Dilla Time

Author: Dan Charnas
Publisher: MCD
ISBN: 0374721653
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
WINNER OF THE PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER "This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” —QUESTLOVE Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century. He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, even though he worked with renowned acts like D’Angelo and Erykah Badu and influenced the music of superstars like Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. He died at the age of thirty-two, and in his lifetime he never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod: revered by jazz musicians and rap icons from Robert Glasper to Kendrick Lamar; memorialized in symphonies and taught at universities. And at the core of this adulation is innovation: a new kind of musical time-feel that he created on a drum machine, but one that changed the way “traditional” musicians play. In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted childhood in Detroit, to his rise as a Grammy-nominated hip-hop producer, to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death; and follows the people who kept him and his ideas alive. He also rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of soul in Dilla’s own “Motown,” to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of Black culture in America and of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. Dilla Time is a different kind of book about music, a visual experience with graphics that build those concepts step by step for fans and novices alike, teaching us to “see” and feel rhythm in a unique and enjoyable way. Dilla’s beats, startling some people with their seeming “sloppiness,” were actually the work of a perfectionist almost spiritually devoted to his music. This is the story of the man and his machines, his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators. Culled from more than 150 interviews about one of the most important and influential musical figures of the past hundred years, Dilla Time is a book as delightfully detail-oriented and unique as J Dilla’s music itself.

Universal Tonality

Author: Cisco Bradley
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478012714
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
Since ascending onto the world stage in the 1990s as one of the premier bassists and composers of his generation, William Parker has perpetually toured around the world and released over forty albums as a leader. He is one of the most influential jazz artists alive today. In Universal Tonality historian and critic Cisco Bradley tells the story of Parker’s life and music. Drawing on interviews with Parker and his collaborators, Bradley traces Parker’s ancestral roots in West Africa via the Carolinas to his childhood in the South Bronx, and illustrates his rise from the 1970s jazz lofts and extended work with pianist Cecil Taylor to the present day. He outlines how Parker’s early influences—Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and writers of the Black Arts Movement—grounded Parker’s aesthetic and musical practice in a commitment to community and the struggle for justice and freedom. Throughout, Bradley foregrounds Parker’s understanding of music, the role of the artist, and the relationship between art, politics, and social transformation. Intimate and capacious, Universal Tonality is the definitive work on Parker’s life and music.

Pick Up the Pieces

Author: John Corbett
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022660473X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 505

Book Description
Unless you lived through the 1970s, it seems impossible to understand it at all. Drug delirium, groovy fashion, religious cults, mega corporations, glitzy glam, hard rock, global unrest—from our 2018 perspective, the seventies are often remembered as a bizarre blur of bohemianism and disco. With Pick Up the Pieces, John Corbett transports us back in time to this thrillingly tumultuous era through a playful exploration of its music. Song by song, album by album, he draws our imaginations back into one of the wildest decades in history. Rock. Disco. Pop. Soul. Jazz. Folk. Funk. The music scene of the 1970s was as varied as it was exhilarating, but the decade’s diversity of sound has never been captured in one book before now. Pick Up the Pieces gives a panoramic view of the era’s music and culture through seventy-eight essays that allow readers to dip in and out of the decade at random or immerse themselves completely in Corbett’s chronological journey. An inviting mix of skilled music criticism and cultural observation, Pick Up the Pieces is also a coming-of-age story, tracking the author’s absorption in music as he grows from age seven to seventeen. Along with entertaining personal observations and stories, Corbett includes little-known insights into musicians from Pink Floyd, Joni Mitchell, James Brown, and Fleetwood Mac to the Residents, Devo, Gal Costa, and Julius Hemphill. A master DJ on the page, Corbett takes us through the curated playlist that is Pick Up the Pieces with captivating melody of language and powerful enthusiasm for the era. This funny, energetic book will have readers longing nostalgically for a decade long past.

