Swing Time for Hitler Swing Time for Hitler
It is of some small comfort that totalitarian regimes are never quite as total as either their leaders or subsequent historians might imagine.
Aug 28, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Brian Morton
Untimely Meditations Untimely Meditations
Beethoven has been particularly fortunate in his recent critics and biographers.
Aug 14, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Edward W. Said
Soul Man Soul Man
Pop music's eternal appeal can be found in one instance out of many: "This Magic Moment," a 1960 song by The Drifters.
Jul 31, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Armond White
Miles Davis Miles Davis
Most of what we know about the life of Miles Davis is either anecdotal or a matter of official record, and thus not absolutely reliable; but by all accounts, most pertinently h...
Jul 2, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Lucius Shepard
Woody Guthrie Woody Guthrie
When Bob Dylan took the stage at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, all leather and Ray-Bans and Beatle boots, and declared emphatically and (heaven forbid) electrically that he w...
Jul 2, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Steve Earle
Our Man in Jazz Our Man in Jazz
Not many people can say they changed the world and make it stick. In Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, George Wein does.
Jun 26, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Gene Santoro
The Unrepentant Modernist The Unrepentant Modernist
Near the end of Parallels and Paradoxes, a recent collection of dialogues on music and society between the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, music director of the Chicago...
May 29, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Russell Platt
Fight Club Fight Club
Writing may be fighting, as Ishmael Reed famously opined, but most writers know the difference. There are, of course, some who blur the line.
May 22, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Adam Shatz
Nina Simone: Lit by a Sacred Flame Nina Simone: Lit by a Sacred Flame
To listen to her voice was to beĀ hijacked by its power.
May 1, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Adam Shatz
Hors de Combat Hors de Combat
She's the ultimate quick-change artist, with a style that can absorb any trend and an image to match. She's gone from material girl to S/M maitresse, from power diva to content...
Apr 9, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Richard Goldstein