[contextly_auto_sidebar id="YYQ5BrKAlLhK2VSvLagOYij5KMvYrB2z"] WELL, both, and neither, I can hear someone out there growling. But what I mostly hear in the culture at large is that we -- citizens, worker bee, student, scribe -- need to "adjust" to the brave new world of digital technology. Some of us do. But as someone who's been to numerous exhibits and conferences on "art and tech," I've … [Read more...]
Blue Music Group Pulls its Catalog from Spotify
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Uqn0HoBDq7i0Zz0DVOVaIArJE9kt6RIf"] A FEW weeks ago I wrote about the difficulties the new regime of streaming were creating in jazz and classical music, and quoted one of the heads of the avant-garde Pi Recordings on how the label had chosen to take its music off Spotify, since the rates were so bad and cutting into their sales. He was glad he'd done it. The Blue … [Read more...]
Bill Frisell and John Pizzarelli
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="YzGwojzyP7xLvlItRYvhB3hE0xZLcPub"] Want to see two masters of the jazz guitar play a laid-back duo version of "Days of Wine and Roses"? We sure do. The performance, along with an inteview, just went up on the Fretboard Journal. Here it is. Enjoy! … [Read more...]
Jazz and Classical Musicians vs. Streaming
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Q0kRrypSZofvO7Cl0jQKoVvntfv83bix"] WE'RE starting to hear a lot from musicians about how music streaming destroys their ability to make a living. So far, it's been harder to find out how it's affecting jazz and classical music. I tried to get into the subject with a new story for Salon. I speak to a number of musicians (including pianist Jason Moran) and … [Read more...]
R.I.P., Charlie Haden
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="tnDFZtwLKRma3GhZjOOq3vBDLpuUYWqr"] THE great jazz bassist, long ailing, died Friday at 76. Even for those of us who knew how sick he was -- he had post-polio syndrome -- the loss is brutal. So many musicians played with him, live or on record, or studied with him at the program at CalArts. Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau are only a few of the best … [Read more...]
Jazz and Starbucks
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="3JEnMcrdtVkWILcqYCAtf8k4lzIbNOYE"] WHO listens to jazz these days? Besides a small, dwindling number of purists, almost anyone who goes to a chain coffee shop, it seems. Are they really listening? Those are some of the questions music historian Ted Gioia gets into in a fascinating essay in The Daily Beast, in which he talks about the mostly mid-century jazz that … [Read more...]
RIP Horace Silver
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="nSfJU3F4qca0WNdrRd2gjfF0g8ANwvpR"] WELL, this time it seems to be for real: Jazz pianist, songwriter and founding Jazz Messenger Horace Silver has died at 85. Silver's recordings, under his own name and in his 1950s group with Art Blakey, were some of the first jazz I got into, and I've been marveling at his genius all over again since I've learned to play his "Song … [Read more...]
The Ojai Music Festival and Uri Caine
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Scx4VCooDHhyWVBgymxHy3X9hGhGh8Y4"] LATER this week, one of our spring rituals arrives: The Ojai Music Festival kicks off on Thursday. It’s always a good time up there, and this year we’re doubly excited because of the artistic directorship by pianist Jeremy Denk, one of my generation’s most imaginative players, a gifted writer of prose on his blog and elsewhere, and … [Read more...]
Lonnie Johnson’s “St. Louis Blues”
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="OQ7hhJaMXdBfZrz7JBJRrdOxXWzxib1D"] WHAT's the most influential song in history? The Atlantic Monthly recently asked Ted Gioia for his answer, and he suggested this W.C. Handy classic, for all the blues songs it engendered, its enduring melody, and partly for its "Spanish tinge." I don't think Ted, a longtime friend of CultureCrash, was thinking of this version; … [Read more...]
Memories of the Elusive Eric Dolphy
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="gWxP2UlWmS5c3mIiMDSg5QhfQpx7pxO7"] OFTEN I wonder how the pressure on today's musicians and artists to constantly promote themselves would allow a musician like Eric Dolphy -- an introvert dedicated to his craft and someone who remains a kind of enigma -- to have a career and achieve even the low level of fame he had in the '60s. I'm still wondering, but I'm glad to … [Read more...]