Our introduction to composer/arranger Vince Mendoza came in the early ’90s with his Blue Note albums Start Here and Instructions Inside. The recordings featured some great musicians — Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Ralph Towner, Peter Erskine and Bob Mintzer among them — and a sort of post-Gil Evans music that…
Entries Tagged as 'Interviews'
Vince Mendoza’s Really Big Big Band
The director of the Metropole Orkest talks about writing symphony-sized jazz.
June 30th, 2011 · No Comments
Tags: Interviews · Music Reviews
There He Goes…James Moody Interview
Moody on music, racism and what he would have done as president.
December 12th, 2010 · No Comments
I thought something was wrong with me as a kid in Newark…I saw the way people of color were treated. Then I thought, Wait a minute. There’s nobody in the world that’s better than me. Nobody. And by the same token, I’m not better than anyone else.–James Moody
When James Moody died…
Tags: Interviews · The Rabbit Rants
John McLaughlin Interview
The transcendent guitarist talks influence, Miles Davis and why he doesn't fret the past.
November 27th, 2010 · 1 Comment
John McLaughlin was a 27-year-old, relatively unknown guitarist in 1969 when he arrived in the U.S. from England to join drummer Tony Williams’ Lifetime band with organist Larry Young. His background was broad and without category. He had been brought up by a concert violinist mother to love classical music,…
Tags: Interviews · Music Reviews
Interview With Chick Corea
Chick Corea talks about Miles, the media and what drives him to explore different types of music.
July 5th, 2010 · No Comments
Pianist,composer and bandleader Chick Corea is one of the jazz genre’s most unique and diverse artists. One of his earliest recordings, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, is a landmark piano trio recording. His stint with Miles Davis, who encouraged him to explore the electric piano, changed the sound of jazz…
Tags: Interviews · Music Reviews
Beat Goes On
Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, as well as the poets, artists and women of the Beat movement go! go! go! in Harvey Pekar's latest comic history
June 10th, 2009 · 1 Comment
The Beats of America’s 1950s stood far apart from the duty-bound, God-and-country, organizational-man times. It didn’t take long for the commercial culture to assimilate them in a wave of berets and bongos. The poetry, novels and art of the true counter-culture known as Beat is an honest reflection of American spirit and independence, commercial culture be damned.
Tags: Comics · Interviews
Comic Genius
Chris Ware talks about self-doubt, the child within and the architecture of memory.
May 26th, 2008 · No Comments
You’ve heard it said, even sung: Every picture tells a story. No where is that statement more true than in comics. And no comic illustrator tells deeper, more meaningful, more entertaining, more eye-pleasing stories than Chris Ware. Ware’s comics are so innovative, so artistic, clever and literate that they bridge…
Tags: Comics · Interviews
Judge of Character
An anthology of short stories is filled with unlikable types
May 8th, 2008 · No Comments
It’s the commonly used coffee house criteria to define enjoyable fiction: “I identified with the characters.” If we recognize ourselves or others we know in a story, we’re more susceptible to being drawn in. But the characters in The Book Of Other People, an anthology of character sketches/short stories, aren’t…
Tags: Book Reviews · Interviews
Not Really Ranching
May 8th, 2008 · No Comments
The answer to why a decade separates Thomas McGuane’s last two novels is as complicated as one of the charming scoundrels who populate his eight previous works. Rumor had it that the writer, rancher and former movie director had grown tired of the publishing business.
“That was part of it,” McGuane…
Tags: Interviews
