Stir It Up: Musical Mixes from Roots to Jazz

 

It's a cliché that the world is shrinking. As Gene Santoro sees it in his second collection of essays, music is one arena where that cliché takes on a real, but paradoxical, life: while music crisscrosses the globe with ever greater speed, musicians seize what's useful, and expand their idioms
more rapidly.
More and more since the 1960s, musicians, both in America and abroad, have shown an uncanny but consistent ability to draw inspiration from quite unexpected sources. We think of Paul Simon in Graceland, blending Afropop rhythms and Everly Brothers harmonies into a remarkable new sound that
captured imaginations worldwide. Or Jimi Hendrix, trying to wring from guitar the howling, Doppler-shifting winds he experienced as a paratrooper. Or Thelonius Monk, mingling Harlem stride piano, bebop, the impressionist harmonies of DeBussey, and a delight in "harmonic space" that eerily paralleled
modern physics. From the startling experiments of such jazz giants as Charles Mingus, to the political bite of Bob Marley and Bruce Springsteen, we see musicians again and again taking musical tradition and making it new. The result is a profusion of new forms, media that are constantly being
reinvented--in short, an art form capable of seemingly endless, and endlessly fascinating, permutations.
Gene Santoro's Stir It Up is an ideal guide to this ever changing soundscape. Santoro is the rare music critic equally at home writing about jazz (John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Tom Harrell), rock (Sting, Elvis Costello, P.J. Harvey), and the international scene (Jamaican, Brazilian, and
African pop music). In Stir It Up, readers will find thoughtful but unpretentious discussions of such different musicians as David Byrne and Aretha Franklin, Gilberto Gil and Manu Dibango, Abbey Lincoln and Joe Lovano. And Santoro shows us not only the distinctive features of the diverse people who
create so many dazzling sounds, but also the subtle and often surprising connections between them. With effortless authority and a rich sense of music history, he reveals, for instance, how Ornette Coleman was influenced by a mystical group in Morocco--the Major Musicians of Joujouka--whom he
discovered via Rolling Stone Brian Jones; how John Coltrane's unpredictable, extended sax solos influenced The Byrds, The Grateful Dead, and most significantly, Jimi Hendrix; and how Bob Marley's reggae combined Rastafarian chants with American pop, African call-and-response, and Black Nationalist
politics into a potent mix that still shapes musicians from America to Africa, Europe to Asia.
A former musician himself, Santoro is equally illuminating about both the technical aspects of the music and the personal development of the artists themselves. He offers us telling glimpses into their often turbulent lives: Ornette Coleman being kicked out of his high school band for
improvising, Charles Mingus checking himself into Bellevue because he'd heard it was a good place to rest, the teenaged Jimi Hendrix practicing air-guitar with a broom at the foot of his bed, Aretha Franklin's Oedipal struggle with her larger-than-life preacher-father.
Throughout the volume, Santoro's love and knowledge shine through, as he maps the rewarding terrain of pop music's varied traditions, its eclectic, cross-cultural borrowings, and its astonishing innovations. What results is a fascinating tour through twentieth-century popular music: lively,
thought-provoking, leavened with humor and unexpected twists. Stir It Up is sure to challenge readers even as it entertains them.

 

Gene Santoro (Author)  

 

Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together

 

 

Jim Morrison… We know the stories, but does anyone know the real man? If you don’t know where the truth ends and the fiction begins, you’re not alone. Lies, myths, rumors and tall tales spread by people who didn’t know him have masked Jim Morrison and clouded what he accomplished.

Fearing that the original, actual real Jim would become hopelessly lost, Frank Lisciandro, Jim’s friend and film collaborator, gathered together more than a dozen of Morrison’s friends for a series of conversations and interviews. In the transcripts of these talks Jim Morrison is candidly brought to light by the people who knew him, who were his pals, colleagues, mentors and lovers. Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together confronts and sweeps away the fantasy to illuminate an extraordinary man and gifted creative artist.

