Archive | Music Matters
This death isn’t news I can absorb, let alone accept. It is 2016. How on earth has flu dared fell our Prince? He bridges everything, personal and artistic, that I love. He was turning racial and gender and sexual and business and metaphysical paradigms on their head while most everyone was still drooling in their Wheaties. He is spirit of the body and body of the spirit and wit and wisdom and the most powerful extroverted introvert of all time. The Horse’s Mouth: 5 Celeb-Read Memoirs
I like podcasts as much as the next girl, but sometimes audiobooks are best; they are long enough to last a whole journey, and unencumbered by the “you knows” and “likes” that are impossible to utterly omit in extemporaneous speech. I have a special soft spot in my heart for celeb memoirs read by their authors. Sparkling performances, juicy dish: The best ones may not be Jane Austen but are sure to keep you awake at the wheel. Here are some of my favorites.
Celebrate the Dreamer in You by Dolly Parton
I don’t trust people who don’t like Dolly Parton. A sweet, smart survivor, she’s one of the brightest lights in contemporary entertainment. She’s also one of the most quotable (“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb, and I also know that I’m not blonde”), though her spirit is too pure to be dismissed as camp. Here she reads her inspirational tome in such bubbly, confiding cadences that you start to believe that you, too, can grow up dirt-poor and go on to own an amusement park, record best-selling albums, launch a Broadway show, and singlehandedly improve literacy rates in your home state. Bonus: Mz. Parton sings on this audio-tome as well. Continue Reading →
Social Music, Jazz Music: ‘Miles Ahead’
Thelonious Monk once said, “Talking about jazz is like dancing about architecture.” Having dated a jazz trombonist, I know this to be true, but I hadn’t considered until recently that making a movie about jazz might be an equally quixotic process. Free-form if not formless and often wordless, the musical genre asks us to abandon our need for structure and surrender to a purer state. Such trust in audiences is not exactly bottom-line Hollywood’s forte, yet “Miles Ahead,” the new film about Miles Davis, has the remarkable audacity to take all its cues directly from jazz. Continue Reading →