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A Punkhouse in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309
by Aaron Cometbus Scott SatterwhiteRadical subcultures in an unlikely place Told in personal interviews, this is the collective story of a punk community in an unlikely town and region, a hub of radical counterculture that drew artists and musicians from throughout the conservative South and earned national renown. The house at 309 6th Avenue has long been a crossroads for punk rock, activism, veganism, and queer culture in Pensacola, a quiet Gulf Coast city at the border of Florida and Alabama. In this book, residents of 309 narrate the colorful and often comical details of communal life in the crowded and dilapidated house over its 30-year existence. Terry Johnson, Ryan “Rymodee” Modee, Gloria Diaz, Skott Cowgill, and others tell of playing in bands including This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb, operating local businesses such as End of the Line Cafe, forming feminist support groups, and creating zines and art. Each voice adds to the picture of a lively community that worked together to provide for their own needs while making a positive, lasting impact on their surrounding area. Together, these participants show that punk is more than music and teenage rebellion. It is about alternatives to standard narratives of living, acceptance for the marginalized in a rapidly changing world, and building a sense of family from the ground up. Including photos by Cynthia Connolly and Mike Brodie, A Punkhouse in the Deep South illuminates many individual lives and creative endeavors that found a home and thrived in one of the oldest continuously inhabited punkhouses in the United States.
A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism (Discovering America)
by Paul YoungquistSun Ra said he came from Saturn. Known on earth for his inventive music and extravagant stage shows, he pioneered free-form improvisation in an ensemble setting with the devoted band he called the “Arkestra.” Sun Ra took jazz from the inner city to outer space, infusing traditional swing with far-out harmonies, rhythms, and sounds. Described as the father of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra created “space music” as a means of building a better future for American blacks here on earth. A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism offers a spirited introduction to the life and work of this legendary but underappreciated musician, composer, and poet. Paul Youngquist explores and assesses Sun Ra’s wide-ranging creative output—music, public preaching, graphic design, film and stage performance, and poetry—and connects his diverse undertakings to the culture and politics of his times, including the space race, the rise of technocracy, the civil rights movement, and even space-age bachelor-pad music. By thoroughly examining the astro-black mythology that Sun Ra espoused, Youngquist masterfully demonstrates that he offered both a holistic response to a planet desperately in need of new visions and vibrations and a new kind of political activism that used popular culture to advance social change. In a nation obsessed with space and confused about race, Sun Ra aimed not just at assimilation for the socially disfranchised but even more at a wholesale transformation of American society and a more creative, egalitarian world.
A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism (Discovering America)
by Paul Youngquist&“Youngquist brings considerable skills to the life and work of the legendary but underappreciated and often misunderstood composer, keyboardist, and poet.&” —PopMatters Sun Ra said he came from Saturn. Known on earth for his inventive music and extravagant stage shows, he pioneered free-form improvisation in an ensemble setting with the devoted band he called the &“Arkestra.&” Sun Ra took jazz from the inner city to outer space, infusing traditional swing with far-out harmonies, rhythms, and sounds. Described as the father of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra created &“space music&” as a means of building a better future for American blacks here on earth. In A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism, Paul Youngquist explores and assesses Sun Ra&’s wide-ranging creative output—music, public preaching, graphic design, film and stage performance, and poetry—and connects his diverse undertakings to the culture and politics of his times, including the space race, the rise of technocracy, the civil rights movement, and even space-age bachelor-pad music. By thoroughly examining the astro-black mythology that Sun Ra espoused, Youngquist masterfully demonstrates that he offered both a holistic response to a planet desperately in need of new visions and vibrations and a new kind of political activism that used popular culture to advance social change. In a nation obsessed with space and confused about race, Sun Ra aimed not just at assimilation for the socially disfranchised but even more at a wholesale transformation of American society and a more creative, egalitarian world. &“A welcome invitation to the spaceways.&” —Jazzwise
A Queerly Joyful Noise: Choral Musicking for Social Justice
by Julia Jules" BalénA Queerly Joyful Noise examines how choral singing can be both personally transformative and politically impactful. As they blend their different voices to create something beautiful, LGBTIQ singers stand together and make themselves heard. Comparing queer choral performances to the uses of group singing within the civil rights and labor movements, Julia “Jules” Balén maps the relationship between different forms of oppression and strategic musical forms of resistance. She also explores the potential this queer communal space creates for mobilizing progressive social action. A proud member of numerous queer choruses, Balén draws from years of firsthand observations, archival research, and extensive interviews to reveal how queer chorus members feel shared vulnerability, collective strength, and even moments of ecstasy when performing. A Queerly Joyful Noise serves as a testament to the power of music, intimately depicting how participation in a queer chorus is more than a pastime, but a meaningful form of protest through celebration.
