After being exposed to Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin — a piteous collection of pop dreck — I reluctantly turned my attention to the Turtle Island String Quartet’s Have you ever been…? While the latter’s set of Hendrix covers has not received the level of acclaim that Wilson’s butchering of the songs of the Gershwin [...]
Breaking down racial barriers: the “new” folk revival
I’ve written several pieces on what is often described as an ongoing revival of American traditional music (listed below with links). A piece on NPR today and in the N.Y. Times earlier this week on Southern California’s Frank Fairfield brought the subject back to mind. While you (or I) may argue with the assertion that [...]
Taking the ngoni into new musical territory
Working on a couple of posts but still too busy to put much time into it. In the meantime, here’s a repost of a Jon Pareles piece (N.Y. Times) on how Bassekou Kouyati has revolutionized the use of the ngnoi but first here’s a YouTube video of Kouyati with another “revolutionary” who has taken the [...]
A history of jazz & country interchange
Histories of American popular music have tended to create a clear bifurcation of “White” and “Black” musical genres. Country music has been portrayed as a genre primarily drawn from Anglo-Scottish roots. The significant influences of African Americans on the genre have been diminished or placed in a carefully constructed pre-history. African American musical genres have [...]
“Miles Davis vs Jazz”
Pablo Picasso: “In painting you can try anything. As long as you never do anything over again.” Miles Davis: “Now, nothing in music and sounds is ‘wrong.’ You can hit anything, any kind of chord. … Music is wide open for anything.” Pablo Picasso: “You see me here, and yet I’ve already changed. I’m already [...]
Taqwacore — Islamic hardcore — “Sharia Law in the USA”
I’ve been meaning to educate myself and write something on Taqwacore but instead I’m going to repost a series starting today (July 2, 2010) on Tales from Bradistan (below). If you’re unfamiliar with Taqwacore, it is a sub-genre of punk music based on Michael Muhammad Knight‘s 2003 novel, The Taqwacores. Knight depicted a fictional Islamic [...]
Long overdue attention to Appalachian blues
Classic Appalachian Blues from Smithsonian Folkways Various Artists SFW40198 The “mountain cousin” of the Delta blues, Appalachian blues bears the stamp of a distinctive regional blend of European and African styles and sounds born at the cultural crossroads of railroad camps, mines, and rural settlements. Drawn from deep within the Folkways collection and from historic live [...]
How the blues became folk music (@PopMatters)
Karl Hagstrom Miller’s new book Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow (Duke University Press, March 2010) examines the effect of Jim Crow on the perception of American musical styles. PopMatters excerpted a section on W.C. Handy’s role in redefining blues as a folk music. [9 April 2010] Excerpt [...]
Unsung blues innovators (@Jazz and Culture)
History is created by a process of selection and exclusion, and the narratives of the past that emerge say as much about the time they are written as about the past they portray. No where is this truism more relevant than in histories of American popular music. I have written earlier about the writing out [...]
Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” — a turning point in 20th century music
Kind of Blue (1959) changed the course of jazz, bringing new sonorities and modalities to the forefront. It also helped open up and retrain the ear of music listeners and influenced creators of various genres from classical to rock. As rapper Q-Tip said in a 2008 interview, “ It’s like the Bible, you just have [...]
