Jazz fan Natalie Weiner launched a blog called The 1959 Project with day-to-day looks at the genre’s most famous year. When researching for my final year dissertation, Ted Gioia’s The History of Jazz was a valuable tome and it helped (I got a First for the dissertation). Jazz history is fascinating and enriching when you travel through every decade of progression. But one year stands out…
Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way and It’s About That Time are our Song(s) for Sunday. We’ve flipped the script slightly this week by featuring two songs in one. These choices were inspired by Fredara Mareva Hadley’s Spotify playlist. “In a Silent Way” was recorded in one session in 1969. Miles used the classical sonata form as inspiration for the three-track LP and it marked the…
Architect Federico Babina combines music and architecture in ARCHIMUSIC, a collection of musicians transformed into abstract buildings. Would you live in an apartment shaped like Miles Davis or work in a complex in the style of Michael Jackson? If the answer to either of those questions is “hell yes”, you might like the design ideas posed by architect and illustrator Federico Babina. In his collection…
Ashton James Brown interviewed the exciting jazz/hip hop quartet Sumochief and discussed their origins, their thoughts regarding London’s vibrant music scene and how music technology is incorporated into their creative process. The UK hip hop scene has an abundance of talent when it comes to emcees and producers, however live hip hop bands are few and far between. Sumochief are a London based four-piece whose…
Monty Alexander’s rendition of jazz standard On Green Dolphin Street is our Song for Sunday. Of all the genres you could associate with Jamaica, jazz isn’t one of them and perhaps that would do a disservice to the nation and its musicians. An unsung hero from the Caribbean island is Monty Alexander, a jazz pianist born in Kingston. Having taken classical lessons at six years…
Miles Davis’ cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time is our Song For Sunday. Perhaps unconsciously, Gizmo followed in the footsteps of a jazz great when he covered Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun but this week we’re focussing on the legend that is Miles Davis. During his career revival in the 80s, he released You’re Under Arrest, a jazz fusion album packed…
Groundbreaking jazz and chiptune combine to produce “Kind Of Bloop”, an 8-bit tribute to the late great Miles Davis. When Miles Davis released “Kind Of Blue” at the tail end of the 50s, he opened a gate not only for jazz but the whole of music. His modal masterpiece has influenced a number of legendary musicians since and is still regarded as the greatest jazz…
It’s Miles Davis’ birthday today so we’re celebrating with his jazz classic for Song For Sunday. Miles Davis was a character but by no means boring and that’s exactly how he wanted it. He would have been 87 years old today and probably still making unique “out-of-sight” music but what he left behind changed jazz over and over for decades. Out of Miles’ many milestone…
Here’s our selection of the best records to choose from for Record Store Day 2013, with some essential oldies to boot. Tomorrow is the biggest day for music retailers (who actually stock vinyl). Record Store Day started back in 2007 as an “internationally celebrated day observed the third Saturday of April each year”. Every year, music acts give away special releases for RSD and this…
The epitome of cool, Miles Davis was also a bit of a joker as this piece of footage shows. There was a heightened sense of devil-may-care in Miles Davis’ music towards the end of his life, more so than when he ushered in the era of jazz fusion with Bitches Brew in 1970. In this video, his carefree personality resonates as he pretends to film…