Here’s an email conversation I’ve been having with my friend Greg Brown about Kanye West’s recent albums. Greg is a classical composer and performer with a much more avant-garde sensibility than mine. The exchange is lightly edited for clarity. Greg: I’ve been listening to 808s and Heartbreak and Twisted Fantasy. I’m really enjoying them. Far [...]
Filed in Emotion, Key Musicians, Music, Recording, Software
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Also tagged 808, 808s and heartbreak, autotune, classical, distortion, fiona apple, frank ocean, hip-hop, jay-z, john adams, kanye west, pop, posthuman, rnb, Sampling, singing, watch the throne
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Friday, February 17, 2012
Here are three stories about the relationship of funk to the avant-garde. Meshell Ndegeocello at Tonic In my twenties, I forced myself to experience a lot of very highbrow avant-garde music: free jazz, experimental electronica, and various combinations thereof. One such experience was a show at Tonic. I forget who was on the bill exactly, [...]
Filed in Composition, Improvisation, Music
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Also tagged atonality, bb king, blues, free jazz, funk, fusion, ira newborn, jazz, meshell ndegeocello, miles davis
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
Improvisation Charlie Christian – “Waiting For Benny”
Filed in Composition, Improvisation, Music
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Also tagged art blakey, blues, charlie christian, clifford brown, Composition, count basie, duke ellington, herbie hancock, Improvisation, jazz, john coltrane, max roach, miles davis, quora
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Friday, November 18, 2011
Ella Fitzgerald lost some of her range as she got older, but her soul and phrasing got deeper and deeper. The series of duet albums she did with Joe Pass late in her life are exquisite.
Filed in Key Musicians, Music
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Also tagged age, drumming, ella fitzgerald, funk, Improvisation, jazz, joe pass, max roach, miles davis, quora
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Friday, September 9, 2011
If you had to name the most influential drummers in contemporary music, who would you pick? If you’re a rock fan, you might go with Ringo Starr, John Bonham, or Keith Moon. A jazz fan might talk about Max Roach, Elvin Jones or Tony Williams. You probably wouldn’t think to name Gregory Cylvester Coleman. He [...]
Filed in Copyright and Authorship, Math, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged amon tobin, aphex twin, copyright, curtis mayfield, david bowie, digging the crates, dillinja, drum n bass, drumming, eighties, electronica, futurama, golden ratio, hip-hop, jungle, looping, luke vibert, lupe fiasco, mantronix, Math, memes, nineties, nwa, powerpuff girls, recycle, reggae, rnb, salt n pepa, Sampling, snow, the impressions, the winstons
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Today is the Fourth of July, and I can’t think of anything more patriotic than a post about our most significant contribution to world musical culture: swing. The title of this post refers to the classic Duke Ellington tune, sung here by Ray Nance. Check out the “yah yah” trombone by Tricky Sam Nanton. The [...]
Filed in Dance, Emotion, Music, Music Teaching
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Also tagged america, charles mingus, classical, count basie, drum machines, duke ellington, ella fitzgerald, funk, hip-hop, janet jackson, jazz, louis armstrong, ray nance, rhythm, swing, syncopation, tchaikovsky, time, tricky sam nanton
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If you’ve been following my internet presence, you know how much I love flowcharts. So naturally, I was amused by this Randall Munroe cartoon: I was reminded of it walking down the street the other day, because someone in our neighborhood in Brooklyn was blasting a dancehall track from their car that sampled the “na, [...]
Filed in Music, Sampling
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Also tagged ableton, bananarama, beatles, flowcharts, katamari, mashups, memes, pop, rock, singing, songwriting, Video Games, wilson pickett, xkcd
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Saturday, October 9, 2010
The internet is home to a lot of questionably legal breakbeat collections like Drumaddikt and Cyberworm’s Sample Blog. “Cold Sweat” by James Brown is always included in these collections. It’s beloved equally by hip-hop and drum n bass producers. The break is at 4:30. There’s probably a whole generation of producers who have sliced and [...]
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Music blogs, magazines and cable channels like to run lists of the best albums of all time. Certain albums get listed again and again: Sgt Pepper, Pet Sounds, Highway 61 Revisited. If you were to compile the best albums as measured by how often they get sampled by hip-hop producers, the list would look very [...]
Filed in Music, Sampling
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Also tagged big daddy kane, blondie, de la soul, digging the crates, epmd, eric b & rakim, fu-schnickens, funk, hammond organ, ice cube, janelle monae, krs-one, mary j blige, memes, mohawks, onyx, Sampling, uk, wu-tang
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There’s a commercial on TV right now featuring a bunch of CGI hamsters that reacquainted me with this Black Sheep classic. I knew the song better as the one that goes, “You can get with this or you can get with that.” Thank god for Google, otherwise I wouldn’t know anything about anything. This is [...]
Filed in Music, Sampling
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Also tagged advertising, black sheep, digging the crates, funk, hip-hop, iron butterfly, jazz, mccoy tyner, nineties, rnb, rock, Sampling, tv
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