conflagrant “Five Suns” to the spacy “Earendel”, the recording is sonically dense and rhythmically complex. Brennan’s third album as a leader confirms her status as a composer to watch.
You can read my interview with Patricia on this album, here.
5. The love it took to leave you – Colin Stetson (Envision)
Stetson has a long history of creating innovative solo saxophone recordings that defy categorization. Since 2017, however, he has mostly focused on film-scoring work and making enemies with Martha Stewart. His first new solo release in seven years, The love it took to leave you richly extends from such scoring work to produce a work that is a raw, emotionally draining affair. Recorded in an old metal foundry, the reverberations against brick, concrete, and steel give an otherworldly feeling to the work. Sometimes it feels like you are in space, looking down at the majesty of the world below. At others, Stetson is reaching into your chest and ripping your heart out in this hauntingly beautiful work that conveys both desolation and urgency.
4. Y’Y – Amaro Freitas (Psychic Hotline)
John Cage’s first use of a prepared piano – placing objects on the instrument’s strings – was a consequence of convenience. Cage wished to use a percussion ensemble in a venue too small for a large group. There is some delicious symbolism in the fact that eight decades later, Brazilian pianist Amaro Freitas uses the concept to address issues of space; this time in conveying a message about the expansion of modern civilization at the expense of nature. There is a delicacy and gentleness in Freitas’ sonic depictions of the Amazon rainforest. But, like Cage’s use of preparations, it also presents a rhythmic urgency and strength. The modifications to his instrument allow Freitas to extract textures and timbres that seem incomprehensibly both familiar and exotic.
You can read my interview with Amaro on this album, here.
3. Off the End – Brandon Ross Phantom Station (Sunnyside)
The conceptual openness behind this live date could have been a recipe for disaster. The band was intended to be “individual-directed” with no predetermined direction. In this setting, egos and conflicting opinions easily could have come to the fore. Instead – a testament to the artistry of Ross, Graham Haynes, Hardedge, David Virelles, and JT Lewis – a new sonic terrain is mapped out that sides beyond traditional concepts of music. The longstanding relationships in the band assist with this as well. Categories like genres or particular styles are discarded. Walls lines electric and acoustic scrambled. And preconceptions of how an instrument “should” sound or between the “musical” and “nonmusical” obliterated. The recording is incredibly difficult to describe but even more impossible to ignore.
You can read my interview with Brandon on this album, here.
2. Tension – Mulatu Astatke and Hoodna Orchestra (Batov)
Even into his eighties, the father of Ethio-jazz is still pushing the sensual and mystical aura of his art form into new territory. In this case, we find his vibraphone backed by the Hoodna Orchestra, a Tel Aviv-based Afro-funk ensemble. Originally focused on Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat, the band’s meeting with Astatke brings a pan-Africanism to the album, along with hues of psychedelic rock, funk, soul, and a tinge of Middle Eastern music. A piece like the late-night noirish “Hatula” evokes not only the music Astatke helped invent, but also a klezmer-infused element. The transcontinental dialogues on Tension are, despite the album’s suggestive title, not only compatible but complementary of one another. Further, the unique assortment of stylistic influences adds a timelessness to the record. The record incomprehensibly sounds simultaneously thoroughly contemporary and as though they were dug out of some crate digger’s secret stash of long-forgotten treasures.
1. Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens – Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers (Redhook Records)
For generations, musicians have attempted to transport listeners to locales through sound. Everything from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 “Pastoral”’s depiction of the countryside to the steep peaks of John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” have evoked the grandeur and magnitude of specific places. One should be cautioned against thinking that Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake Paths and Gardens is a similar work in its ability to share the natural magnificence of New York’s great park. Make no mistake, you can see the shifting colors of the sky and the shimmer of light against water. You can feel the radiance of sunlight and the briskness of wind. But all of that is only part of the record.
Instead, Central Park – including its rich use of space and silence – is a testament to the power of peace and reflection. The warmth of an upbringing in rural Arkansas and the rejoicing spirits of Albert Ayler and John Lennon are just as much at home in this splendorous environment as the album’s namesakes. Each time you listen, deeper levels of subtleties and shades of beauty reveal themselves like the slowly opening pedals of a vibrantly colored flower. Such can come only from those who have fully immersed themselves in the power of music to the extent of these two living legends of the AACM.
Check out our conversations with both masters on this album here.