As Serious As Your Life

Author: Valerie Wilmer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description

The Doolittle Family in America

Author: William Frederick Doolittle
Publisher: Legare Street Press
ISBN: 9781015736184
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Alpha Boys School

Author: Heather Augustyn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692980736
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
Facing a life of poverty, neglect, abandonment and even homelessness, young Jamaican boys are placed in a disciplinarian Catholic boarding school. With a rigorous musical training program overseen by an eccentric jazz-loving nun, the young virtuoso graduates of Alpha Boys' School went on to change the shape of music forever. It's the 1950s in Jamaica and a musical revolution is brewing. People all over Kingston dance nightly to vast outdoor sound systems blasting American rhythm and blues records across the shanty towns. In the hotels and theaters big bands are playing jazz and calypso. Street musicians are playing home-grown folk music called mento. Out of this musical stew, Jamaica will soon birth a dance music all of its own, a sound that will conquer the globe. Starting with ska in the early 1960s, followed by rocksteady, eventually arriving at reggae in 1969, a group of virtuoso graduates of a Roman Catholic boarding school spearhead a musical and cultural revolution that still reverberates around the world over half a century later. The Sisters of Mercy nuns at Alpha provided a home alongside industrial trades apprenticeships and religious indoctrination. One in particular, Sister Mary Ignatius, dedicated 64 years of her life to running the school's music program. Her deep appreciation of jazz and her sense of fun endeared her to the boys in the band, inspiring them to attain greatness. From early Jamaican jazz giants like Joe Harriott and Dizzy Reece to the greatest ska band of all time, The Skatalites, and some of reggae's most inspirational artists such as Cedric Brooks, Johnny Osbourne, Leroy Smart and Yellowman, the Alpha story is the untold history of Jamaican music. Join Heather Augustyn and Adam Reeves as they delve into the history of this remarkable institution and reveal the life and works of 47 of the greatest Alpha boys. The culmination of many combined years of work, using musicians' personal recollections and a wealth of rarely seen photographs, Alpha Boys' School: Cradle of Jamaican Music will take you to the heart of the Jamaica music story. Whether you are a lover of original ska and rocksteady, roots, dub, dancehall and beyond, these stories will take you deeper into the music. If you enjoyed Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae by David Katz, Bass Culture by Lloyd Bradley or So Much Things To Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley by Roger Steffens, then this is definitely for you.

Ears

Author: Jared Stanley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781937658625
Category : American poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 85

Book Description
The poems in Ears crackle with aplomb and verve as they try to measure the distance between the ear, an organ of touch, and the often chaotic and sometimes orderly vibrations the ears permit the body to receive; in that gap between trust and faith is this collection of poems--a devotional book that prays to the senses for mercy. It's tricky.

An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels

Author: Josh MacPhee
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781942173113
Category : Popular music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A love letter to over 750 record labels which produced political music as a medium for improving our communities and world.

Christopher Knowles

Author: Hilton Als
Publisher: Gregory R. Miller
ISBN: 9781941366158
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The artistic career of Christopher Knowles (born 1959) began at the age of 13, when his writings and recordings came to the notice of avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson. Still a teenager, Knowles went on to write the libretto for Wilson and Philip Glass' opera Einstein on the Beach, and his collaborations with Wilson would continue for decades. His practice spans many mediums--text, sound, painting, sculpture and performance--and exhibits a fascination with the materiality of language. In a Word is the most comprehensive look at Knowles' work to date, published for his exhibition of the same name, organized by Anthony Elms and Hilton Als. Containing an autobiographical text by the artist himself, new texts by Elms and curator Lauren Digiulio and a personal reflection by Als, this is an essential resource on an under-recognized artist.

Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal

Author:
Publisher: Inventory Press
ISBN: 9781941753378
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The first-ever overview on the multimedia art of free-jazz pioneer and creative polymath Milford Graves Milford Graves (born 1941) has been a revelatory force in music since the mid-1960s, liberating the drummer from the role of "timekeeper" to instrumental improviser and giving rise to the free-jazz movement, with groundbreaking performances alongside Lou Reed, Min Tanaka and John Zorn. But music cannot contain the energies of his creativity and intellect. Graves' kaleidoscopic genius led him to develop an unprecedented body of interests--from medicine to botany, stem-cell regeneration to martial arts. A Mind-Body Deal gathers the multifaceted work of Milford Graves, exploring the practices and predilections of this extraordinary mind. Fully illustrated, this catalog includes documentation from the eponymous show at ICA Philadelphia, exhibiting a collection of Graves' hand-painted album covers and posters, idiosyncratic drum sets, recording ephemera, multimedia sculptures, photographs and costumes, with elements from his scientific studies.