1959: The Apex of Jazz

(NEWSER) - In 1959, Miles Davis was looking to forge a path away from the bebop spearheaded by mentor Charlie Parker, Fred Kaplan writes on Slate. “Parker not only invented bebop, he perfected it,” Kaplan continues, leaving Davis nowhere else to go. So when Davis was introduced to so-called “modal” jazz—with the emphasis on free experimentation with scales and away from rigid chord structures—he jumped at it. “Man, if Bird was alive, this would kill him,” Davis said. More»

His theory influenced Miles Davis, John Coltrane

(NEWSER) - Jazz innovator George Russell died at 86 yesterday in Boston of Alzheimer’s complications, the Globe reports. Russell developed a jazz theory that played a key role on landmark records like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Russell’s theory “gives you a lot more freedom and space to hear things,” Davis said. More»

Rapper will still be in the game when he's 70, he says

(NEWSER) - Ghostface Killah is one of today’s most critically acclaimed rappers, and he doesn’t plan on quitting any time soon: “I’ma definitely be old in hip-hop. This is a mental thing. You can write music till you 70,” he tells New York. His new album, Wizard of Poetry, finds him exploring a new direction: R&B. The main difference? “You can’t talk about slinging crack on an R&B album.” More»

Yes, Kelly Clarkson made the top five

(NEWSER) - Now that 2009 is more than halfway over, James Montgomery runs down the best albums of the year—so far—on MTV:

• Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion: The No. 1 pick is “the only thing I can remember that has actually lived up to the hype, if not exceeded it.”
• Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: “Retro pop hyper-focused on a futuristic re-imagination of post-modernism and neo-classicism as proletarian touchstones? That you can dance to?” earns album No. 2 spot.

Theater, jazz, poetry collide in East Room event

(NEWSER) - Spoken word, jazz, and theater took the White House by storm last night in what has been called the first presidential poetry jam, the Washington Post reports. “We're here to celebrate the power of words,” President Obama said, adding that his wife is his poet. The jam, Michelle Obama said, was something she had wanted to do “from day one.” More»