Tag: music

We Are Not the Same: U2’s Achtung Baby

The drama and momentum of “The Fly” still reach me, especially when Bono sings, “It’s no secret that a liar won’t believe anyone else.” I have known many people like that. The hushed intensity of Bono’s singing is persuasive, nearly…

Cry for Us All Beauty: Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark

Joni Mitchell’s voice and phrasing are original, are full, high, quick, rich, sensual. She sounds tones of speculation and skepticism, of expectation and experience; and she is amazing. By Daniel Garrett Joni Mitchell Court and Spark Elektra/Asylum Records, 1974 “It…

Maintaining Jazz’s Relevance: World Saxophone Quartet’s Political Blues and The Roy Hargrove Factor’s Distractions

Which way jazz? Wynton Marsalis, a man who argues ideas, rather than pandering or slandering, has advocated music education for youth and greater media attention for public awareness in support of jazz, very intelligent promptings. Does anyone have to be told that the world in which we live, with the works of Marsalis, the World Saxophone Quartet, and Roy Hargrove, will be the foundation upon which the musicians, music lovers, and citizens of tomorrow will build their own world?

In the Shadow of the Past: John Legend, Once Again

The themes of John Stephens’s songs are variations on romance, and the songs resist cliché to the extent that they are imaginative or realistic, as the need (or case) may be. The collection’s first song—in which the singer asks someone…

Troubadour: Eric Bibb’s A Ship Called Love

Beauty is not always simple, and brilliance and excellence are not simple. The relationship of one kind of ethic to another—for instance, an ethic founded in reason, science and civil liberties versus a religious ethic—is not simple. By Daniel Garrett…

Images of Women: Beyonce’s B’Day

Beyonce, like Diana Ross before her, knows of the many women performers who have preceded her own arrival on the public stage, and has offered compliments to them: and Beyonce is trying to place herself in a flattering locale within that tradition and that ambition involves manners and methods dangerous, enriching, exciting, and easy to misunderstand.