11. Breaking the Shell – Bill Frisell, Andrew Cyrille, Kit Downes (Red Hook)
Given the centrality of the pipe organ in Western church music for over twelve centuries, there is something inherently orthodox about the instrument. Breaking the Shell puts cracks in this perspective by giving Downes free rein while collaborating with two legends of improvised music. The music is seemingly bound to nothing but a continued search for sonic expansiveness. The ambiance of St. Luke in the Fields, the recording venue, adds additional layers of color and subtlety to the work.
12. The Golden Lock – Travis LaPlante (New Focus)
The Golden Lock is an extended form piece of compositional maturity. The unusually instrumented ensemble – the leader’s tenor saxophone, Charles Overton’s harp, Erika Dohi’s piano, Lizzie Burns’ bass, and Eduardo Leandro’s percussion – add unique textures and color as the work flows between nebulous concepts of movements. It is a – mostly – quiet and gentle work that can come only from deep introspection and an artist willing to expose their vulnerabilities to the listener.
You can read my conversation with Travis on this album, here.
13. Owl Song – Ambrose Akinmusire, Bill Frisell, Herlin Riley (Nonesuch)
The word “smooth” has been so heavily abused over the decades, that it is almost not worth using. But how else do you describe Owl Song’s interplay between Akinmusire’s velvety rich horn and the luxuriousness of Frisell’s guitar? All atop Riley’s delicately arranged rhythms. It is a gorgeous invitation to calm in a world of chaos.
14. The Almighty – Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few (Division 81)
A tenor saxophonist’s sonic evocation of a higher power will inevitably draw comparisons to parallels to Colttane’s A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1965) and his other later works. The introduction to Collier’s “Compassion” even partly recalls Trane’s “Welcome.” But The Almighty’s focus is significantly different. Instead of “Acknowledgement” of a higher power or the reading of a “Psalm,” Collier hones in on the things we should share to honor the Creator. He constructs upon the social justice-minded legacy of his native Chicago and the iconic AACM, of which Collier is a member, to emphasize the sharing of “Love” and “Compassion” here on earth. The centerpiece “Duality Suite” highlights how differences are not points for contention and division but a call for more expansive perspectives
You can read my conversation with Isaiah on this album, here.
15. Who Killed AI? – Kenny Garrett (Mack Avenue)
In a time where the technological reality of artificial intelligence is increasingly seeping into musical creation, Who Killed AI? is a reminder that the human spirit is necessary for art to convey meaning to a listener. Much like his once boss, Miles Davis, did with synthesizers in the 1970s and 80s, this collaboration with electronic musician Svoy takes the comfortable language Garrett has honed over the last four years and re-contextualizes it with intriguing – and grooving- results.
You can read my conversation with Kenny on this album, here.
16. Riley – Riley Mulherkar (Westerlies)
Hushed tones. Whispers. Breath. A deeply intimate outing. In a long history of far too many trumpeters who seem trapped in the shadows of Satchmo, Miles, Chet, Wynton, and others, Riley is an incredibly refreshing debut. Each time you listen, it feels like a private performance for one, regardless of where experienced.
You can read my conversation with Riley on this album, here.
17. Infinite Love Infinite Tears – Alan Braufman (Valley of Search)
Braufman’s last recording, The Fire Still Burns (Valley of Search), was the first album under his name in forty-five years, generating buzz from that fact alone. Infinite confirms the magic on that album was hardly a fluke or overwrought nostalgia. With Infinite, a knockout band – the alto saxophonist paired with Patricia Brennan, James Brandon Lewis, Ken Filiano, Chad Taylor, and Michael Wimberly – shows that compositional simplicity does not foreclose improvisational ingenuity.
You can read my conversation with Alan on this album, here.
18. The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow – Charles Lloyd (Blue Note)
In 1966, at the height of the Vietnam War, twenty-eight-year-old Charles Lloyd eased the pain felt by many through his quartet. Working with artists – Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, and Cecil McBee – at the top of their craft, he planted a forest flower for all to enjoy. Almost six decades later, now an elder statesman of the music, the saxophonist has convened a quartet of younger comrades – Jason Moran, Larry Grenadier, and Brian Blade – to provide solace in another era of turmoil; this time in response to the COVID pandemic. The new ensemble plants its own magnificent garden full of new specimens and old favorites.
19. Endless – Nala Sinephro (Warp)
On Endless, Belgian, by way of London, experimentalist Nala Sinephro’s synthesizer and harp lead rich orchestral-like arrangements that create a sound world you are eager to get lost in. Ideas swirl from one “continuum” to another, requiring the album to be perceived as a coherent whole. The record is heavenly.
