Archive for the 'Honoring Lives' Category
As many know, the MTV show Total Request Live, known by its nickname TRL, ended its ten-year run on November 16. Many fans and musicians, who made their big breaks appearing on the show, attended the “Total Finale Live” special. I’m guessing millions more saw it on television. It was a poignant ending without the fact that it was the end of a series. Deeper thinking, though, reveals something more painful. It is the official end of an era that has been struggling to stay alive for years, its absence seen but never spoken of despite being so obvious…the end of “M” in MTV. Read the rest of this entry »
read comments (0)Happy Birthday John Coltrane
Author: Anthony Medici
This post is simply to pay homage to John Coltrane, born September 23, 1926, in Hamlet, NC, died July 17, 1967 in Long Island, NY. While I am not quite ready to join the St. John Coltrane Church I can understand the impulse to canonize this great musical spirit, for Coltrane is one of the great musical artists of the 20th century. I say that, I think, without exaggeration. The term “great” or “greatness” are often tossed around all too casually, but there are a few spirits that deserve it: Trane, Miles, Monk, Mingus. They changed our musical language, and hence our world, in profound ways. Read the rest of this entry »
Thinking About: Oscar Brown Jr.
Author: Anthony Medici
There has always been a relative paucity of male jazz singers. This is one area of jazz where women dominate. The only male jazz singer today who commands my respect, if not always my appreciation, is Kurt Elling. His “Man in the Air” is masterful, and leagues above what any other male jazz singer is doing. Elling’s respect to Mark Murphy is admirable; his infatuations with Jon Hendricks is less well-advised. But Elling is generally adenturesome and often fearless, and for that, he is worthy of respect and attention. Most others are to busy trying to channel Sinatra. In any event, this blog post is about another master jazz vocalist, Oscar Brown Jr. Brown died a few years ago, and I am afraid may already be slipping into relative obscurity. Not for lack of talent; more likely for an abundance of political consciousness. Read the rest of this entry »
Power of Music
Author: Leigh Silbernagel
4 Aug 2008– The paradox which fascinates me the most is that of music. Music is the only thing worth fighting for, living for, and dying for because of the power it has over the human soul, but never has music started a war (with the exceptions of the social revolution of the 1960s and the pop-revolution of the 1980s which then spawned the Religious Right’s overzealous counterrevolution). To the cynics among is, music is constantly delegated to the sidelines, constantly minimized as nothing more than a catalyst for pretentious attention whores’ way of drawing attention to themselves and fulfilling their obsessive compulsive need to be different and express themselves *insert sarcasm here.* I pity those cynics, for not being able to be a part of something larger than themselves. Rather than write a post about a new band that I like, or a concert that has already passed, this week I pose that we reflect on the songs that have mattered most to us throughout our lives. For myself, it is Guns N Roses, Sweet Child o Mine, among others of course. Here’s why that song means so much to mean, and no, it is not because it is on Guitar Hero. Read the rest of this entry »
Musician Deserving Greater Recognition: George Adams
Author: Anthony Medici
There’s a small group of musicians who occupy that difficult space between journeyman and artist. They have all the tools and skills of the fully-fledged journeyman but also touches of true artistic power. George Adams is one of these musicians; a tenor saxophonist of admirable skill, insight and authority, with an ability to project a unique musical lexicon. It’s unfortunate he has been largely overlooked and his legacy obscured since his passing 15 years ago. These musings on George Adams were produced by a recent trip through the aisles of Princeton Record Exchange (a plug? yes, but they deserve it). Read the rest of this entry »
Summer Songs
Author: Dee
Honoring the Life of a Music Collector
Author: Brett
His goal was to have one copy of every album released, and he came closer to it than most of us could ever dream of. Today, we would like to honor the life of a man who’s commitment to music is itself undying, and whose generosity in recycling his used CDs and Records at Princeton Record Exchange will not be forgotten. Read the rest of this entry »