Music

The Beatles and “My Bonnie”: 23 June 1961

By Gordon Thompson
To many adolescents fifty years ago, the future seemed bleak: the “King” had become preoccupied with refurbished Italian schmaltz while the world drew closer to Armageddon. But hope buzzed in the heart of an ungrounded amplifier in a West German high school.

Goodwill had floundered between the recently elected American president, John F. Kennedy and the Soviet Union’s premier, Nikita Khrushchev over the Soviet blockade of Berlin and America’s support of the failed

In search of hot jazz

By Kevin Whitehead
Music journalist Bill Wyman wrote an article for Slate recently that has resonated with me, pondering an age when vast quantities of music have become instantly available to anyone with an internet connection.  Every year my wish list of elusive rarities gets shorter and shorter. Research is getting a lot easier, for the historically-minded; so has just poking around, for curious listeners.

What’s on your sesquicentennial playlist?

Looking for something good to put on your iPod for the next four years?  When Louis Masur stopped by I learned that in addition to being able to summarize the entire Civil War in less than 100 pages (see: The Civil War: A Concise History), he also happens to be a huge music buff, having written his previous book on some guy called The Boss. I asked if he wouldn’t mind making us something special for the big 1-5-0 and he kindly obliged. Enjoy!

Q & A with Ted Gioia

Technology has changed everything that’s taking place surrounding the music. Not just how it is played, but even more how it is produced, disseminated, marketed, sold and heard. Few jazz musicians are prepared for these changes—which present both opportunities and risks. You can know your horn inside and out, but will find your career prospects severely limited if you don’t understand and address this new state of affairs.

In Memoriam: Bruce Haynes

We bid a sad farewell to one of our most dear authors and friends, Bruce Haynes. An Associate Professor at the Université de Montréal and McGill University, Bruce was a pioneer and champion of historical performance practice with numerous solo and ensemble recordings to his credit. He was a founding member of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, alongside his wife and

The foundations of British rock: Archer Street

By Gordon Thompson
Fifty years ago, on Monday 22 May 1961, London’s constabulary attempted to terminate a British musical tradition. For as long as most of them could remember, musicians had gathered Monday afternoons on the short stretch of pavement between Rupert Street and Great Windmill Street in Soho to collect their pay from previous engagements and to pick up work for the coming week. A local merchant had probably complained about the disparate crowd blocking the street, so the police

Royal Wedding music has ‘martial swagger’

Sir William Walton’s Crown Imperial has been chosen as the Recessional for the Royal Wedding of HRH Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey. A specially abridged version of the piece will be performed at the end of the Service by the London Chamber Orchestra, marking the bride’s entrance into the royal family.

John Swenson on Treme

By Michelle Rafferty

How real is the HBO series Treme? Here John Swenson reflects on what it was like watching the first season as a resident of New Orleans (he has yet to comment on the second, which premiered last night), as well as what the culture of the city means to its people. As a writer for OffBeat Swenson has written about the musicians returning to NOLA after Katrina, and in his forthcoming book New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans he talks about their crusade to save the endangered city. Swenson himself suggested the song in the video,”Dogs Chase Cats,” from Andy J. Forest’s NOtown Story (2010).

Congratulations, Zhou Long!

Please join us in congratulating composer Zhou Long, as he has been awarded with the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Madame White Snake. The opera (written by Cerise Lim Jacobs) premiered on February 26, 2010 at Boston’s Cutler Majestic Theatre. Drawing on a Chinese folk tale, this opera blends musical traditions from the East and the West to tell the story of a powerful white snake demon who longs to become human so she can experience love – but she meets with deceit, doubt and distrust.

To have been a muppet in that nightclub…

By Michelle Rafferty

What made Louis Armstrong embarrassed? Why was Cab Calloway on Sesame Street? To learn a little more about these two legends check out the podcast below with BBC Producer Alyn Shipton and the talented interviewer Annie Shipton (yes that would be Alyn’s daughter).

“The Start of a Solo Career”: Paul McCartney, 10 April 1970

By Gordon Thompson

Even in the storm’s dawning, both fans and defamers alike recognized magic in the Beatles’ ability to collaborate and to adapt in pursuit of a shared vision, and at the heart of this quest lay the desire to make great recordings. In the beginning of their career with EMI, their willingness to subvert their individual identities to a common cause (and the joy with which they did so) contributed to their success. In the

“Tomorrow Never Knows”: The Beatles sample the future, April 1966

By Gordon Thompson

Forty-five years ago, at the beginning of April 1966, on the almost anniversary of a London dentist surreptitiously spiking his and George Harrison’s coffees with Lysergic acid diethylamide, John Lennon visited Barry Miles’ Indica Books and picked up a copy of Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert’s The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In its pseudo-mystical prose, Lennon found partial inspiration for one of the most audacious recordings the Beatles would ever attempt.

Alternative Media – Episode 14 – The Oxford Comment

Are we living in the “anti-60s”? This episode compares the counterculture movement to the blogosphere and pop music today….Bieber vs. Beatles! Hippies vs. Hipsters! Let the showdown begin.

John Lennon and Jesus, 4 March 1966

By Gordon Thompson

Forty-five years ago, in the spring of 1966, as swinging London and its colorful denizens attracted the attention of ‘Time’, the publishers of an American teen magazine found part of a recent interview with John Lennon to be of particular interest. A rapid disintegration ensued of the complex identity that the Beatles management, the media, the fans, and even the musicians themselves had constructed, setting in motion a number of dark forces.

Best Original Score: What will win (and what *should* win)

By Kathryn Kalinak

This year’s Oscar Best Original Score nominations are as notable for who didn’t get nominated as for who did: no Carter Burwell for True Grit, no Clint Mansell for Black Swan, no Danny Elfman (and what a return to form) for Alice in Wonderland. There’s not much of a horse race this year.

Tchaikovsky is No One-Trick Pony

I’d argue our Black Swan fever peaked at Jim Carey’s SNL performance, but we might see a resurgence this weekend at the Oscars. In anticipation I contacted Roland John Wiley, author of Tchaikovsky and Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, for his thoughts on his subject’s recent omnipresence. Turns out Wiley’s a bit of an outsider in the academic community, where the composer hasn’t always been taken seriously. Here, Wiley explains the trappings of music snobbery – and why Tchaikovsky’s popularity among the “muggles” is no reason to discount his brilliance. (Oh, and, he dishes on the original Swan Lake ballerina dra-ma!)