20. Speak to Me – Julian Lage (Blue Note)
To those in the know, Lage’s extensive range is no surprise. When he’s not exploring indie singer-songwriter music with his wife Margaret Glaspy, he’s been a go-to guitarist for constant experimenter John Zorn. Or maybe he’s visiting R&B with Cautious Clay. However, few records under his name perfectly encapsulate Lage’s broad scope quite as well as Speak to Me. In presenting the artist in a variety of contexts – solo, duo, trio, and a large ensemble – this Blue Note release overtly captures moments of straight-ahead jazz, avant-garde expression, rockabilly, modern rock, Blues, and more that form Lage’s cohesive artistic whole.
21. Ascending Primes – Modney (Pyroclastic)
Distorted solo violin leads to ensembles of different prime numbered members, up to eleven. The calculated use of mathematics- both in ensemble size and in adoption of Just Intonation – produces a work where consonance and dissonance seem in constant conflict, as you are thrusted further to the battlefront. An entire treatise could probably be written on the theory behind how and why this piece works, but its sheer power and force are undeniable to even the most ignorant of pupils.
You can read my conversation with Modney on this album, here.
22. Laugh Ash – Ches Smith (Pyroclastic)
Laugh Ash is a wildly unpredictable ride. Featuring a dectet of Smith, Shara Lunon, Anna Webber, Oscar Noriega, James Brandon Lewis, Nate Wooley, Jennifer Choi, Kyle Armbrust, Michael Nicolas, and Shahzad Ismaily, I quasi-joked when this album came out that it was made by the “Avant-Garde Avengers.” But there is no denying how the ensemble smashes through expectations to create something – despite its focus on repetition – that starkly breaks away from the status quo.
You can read my conversation with Ches on this album, here.
23. Unknown Rivers – Luke Stewart (Pi)
Listening to Unknown Rivers, you can hear the lineage of tenor sax-bass-drum trio recordings that carved a path to Stewart’s first recording for Pi. Things like the spiritual yearning of Albert Ayler and the sheer energy of Sonny Rollins are evident on the record. But with the bassist- rather than the saxophonist – in the lead, Stewart’s trio also flips tradition on its head. The deep propulsiveness of the bass line is more than an accompaniment; it is a driving force. History is not ignored or forgotten, but it also does not dictate blind adherence.
You can read my conversation with Luke on this album, here.
24. The Way out of Easy– Jeff Parker IVtet (International Anthem)
Over the span of seven years, this group – Parker with Josh Johnson, Anna Butterss and Jay Bellerose- has continually honed their mostly scoreless communications, leading to this live date. The longform music on Way Out is incredibly free, mostly guided only by the artists’ ears and impulses. But it is never skronky or disjointed. The Enfield Tennis Academy from which this band was born may no longer exist, but we will fortunately always have this historical document of one of this quartet’s later performances there.
Stay tuned for a forthcoming conversation with Jeff on this album.
25. Transylvanian Dance – Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri (ECM)
Derived from a live performance in Romania in 2022, Transylvanian Dance, finds pianist Ban and Violist Maneri revisiting the Eastern European folk transcriptions Béla Bartók collected over a century ago. Together the duo finds ways to honor and pay homage to the written material while adding their own perspectives to it, whether Maneri’s masterful moments of microtonality or Ban’s bluesy balladry. And, as an ECM recording, the selective use of silence adds a weight to each phrase.
You can read my conversation with Lucian and Mat on this album, here.
26. Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit – Kahil El’Zabar (Spirit Muse)
For the last five decades, El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble has been searching for musical messages that both evoke a higher power and showcase the great lineage of Black Music, both past and present. While the group’s membership has changed significantly over the years, the group’s essence remains as vital as ever as this trio reflects the lyricism of Ellington and Strayhorn and the boldness of Charles Mingus alongside hues of gospel and R&B.
You can read my conversation with Kahil on this album, here.
27. silver dawn – Zosha Warpeha (Relative Pitch)
Warpeha’s Hardanger d’amore is the descendant of the Hardanger fiddles that play a central role in Norwegian folk music. These ties to tradition are evident in her solo record, Silver Dawn, where resonance and wordless vocals marry improvisation-based music to the dance and cultural overtones from the Land of the Midnight Sun.
28. Live at the Adler Planetarium – Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra (International Anthem)
Adler is the Western Hemisphere’s first and oldest planetarium. For almost ninety years, generations of people have found knowledge about interstellar spaces by staring at the domed ceiling of Adler’s Sky Theater. Painter, sculptor, digital artist, and musician Mazurek was entrusted with taking the venerated venue and mesmerizing an audience for one special evening. Live is the audio document of that performance, featuring longtime collaborators Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, Angelica Sanchez, Craig Taborn, Damon Locks, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Gerald Cleaver, and Chad Taylor. Although the record lacks the visuals projected that night, the multidisciplinary nature of Mazurek’s work makes it hard not to visualize them as you listen. The album is able to transport you to even the furthest reaches of the cosmos.
