Trying to capture Dr. [Don] Shirley’s essence pushed me to my ends and it’s the reflection of the person he was and the life he lived. I thank him. | | | | Don Shirley in an artist's studio above Carnegie Hall, New York, 1960.
(Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Trying to capture Dr. [Don] Shirley’s essence pushed me to my ends and it’s the reflection of the person he was and the life he lived. I thank him.”
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| | rantnrave:// As of this writing, R. KELLY has been in jail for two days, charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse against a woman and three girls and apparently unable to come up with $100,000 to cover his bond. He's there because of police work, because of victims who had the courage to come forward and tell their stories, and because of the tireless, thankless work of journalists, especially JIM DEROGATIS, who has been shining a light on Kelly's sordid universe for nearly two decades—through denials, through threats, through music industry indifference, through an infamous acquittal—for publications including the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, the VILLAGE VOICE, BUZZFEED and the NEW YORKER. There were others along the way, including some of my old MTV NEWS colleagues, and of course DREAM HAMPTON and the rest of the crew behind LIFETIME's SURVIVING R. KELLY documentary series, which used the power of television to make it impossible for Kelly's protectors in the music business, of which there were many, to continue ignoring a story they had been ignoring for years. A damning soundbite and a telling financial fact from a DeRogatis interview on NPR over the weekend. "It is impossible to walk two or three blocks in the South or West Sides without meeting a young woman who has a story... Everyone in Chicago knew, but no one did anything." It's equally impossible to walk two or three hundred feet down a record company corridor. Which leads us to that financial fact: DeRogatis says he's been told that Kelly has generated nearly $1 billion for his labels over his career. Does that explain why he had a major label deal until a month ago? Does that explain why he kept getting gigs (even if, in the past couple years, on-the-ground protests made it harder and harder to actually play them)? Does that explain two decades? DeRogatis could be off by a factor of 10 on that number and I'd still have the same questions. Is there a reason I shouldn't? Kelly, of course, was acquitted the last time he faced similar charges, and his lawyer, STEVEN GREENBERG, questioned the credibility of his new accusers. Here's another quote that gave me pause, from KENYETTE TISHA BARNES, co-founder of #MuteRKelly, in the NEW YORK TIMES: "The difference between this indictment and the last indictment is that you didn’t have the degree of public pressure to get him convicted in 2008. It was actually the opposite—more people wanted him acquitted." It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that public pressure should have nothing to do with whether Kelly, or anyone, is convicted or acquitted. We will continue to talk about this case, but we will also continue to hope justice is allowed to proceed at its own pace, under its own power... Walk two or three hundred feet down the corridor at any indie label or club and you'll—unfortunately—encounter someone who has a story or two like the ones singer-songwriter CASEY DIENEL shares in this must-read story of the day: "Why I Quit My Dream Job in the Music Industry"... This year's OSCARS basically brought to you by music. Winners: LADY GAGA, MARK RONSON, ANTHONY ROSSOMONDO and ANDREW WYATT for writing "SHALLOW"; LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for his BLACK PANTHER score; RAMI MALEK for his toothy take on FREDDIE MERCURY; MAHERSHALA ALI for his, um, supporting portrayal of DON SHIRLEY; and, for Best Picture, the one that told Dr. Shirley's story from an unconventional, or perhaps all-too-conventional, angle, there will be debates... SHAZAM fail: You could Shazam the Oscars any time Sunday night and be told, more or less, what songs would be, or had been, performed during the telecast (but, um, no KENDRICK LAMAR and SZA did not perform "ALL THE STARS" on this night, nor did anyone). But I didn't need an app to tell me that, and nor did you. If you tried Shazam'ing during, say, the In Memoriam segment, it couldn't tell you that was the LA Philharmonic or what piece it was playing. I expect more from my apps, and from my TV shows, in 2019... RIP MAC WISEMAN, JACKIE SHANE, ETHEL ENNIS, HILDE ZADEK and IRA GITLER. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Duster was a small, largely forgotten band from the late ’90s. Then their legend began to grow on sites like Discogs. Now, they’re the subject of a major reissue. The internet made it all possible. | | |
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| What happens when our dreams land us in a toxic environment? How should we reckon with the shifting of our priorities over time? Love alone is not a cure-all. | | |
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| The pianist’s determination to play by classical rules despite being seen as a jazz performer will always be provocative. | | |
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| Though the Oscar-nominated film focuses on its white savior, for black jazz artists in the 1950s and early ’60s, the road was filled with rejection and humiliation. | | |
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| How the unfiltered 17-year-old singer with dark visions became pop’s new conscience. | | |
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| Kimberly Mack recalls the ways in which rock music bonded her with her African American mom, and how those fierce sounds helped them cope with the poverty, violence, and despair both outside and inside their Brooklyn home. | | |
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| The embattled singer made an inglorious return to the Leighton Criminal Court Building, this time to face sweeping new sex abuse charges involving four victims — three of them minors — over the course of more than a decade. | | |
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| Her film 9 to 5 is a feminist classic. But she won’t label herself one - and she doesn’t see eye to eye with her former co-stars. | | |
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| In a candid conversation at his home, Rivers Cuomo tells "The Times'" Mikael Wood about Weezer's two new projects, the "Black Album" and the "Teal Album," and recalls some complicated memories from the band's early days. | | |
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| I’d like to answer a question that I get asked by investors, record labels and my former colleagues from the digital music industry: “why did you start a new music service?” | | |
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| The genre would not exist if it weren’t for black music serving as an inspiration and a source. But there was no modern black country star before Charley Pride. | | |
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| The Swedish composer is the link between Childish Gambino's "This is America," Grammys' song and record of the year, and "Black Panther," which could help him win an Oscar this weekend. | | |
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| The Hammond Organ became an immediate success when it hit the market in April 1935 and had a major impact on the soundscape of both popular and religious musical life in the U.S. However, advertising that pitted the instrument against pipe organs stoked outrage among a small but well-organized community of pipe organ performers, designers, and manufacturers. | | |
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| For eight years, PledgeMusic was a success story: A direct-to-fan platform where artists worked directly with their audiences to fund their albums, tours and all stripes of merchandise, with fans able to purchase everything from custom guitar picks to private concerts. | | |
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| Forty-two minutes northeast of Lou Reed’s hometown of Freeport, New York, I am in my childhood bedroom, curiously absorbing a videotape I narrowly understand at about thirteen years old. I had heard from a camp friend that Lou was like Bowie and Bowie was like "Rocky Horror," and that got my attention. | | |
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| The Grammy-winning artist’s collaborative project Songs of Our Native Daughters puts poems and narratives about slavery to music. | | |
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| Gerard Way began writing the comic series before his band broke up -- now the comic book is a Netflix TV show. | | |
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| The political comedian talks parodying the Trump administration through show tunes, his relationship with Stephen Sondheim and his rise to internet stardom. | | |
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| Not everything happens everywhere at the same time. | | |
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| As a critic you have your beat and that sometimes means you find yourself covering an artist in a situation that doesn’t quite track. That’s where the legendary music critic Lester Bangs found himself in the dog days of 1977, sitting with press colleagues in CBGB’s listening to Peter Tork, former bassist for the Monkees. | | |
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