[contextly_auto_sidebar] MUCH of the nation has been debating the latest Ken Burns documentary, which I -- the son of a Marine officer nearly killed in 1967 -- have not yet had the stomach to watch. This essay on the war comes from regular CultureCrash guest columnist Lawrence Christon, born the same year as my late father, and a fellow Marine with all kinds of complex and conflicted feelings … [Read more...]
Archives for 2017
The Artistry of Siegfried Tieber, Magician
[contextly_auto_sidebar] THE other night I was invited to a private session at the Magic Castle in Hollywood with a young magician. Siegfried Tieber -- his real name, apparently, with no relation to the lion-baiting duo -- practices close-up magic, which typically involves cards, rings, dollar bills, and other things that can be observed in small rooms with no smoke and mirrors, no rabbits, … [Read more...]
Brad Mehldau and Chris Thile at the Ace Hotel/ LA
[contextly_auto_sidebar] IN some ways, this pairing makes absolutely no sense -- a jazz pianist and a bluegrass mandolinist, playing together? But in another, it's nearly inevitable. And, the other night, not just a natural union but often a spectacular one. Brad Mehldau and Chris Thile are not just universally well-regarded musicians but also virtually parallel figures. Both are (still) … [Read more...]
The Literary Richard Thompson
[contextly_auto_sidebar] FEW living musicians fascinate me as much as Richard Thompson, the London-reared, Los Angeles-dwelling, Fairport Convention-founding guitarist and songwriter whose recording career just hit the 50 year mark. I've been listening to Richard's work for three decades now -- since I first heard "Valerie" and "A Bone Through Her Nose" on WHFS as a teenager -- and have been … [Read more...]
Bryan Ferry, Art, and Roxy Music
[contextly_auto_sidebar] EVEN a decade after their heyday, when I first heard them in the mid-'80s, there was nothing like Roxy Music. The sleek, almost alien sound, with its world-weary vocals, European touches, and deep, if bruised, romanticism, was among the most bracing things a suburban teenager could put on his turntable. It struck me then, and still does, as some of the first and most … [Read more...]
Jazz Singer Cecile McLorin Salvant
[contextly_auto_sidebar] FOR some reasons, I typically have trouble with jazz singers after, oh, Sarah Vaughan or Abbey Lincoln. There may have been some great ones over the last two decades, but most of the time I'd rather listen to a pianist or horn player. But when the debut LP from a young woman from Miami -- then still in her early 20s -- arrived in the mail to me a few years ago, it … [Read more...]
The Beatles After The Beatles
[contextly_auto_sidebar] I THINK it was the writer Michael Chabon who once told me he loved family partly because it gave him a glimpse at four different generations and the way they saw the world and its history -- starting with his grandparents and all the way down to his own children. That's the way it is for most of us, including me. My situation is unusual though not unheard of: My … [Read more...]
Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis
[contextly_auto_sidebar] MY interest in Herbie Hancock's music has ranged over the years, but it has not so much gone up and down as much as side to side. I first heard, and loved, the funky stuff. Later I discovered his years with Miles, and then, still later, his Bill Evans-y solo records like Speak Like a Child and Empyrean Isles. My sense of his best and most enduring music varies, but … [Read more...]
Remembering Sam Shepard
[contextly_auto_sidebar] MUCH of the world was taken by surprise by the death of playwright and actor Sam Shepard, who was felled (like Charles Mingus, a jazz artist who he was in some ways simpatico) ALS. To me, it was a bit like the sudden departure of Bowie and Prince. But I must admit that while I knew vaguely that the actor I loved from The Right Stuff was a playwright, I did not know … [Read more...]
Jonathan Lethem and Rock Criticism
[contextly_auto_sidebar] SINCE I was a teenager, I've been fascinated by the lions of music journalism and rock criticism -- Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau, Ellen Willis, and others, especially from the field's 1970s heyday. The novelist Jonathan Lethem and his Pomona College colleague (and resident Dylanologist) Kevin Dettmar have collected 50 years of the stuff -- "From Elvis to Jay Z" -- … [Read more...]