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Incomplete Communion: Engaging Contemporary Post-Bop
Source:
Ni Kantu by Clifford Allen
I'll admit it—while I find a lot to enjoy in straight-ahead jazz, it's really hard to review straight-ahead jazz CDs. Part of this is a result of questioning where tradition and the mainstream fit in together, and if indeed they actually parallel one another in creative music. Bill Dixon had a way of putting this conundrum that I appreciated, paraphrased thusly: “tradition is something which surrounds you. You start from where you are, and you'll get to the rest in ...
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Music from the Future. Matt Lavelle.
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
I often refer to the Spiritual side of Jazz and in particular,.free Jazz,.no less than like a preacher on the pulpit.Some folks consider a spiritual perspective on music an excuse to just play wild and free with no real focus and or maybe no real skill.How much skill do you need to engage any music from a spiritual perspective? Which music is closer to God,.John Coltrane's Interstellar Space or somebody singing Amazing Grace down at the Church? I feel that ...
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Blog It: How the Web Changed Music Criticism
Source:
HypeBot
Two words: Almost Famous. It may be cliché but this was the movie that spurned my foray into music. The fact that you could travel around the country with a rock band fascinated me. The ability to be able to capture the process of a band connecting with their audience and the unspeakable and indescribable quality with which they win over millions of people. The idealistic notions in the movie inspired me to become a music reviewer. In late 2007, ...
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"Coltrane on Coltrane"
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Steve Provizer I just received a copy of the book Coltrane on Coltrane, edited by Chris DeVito. There are a number of interviews here-especially European and Japanese-that I'd never seen. Also, some good candids that I don't think had been published. Chris included an interview I did with Isadore Granoff, who ran the Granoff Studios in Philadelphia, where Trane got early musical training. Aside from an ego stake, I don't have a piece of the action and have no ...
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Jung Man with a Horn
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Steve Provizer When it comes to Hollywood doing jazz bio-pics, I prefer straight-out hagiography: The Goodman story, the Dorsey Story, the Miller story-they're just the Lindburgh story, Madame Curie and Young Abe Lincoln story with swing music. Fonda coulda been Miller and Stewart could been Lincoln. Greer Garson as Marian McPartland? Anyway, it's a nice, comfortable roll in the nostalgia hay. Why do those numb-nuts in L.A. go all pseudo-egghead on us and decide they have to “explain" jazz? ...
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The Voice and the Horn in Jazz
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Steve Provizer Props to @JoshSinton for asking the question: “When did jazz musicians stop emulating singers and begin to emulate other instrumentalists?" It calls for more than a 140 character response... The short answer is that they never stopped. It's an admixture and always has been. Look at the popular music strains in America as they led to 20th century jazz. First, the vocal lineage. You're talking about minstrelsy, formal spiritual choruses with solos, theatre music, indigenous 'ethnic' folks ...
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The Cortex and the Booty-by Steve Provizer
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
This is Your Brain on Music The brass band I play with has been talking about the Asphalt Orchestra. In their videos, they seem to be having a great time, engaging the crowd, playing interesting, offbeat music (apart from New Orleans stuff, arrangements of Zappa, Bjork...). On the other hand, a band-mate saw them on the plaza at Lincoln Ctr. over the weekend and described them as “appealing more to the intellect than wanting to make you dance." Meanwhile, back ...
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Abbey Lincoln-"Throw It Away"
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Steve Provizer I've been a real intellectual yente for the last several posts. I hope those posts have not been without emotional weight, but the death of Abbey Lincoln makes me want to write a piece where emotion leads and analysis creeps along far behind. In the late 1960's, I went to the old WGBH studios to see her then-husband Max Roach record a TV show. I didn't think twice about the fact that she was also performing. I ...
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