Frank J. Lisciandro (Author, Photographer)

How Music Works • David Byrne

 

How Music Works is David Byrne's buoyant celebration of a subject he has spent a lifetime thinking about.

Equal parts historian and anthropologist, raconteur and social scientist, Byrne draws on his own work over the years with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and his myriad collaborators - along with journeys to Wagnerian opera houses, African villages, and anywhere music exists - to show that music-making is not just the act of a solitary composer in a studio, but rather a logical, populist, and beautiful result of cultural circumstance.

A brainy, irresistible adventure, How Music Works is an impassioned argument about music's liberating, life-affirming power.

Someone to Watch Over Me The Life and Music of Ben Webster (Jazz Perspectives)

 

 

For a half century, Ben Webster, one of the "big three" of swing tenors-along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young-was one of the best-known and most popular saxophonists.

Early in his career, Webster worked with many of the greatest orchestras of the time, including those led by Willie Bryant, Cab Calloway, Benny Carter, Fletcher Henderson, Andy Kirk, Bennie Moten, and Teddy Wilson. In 1940 Webster became Duke Ellington's first major tenor soloist, and during the next three years he played on many famous recordings, including "Cotton Tail."

Someone to Watch Over Me tells, for the first time, the complete story of Ben Webster's brilliant and troubled career. For this comprehensive study of Webster, author Frank Büchmann-Møller interviewed more than fifty people in the United States and Europe, and he includes numerous translated excerpts from European periodicals and newspapers, none previously available in English. In addition, the author studies every known Webster recording and film, including many private recordings from Webster's home collection not available to the public.

Exhaustively researched, this is a much needed and long overdue study of the life and music of one of jazz's most important artists.

 

Frank Buchmann-Moller (Auth 

 

Why Jazz Happened

 

Why Jazz Happened is the first comprehensive social history of jazz. It provides an intimate and compelling look at the many forces that shaped this most American of art forms and the many influences that gave rise to jazz’s post-war styles. Rich with the voices of musicians, producers, promoters, and others on the scene during the decades following World War II, this book views jazz’s evolution through the prism of technological advances, social transformations, changes in the law, economic trends, and much more.

In an absorbing narrative enlivened by the commentary of key personalities, Marc Myers describes the myriad of events and trends that affected the music's evolution, among them, the American Federation of Musicians strike in the early 1940s, changes in radio and concert-promotion, the introduction of the long-playing record, the suburbanization of Los Angeles, the Civil Rights movement, the “British invasion” and the rise of electronic instruments. This groundbreaking book deepens our appreciation of this music by identifying many of the developments outside of jazz itself that contributed most to its texture, complexity, and growth. 

 

Marc Myers (Autor)

Whisper not, the autobiography of Benny Golson

 

Born during the de facto inaugural era of jazz, saxophonist Benny Golson learned his instrument and the vocabulary of jazz alongside John Coltrane while Golson was still in high school in Philadelphia. Quickly establishing himself as an iconic fixture on the jazz landscape, Golson performed with dozens of jazz greats, from Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmy Heath to Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, and many others. An acclaimed composer, Golson also wrote music for Hollywood films and television and composed such memorable jazz standards as “Stablemates,” “Killer Joe,” and “Whisper Not.”

An eloquent account of Golson’s exceptional life—presented episodically rather than chronologically—Whisper Not includes a dazzling collection of anecdotes, memories, experiences, and photographs that recount the successes, the inevitable failures, and the rewards of a life eternally dedicated to jazz.

 

Benny Golson (Autor)  

Jim B Merod (Autor)  

 

Art of India • Vincent Arthur Smith

   

Vincent Arthur Smith (Autor)

Italian Ceramics • The J. Paul Getty Museum / pdf

Duccio di Buonisenya, jpg

Duccio di Buonisenya (1255-1319), Italian painter, founder of the school of Siena of the 14th century. He is also the author of several stained glass windows.
 