29. Bamako*Chicago Sound System – Nicole Mitchell and Ballake Sissoko (FPE)
Bamako*Chicago Sound System is a meeting of the great Black American musical form represented by Mitchell’s flute and the West African griot culture of Sissoko’s kora. Shared roots of both forms are evident across the record by how well they meld together. It also helps that the two leaders are so forward-thinking. While Sissoko has long infused contemporary sentiments into his work, Mitchell has spent her career pushing her instrument out of the Western classical conservatory and into the Improvisational structural icons of the AACM and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. As to the latter, few projects embody the concept of “Ancient to the Future” as much as this record.
You can read my conversation with Nicole on this album, here.
30. Vision is the Identity – Christopher Hoffman (Out of Your Head)
Have any pre-existing thoughts on how the cello should sound? You will probably promptly discard such notions when you hear Vision is the Identity. Sometimes, Hoffman sounds more like an electric guitar or bass than his instrument of choice. This trio, with Frank LoCastro and Bill Campbell on keys and drums, respectively, combines punk edginess and electronic frenzy with avant-garde experimentalism. The biggest surprises, however, come in Hoffman’s measured use of guest artists. Who else would have thought to ask Henry Threadgill to help approach a quasi-Americana aesthetic?
You can read my conversation with Christopher on this album, here.
31. PolyTropos/ Of Many Turns – Steve Coleman (Pi)
Coleman’s frequently evolving Five Elements band has long been compositionally driven by the saxophonist-leader’s interest in scientific matters. Among others, he has composed based on nature and astronomy [The Mancy of Sound (Pi, 2011)] and the beats of the human heart [Functional Arrhythmias (Pi, 2013)]. PolyTropos draws its inspiration from amino acid structural chains. Given that amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, one should expect strength from the ensemble presenting such an idea. One certainly finds it in the pairing of the M-Base Master, Jonathan Finlayson, Rich Brown, and Sean Rickman, and their mining of Afro-Cuban rhythms and adoption of short fragmented lines.
32. White Noise – George Burton (Daporge)
White Noise is somewhat of a change of direction for Burton, incorporating electronics and hip-hop elements than on his past offerings. But it pays off incredibly well for the Philadephian pianist in addressing important issues of racism and yearning for equality. The incorporation of samples of statements by people like Sun Ra further underscores, in a culture too frequently guided by short-mindedness, that these struggles are hardly new; all that has changed is the specifics of their manifestations.
Stay tuned for our forthcoming conversation with George on this album, ahead of his 2025 WinterJazzFest performance.
33. All Species Parade – Jenny Scheinman (Royal Potato Family)
All Species Parade is a touching homage by Scheinman to her Northern California hometown, a place surrounded by the beauty of the Pacific coast and stately redwood trees. To portray such rich imagery, the violinist convened an ensemble of sonic painters – pianist Carmen Staaf, bassist Tony Scherr, drummer Kenny Wolllesen, and a guitarist seat that alternates between Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, and Julian Lage – to provide every bit of color and texture one expects for such an important setting.
34. Phoenix Reimagined (Live) – Lakecia Benjamin (Ropeadope)
While Benjamin’s studio recordings have been exciting, she seems to thrive on live performances. In a live setting, she can build off the energy of the audience, bringing her music to an even higher level. Much of that magic is evident on Phoenix Reimagined, as is her penchant for honoring the elders of the music, in this case, Randy Brecker, Jeff “Tain” Watts, and John Scofield. It is a great gift to Ropeadope Records on the esteemed label’s silver anniversary.
You can read my conversation with Lakecia on this album, here.
35. Circular Train – Ava Mendoza (Palilalia)
Mendoza’s collection of slow-burners on solo guitar, with only minimal vocals, rides smoothly along the rough tracks between rock, free jazz, Blues, noise, and even classical music, focusing as much on the journey as on the destinations.
Historical
Latin
Vocal
Debut
In the late 1850s, two decades before Thomas Edison’s phonograph, French inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de…
The albums we collectively felt were the best of 2024 (technically from Thanksgiving 2023 to…
Western literature has long noted the disconnection between perception and reality. In 1175, French monk…
We continue our conversation with Fred Frith (read part one here) with a focus on…
When first learning about music, students are often taught to classify instruments by their sound.…
Far too often, history is perceived through a lens of minimizing the problems of the…