Expanding the Legacy
Jazz: The Rhapsody of Bohemians
Few music genres are so poorly appreciated or understood as jazz. To its (many) detractors, jazz is just pretentious experimentation by pseudo musicians playing, ad nauseam, the same tunes over and over again. As seen by jazz historian Ted Gioia, the problem with jazz is that nobody has tried to...
The Economics of a Band That Won’t Fade Away
After an 18-year hiatus, the Rolling Stones on Wednesday announced the imminent release of an all-new studio album. “We were just a bit lazy,” said Mick Jagger (80) by way of explanation. Hackney Diamonds was recorded last December over only a few weeks after the three remaining band members agreed...
Gibson: Guitar Legend on the Ropes
One of the three Kings of the Blues Guitar alongside Albert King and Freddie King, BB King was born under a good sign on a Mississippi cotton plantation in 1925. Riley B King (1925-2015) acquired a taste for music in church and launched his career in local barrelhouses and on...
Music the Old-Fashioned Way
The news of its death was greatly exaggerated. Sales of vinyl records are spinning through the roof. According to Nielsen – an American company that monitors global media usage – sales of records are on track to exceed six million in 2014, up fully forty percent over 2013 – the year in which digital music sales, peddled by the likes of iTunes, took its first dip ever, sliding 5.7%. The only media segment growing at a higher rate than vinyl is on-demand streaming (up 42%).
Tango with a Club Beat
Tango may be timeless, it is also on the move with its fringes drifting away from melancholy to embrace modernity. Connecting with a younger crowd inhabiting the club scene rather than the ballroom, Electrotango is now approaching the mainstream.