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Duccio di Buonisenya (1255-1319), pintor italiano, fundador de la escuela de Siena del siglo 14. Además es autor de varios vitrales.

The Black Strat

Historia y evolución de una de las guitarras más famosas del rock.

History and evolution of one of the most famous guitars of rock.

Phil Taylor (Author)

 

Deep in a Dreamː The Long Night of Chet Baker

 

 

 

This first major biography of the most romanticized icon in jazz thrillingly recounts his wild ride. From his emergence in the 1950s--when an uncannily beautiful young man from Oklahoma appeared on the West Coast to become, seemingly overnight, the prince of "cool" jazz--until his violent, drug-related death in Amsterdam in 1988, Chet Baker lived a life that has become an American myth. Here, drawing on hundreds of interviews and previously untapped sources, James Gavin gives a hair-raising account of the trumpeter's dark journey.

 

James Gavin (Author)  

  

Lightnin' Hopkinsː His Life and Blues

 

 By the time of his death in 1982, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins was likely the most recorded blues artist in history. This brilliant new biography--the first book ever written about him--illuminates the many contradictions of the man and his myth.

Born in 1912 to a poor sharecropping family in the cotton country between Dallas and Houston, Hopkins left home when he was only eight years old with a guitar his brother had given him. He made his living however he could, sticking to the open road, playing the blues, and taking odd jobs when money was short. This biography delves into Hopkins’s early years, exploring the myths surrounding his meetings with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander, his time on a chain gang, his relationships with women, and his lifelong appetite for gambling and drinking.

Hopkins didn’t begin recording until 1946, when he was dubbed “Lightnin’” during his first session, and he soon joined Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker on the national R & B charts. But by the time he was “rediscovered” by Mack McCormick and Sam Charters in 1959, his popularity had begun to wane. A second career emerged--now Lightnin’ was pitched to white audiences, not black ones, and he became immensely successful, singing about his country roots and injustices that informed the civil rights era with a searing emotive power.

More than a decade in the making, this biography is based on scores of interviews with Lightnin’s lover, friends, producers, accompanists, managers, and fans.

 

  Alan Govenar (Author)

 

A Guitar Maker's Manual

 

Written by one of Australia's foremost luthiers, this manual is a straightforward, profusely illustrated guide to constructing nylon-string classical and steel-string guitars. Includes a useful section on creating the jigs necessary to make the job easier and more accurate, along with full size template diagrams to assist in cutting out and marking the body shape and soundboard bracing patterns. A Guitar Maker's Manual lists all of the materials needed, where to get them and what problems to look out for during the construction.

 

Jim Williams (Author)

Bob Marley A Life from Beginning to End

 

Bob Marley, the most prominent reggae musician of all time, was truly an icon. He lived a life about as full as his 36 years on this earth would allow. By the time he was 16, he was in the studio making records, and although superstardom didn’t come to him immediately, Marley never ceased his pursuit of it. He also never ceased in his pursuit of wisdom and spiritual wellbeing.

In later life, Marley became a champion for political freedom and even managed to get two vehemently opposed political leaders to shake hands on stage—all to the backdrop of a reggae groove. Bob Marley was many things to many people—in this book, we explore all facets of his unique personality. 

 

Beyond and Beforeː Progressive Rock since the 1960s

 Editorial Reviews
"Examining every aspect of progressive rock - words and music, theatre and politics - Hegarty and Halliwell deftly unpick the tangled threads of tradition and radicalism that make up the genre's tapestry. In addition to shedding vital new light on an often maligned and misunderstood phase in rock's history, this probing and incisive study tracks prog's continued and unexpected reverberations through popular music long after punk had supposedly vanquished and banished it." Simon Reynolds, author of Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past and Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-84

