Today calls for drastic action, and when that particular call goes out, the Saints answer every time. “I’m Stranded” is the best song from the best punk rock record ever (I’m Stranded). It isn’t subtle and it isn’t pretty, but if it doesn’t make you feel alive, you might want to call for an...

“I entered into literature on my own, I live in it on my own and I shall depart from it on my own when the time comes” http://www.khazars.com/en/ Academician and author Milorad Pavić, professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Belgrade University, passed away yesterday of complications following...

By Dan Visconti One of my absolute favorite parts of most traditional Thanksgiving dinners is "leftovers"; having just completed a large musical project, my compositional life is littered with musical leftovers as well.

DECEMBER 3 — ALLAN BÉRUBÉ Gay American historian, activist, independent scholar. “None of us can do our best work until we believe that the life of the mind really does belong to us.” DECEMBER 3, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS… China: FEAST OF LU-HSING, the Stellar God of Happiness. ALSO ON DECEMBER 3...

Good news!��� The very gifted (subtle, swinging, thoughtful . . . ) trumpeter / fluegelhornist / cornetist /���plectrist /���whistler Peter Ecklund has a new website — http://peterecklundmusic.com.��� There, you can hear enticing musical samples.��� And he also has an upcoming Manhattan engagement at the���Greenwich Village Bistro (Carmine between Bleecker and Sixth Avenue) on Wednesday, Dec. 9, [...]

First, “the dear boy” is what Louis Armstrong called Bix,���writing about him in 1954.��� And Bix Beiderbecke remains���dear to many, as man and musician.��������� Phil Pospychala is once again arranging his Tribute to Bix, to be held in the Marriott in Racine, Wisconsin.��� Details can be found —...

My title comes from a Jelly Roll Morton record from his great Victor period — but it’s a close approximation of the phrase that came into my mind when I watched and heard this great small band from the recent San Diego Dixieland Jazz Festival, with these November 27, 2009 video clips coming to us...

Lester Young was born in 1909 and died before he reached fifty, so when we celebrate his hundredth birthday, it is with the wonder that he existed at all — and the sadness that his feelings were often “bruised,” to use his evocative word. Just recently (Nov. 27, 2009) the drummer and swing master...

I began to sense the work going on beneath the seed-based cheeses and ‘zines. An undercurrent of excitement bearing no relationship to anything on the surface and which ran through the most trivial interactions. I recognized the feeling from my childhood, the excitement that was there when people...