…In My Life…

This year is going to be a long one… During the fall semester, I will be working on three projects: my honors thesis on Psychosocial Politics of Percussion in Hip Hop, a Jazz paper comparing the reception of early Jazz and the reception of Hip-Hop and a paper on the racial and cultural representation in […]

Modern Griots: Gregory Porter

The Grammy-nominated Jazz singer, Gregory Porter has a voice that speaks back to the Jazz, Soul, Blues and Gospel singers of the past. He cites Nat King Cole, Joe Williams and Donny Hathaway as three singers who have inspired him in his career. For his CD, “Water,” he worked with legendary alto sax player, James […]

Sun Ra and George Clinton, Brothers From Another Planet

Don Letts‘, the well-known British music documentarian and DJ, 2005 BBC documentary on the “out-of-this-world” jazz musician, composer, and bandleader, Sun Ra. Born Herman Blount, in 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama, Sun Ra later claimed to be from Saturn and his music definitely sounded like it came from there. Using interviews from members of his “Arkestra” and […]

Thelonious Monk and Hip Hop

Jazz pianist and composer, Jason Moran, discusses Jazz and Bebop legend Thelonious Monk‘s influence on Hip Hop music and artists like Wu-Tang Clan and Slum Village.

Sister Rosetta

When most people think of the Blues, Rhythm and Blues and early Rock ‘n’ Roll artists who had a major influence on the development of Rock ‘n’ Roll, they tend to mention the male musicians like Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Muddy Waters, Louis Jordan, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, Big Joe Turner and Ike […]

Destroying Jazz?

Today, I was on my daily blog scroll and came across this article that Mark Anthony Neal put on his blog, New Black Man. The article is from the music magazine, Wax Poetics and reflects on the genre of Jazz Fusion from Miles Davis to Esperanza Spalding: “Yet, from fusion’s early days as a noisy […]