"Beyond and Before is a wonderful account of both the rich legacy and the ongoing story of progressive rock in all its forms. At last, here is a book that gives prog its due respect as a vital part of the history of rock music, without tying it to a simplistic narrative of over-ambition, decadence and decline. The best thing about the book is its comprehensive, nuanced definition of what counts as progressive. In Hegarty and Halliwell's capable hands we journey from such unlikely precursors of the concept album as Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington, through the 1970s Golden Age of Jethro Tull, Genesis and Pink Floyd to contemporary exponents as various as Spock's Beard, Porcupine Tree and The Decemberists." - Greg Walker, Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature,
University of Edinburgh

"This is a great book. Hegarty and Halliwell have rescued progressive rock from the condescension of history by crafting a work that is smart, sympathetic, and impressively sweeping in its coverage of a much derided, yet enormously diverse and influential transnational music. Whether your taste is Porcupine Tree or Pink Floyd, Epica or ELP, Mike Oldfield or Midlake, there is plenty to admire and ponder in this ambitious and compelling account. By offering an expanded definition of prog rock in terms of its roots, musical and lyrical characteristics, geographic sources, artwork, performance practices, and legacies, Beyond and Before offers an exhilarating read." - Brian Ward, Professor of American Studies at the University of Manchester

"Beyond and Before provides a genuinely superb exploration of the amphibious identity of post-60s rock. As an artist who has navigated through various musical subcultures over the years, I am impressed with the broad scope and meticulous research of this comprehensive text." - Benjamin A. Vierling, www.bvierling.com.

"As broad as it is long, this book is the first I have read that is neither condescending nor overly polemic in its dealing with the subject. The wide area of music that it covers thankfully takes in much more than the usual suspects. Having followed the genre (sometimes unknowingly) since my first single purchase of 'See Emily Play' I was always bemused by the catch-all heading of 'Progressive Rock' back in the 1970s in which Floyd and other bands I liked fell. However, it has been so long established I guess we have to live with it despite the pejorative status amongst sections of the music press. If they were to read this book then perhaps they might be better informed. It is a fascinating read with entries about Gabriel as much as Gong, Miles as much as Marillion, Bernstein as much as Bowie. A brilliant book - the standard upon which any that follow must be measured against." - Mark Wilkinson, www.the-masque.com

“This is a great book. Hegarty and Halliwell have rescued progressive rock from the condescension of history by crafting a work that is smart, sympathetic, and impressively sweeping in its coverage of a much derided, yet enormously diverse and influential transnational music. Whether your taste is Porcupine Tree or Pink Floyd, Epica or ELP, Mike Oldfield or Midlake, there is plenty to admire and ponder in this ambitious and compelling account. By offering an expanded definition of prog rock in terms of its roots, musical and lyrical characteristics, geographic sources, artwork, performance practices, and legacies, Beyond and Before offers an exhilarating read.” - Brian Ward, Professor of American Studies at the University of Manchester

"Beautifully written and full of insightful and fascinating information and analysis. I recommend it highly." - David Tibet,
www.copticcat.com

"Beyond and Before is a very well researched and insightful book covering a lot of ground in the music world. It strikes just the right balance between academic and popular writing, which is no mean feat. I learnt a lot reading this and particularly enjoyed chapter 12 on post-progressive rock, which highlights the wonderful band Talk Talk from that era. It’s totally engaging and well worth a read if you’re any kind of music fan." - James Marsh, Artist, Designer, Author, www.jamesmarsh.com

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English stained glass #1 of 5

1200 images of stained glass from all over England, in high quality archives.
 

 

English stained glass #2 of 5

1200 images of stained glass from all over England, in high quality archives.
 

 

English stained glass #3 of 5

1200 images of stained glass from all over England, in high quality archives.
 

 

English stained glass #4 of 5

1200 images of stained glass from all over England, in high quality archives.
 

 

English stained glass #5 of 5

1200 images of stained glass from all over England, in high quality archives.