| I’m always trying to make something that might sound bad sound beautiful in some way. |
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| Pharoah Sanders in 1989. |
| (Peter Symes/Redferns/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“I’m always trying to make something that might sound bad sound beautiful in some way.”
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- Pharoah Sanders, 1940 – 2022
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| rantnrave:// |
Day of Shouting/Blasting
Rosh Hashanah, which ends today, is a time of reflection, repentance, renewal and, not least, celebration, and I could hardly think of a more fitting way to observe it this year than to spend Monday night at a Brooklyn celebration of the life of JAIMIE BRANCH, the great jazz (plus) trumpeter (plus) whose music embodied all those things and much more, and whose loss has yet to fully register or make sense. This was a service to account not for a calendar year but for a life force that can help push us toward the next one. SCOTTIE MCNIECE, co-founder of her label, INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM, told us her music was “spiritual warfare for the benefit of humanity.” As there should be at any Rosh Hashanah service, there were tears and laughter and eating and drinking and sermonizing and storytelling and, of course, music. While no ram’s horns were in evidence, there were trumpets and saxophones, a more than worthy substitute. Where I grew up, the rituals mattered, but the spirit of the rituals mattered more. This was that. There was dancing. There was communal humming. There was a group singalong of Branch’s “LOVE SONG” (...”for a**holes and clowns”). And like all good High Holiday services, it started long before I arrived, with a second line through her Brooklyn neighborhood, and continued long after I left. Each ending leading—as long as you put in the work—to a new beginning. Shana tova.
Spirit Guide
An old acquaintance I ran into Monday mentioned that the first time he saw Jaimie Branch was at New York's LE POISSON ROUGE, on a bill with the great free jazz saxophonist PHAROAH SANDERS. A reminder of connections across time and spiritual planes. Sanders is gone now, too, leaving behind masterworks (not always universally loved) including BLACK UNITY and “THE CREATOR HAS A MASTER PLAN” and an immense hole in our collective space. You won’t see a single obituary or remembrance that doesn’t have the word “spiritual" in it. Until the end, the Washington Post’s CHRIS RICHARDS wrote, Sanders entered every performance “his gait unforgettably heavy, his posture hunched,as if his world-changing music was something he carried around on his back. Then he’d find his place under the lights and start blowing bravura phrases through his saxophone until Earth’s gravity started to loosen.”
Documentaries, Now
Director JEFF ZIMBALIST's 11 MINUTES, a four-part documentary series about the mass shootings at the ROUTE 91 HARVEST festival in Las Vegas in 2017, premieres today on Paramount+... SACHA GERVASI’s hilarious and beautiful 2008 doc ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, about heavy metal perseverance and the brotherly love of lifelong bandmates, returns to theaters today.
Etc Etc Etc
An A-plus SUPER BOWL pick... SPOTIFY’s white supremacist problem... How a film and TV composer’s song was co-opted by QAnon and the former president.
Rest in Peace
JIM POST, who was half of ‘60s one-hit wonder Friend & Lover and wrote the one hit, “Reach Out of the Darkness”... Scottish DJ/producer JAMIE ROY... Manchester DJ/producer STU ALLAN... Piledriver lead singer GORD KIRCHIN... ‘70s and ‘80s R&B singer VERNON BURCH, whose “Get Up” was famously sampled in Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart”... Dallas rapper BFG STRAAP and Memphis rapper LOTTA CASH DESTO, who were murdered, respectively, in South Dallas and Houston. They’re at least the 20th and 21st rappers murdered in the US in 2022; Lotta Cash Desto is the first woman.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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The Guardian |
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| Has streaming made it harder to discover new music? |
| By Alexis Petridis |
| Services such as Spotify and Apple Music give us access to the entire history of popular songs. But has that access made us lazy listeners? And could TikTok or TV really help us rediscover our passion for discovery? |
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The New York Times |
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| How Much Would You Pay to Hear Great Music? |
| By Zachary Woolfe |
| With ticket prices for performing arts rising, could fresh approaches like pay-what-you-can increase access and foster more adventurous programming? |
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Money 4 Nothing |
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| Damon Krukowski on Unions, Streaming, and Musical Labor |
| By Saxon Baird, Sam Backer and Damon Krukowski |
| You might know Damon Krukowski from the groundbreaking indy band Galaxie 500. Or from his podcast, “Ways of Hearing” or his excellent newsletter. More recently, however, he’s put on another hat, as an influential rabble rouser for Union of Musicians and Allied Workers. |
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British GQ |
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| Shygirl is a new romantic |
| By Tara Joshi |
| With lyrics like “Daddy raised a wild one, Daddy raised a fiend” over freaky, left-field sounds, Shygirl has played with a provocative persona. But with her new album, "Nymph," she’s ready to unfurl some layers and show a more vulnerable side. |
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The Washington Post |
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| How a Trump soundtrack became a QAnon phenomenon |
| By Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Michael Scherer |
| A song’s journey from a Trump video to online forums and back to Trump rallies shows the melding of the MAGA and QAnon movements. |
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The New York Times |
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| Belle, Sebastian and Me |
| By Claire Dederer |
| Following the world’s twee-est band down the Pacific Coast after a divorce and the death of a parent. |
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| what we're into |
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| Music | Media |
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Suggest a link  |
| “REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” |
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