January 2011
2 posts
The Decemberists Return
The Decemberists were one of my favorite bands in college and I loved a lot of the Hazards of Love but admittedly, I spend most time trying to follow the plot on that album. NPR currently has the First Listen of their new album, The King is Dead, which is “country-tinged” but to me just reminds me of the simple stories that were told before Hazards of Love and the song cycle of...
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk is my favorite jazz musician. I recently read an essay about Miles Davis, and at one point in the essay he is referred to as the Debussy of Jazz. I would refute that claim. Listening to Monk is hearing the best of a single musician pull into his repertoire the foundations of Debussy’s impressionistic style and the “gentleman jazz” of George Gershwin. But...