A Question of Balance: Charles Seeger's Philosophy of Music
by Taylor Aitken GreerOne of this century's most influential musical intellects takes center stage in Taylor Greer's meticulously wrought study of Charles Seeger (1886-1979). Seeger left an indelible mark in the fields of musicology, music criticism, ethnomusicology, and avant-garde musical composition, but until now there has been no extended appreciation and critique of Seeger's work as a whole, nor has an accessible guide to his texts been available.Exploring the entire corpus of Charles Seeger's writing, A Question of Balance highlights the work of those persons who most influenced him, especially Henri Bergson, Bertrand Russell, and Ralph Perry. Invited to inaugurate the music department at the University of California's Berkeley campus in 1912, Seeger became keenly aware of his deficiencies in general education and put himself on a rigorous regimen of intellectual development that included studying history, anthropology, political theory, and philosophy. For the remainder of his life his ideas about music heavily influenced the development of ethnomusicology and systematic musicology.Charles Seeger is perhaps best known as the father of the folk singers Pete, Mike, and Peggy Seeger and as the husband of the innovative American composer Ruth Crawford. This book makes clear that Seeger was an extremely important thinker and educator in his own right. Seeger's intellectual curiosity was as eclectic as it was enthusiastic, and Greer skillfully weaves together the connections Seeger made between music, the humanities, and the sciences. The result is a luminous tapestry depicting Seeger's ideal schemes of musicology. At the same time it reflects the turbulence and vitality in American musical life during the early decades of the century.
A Really Strange and Wonderful Time: The Chapel Hill Music Scene: 1989-1999
by Tom MaxwellTHE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF THE THRIVING AND INFLUENTIAL ROCK SCENE IN CHAPEL HILL, WHICH GAVE THE WORLD ARTISTS LIKE BEN FOLDS FIVE, SUPERCHUNK, AND SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS North Carolina has always produced extraordinary music of every description. But the indie rock boom of the late 1980s and early &’90s brought the state most fully into the public consciousness, while the subsequent post-grunge free-for-all bestowed its greatest commercial successes. In addition to the creation of legacy label Merge Records and a slate of excellent indie bands like Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, and Polvo, this was the decade when other North Carolina artists broke Billboard &’s Top 200 and sold millions of records—several million of which were issued by another indie label based in Carrboro, Chapel Hill&’s smaller next-door neighbor. It&’s time to take a closer look at exactly what happened.A Really Strange and Wonderful Time features a representative cross section of what was being created in and around Chapel Hill between 1989 and 1999. In addition to the aforementioned indie bands, it documents—through firsthand accounts—other local notables like Ben Folds Five, Dillon Fence, Flat Duo Jets, Small, Southern Culture on the Skids, The Veldt, and Whiskeytown. At the same time, it describes the nurturing infrastructure which engendered and encouraged this marvelous diversity. In essence, A Really Strange and Wonderful Time is proof of the genius of community.
A Respectable Spell: Transformations of Samba in Rio de Janeiro
by Carlos SandroniA landmark in Brazilian music scholarship, A Respectable Spell introduces English-speaking readers to the rich history of samba from its nineteenth century origins to its emergence as a distinctive genre in the 1930s. Merging storytelling with theory, Carlos Sandroni profiles performers, composers, and others while analyzing the complex ideologies their music can communicate in their lyrics and rhythms, and how the meaning of songs and musical genres can vary depending on social and historical context. He also delves into lundu, modinha, maxixe, and many other genres of Brazilian music; presents the little-heard voices and perspectives of marginalized Brazilians like the African-descended sambistas; and presents a study in step with the types of decolonial approaches to ethnomusicology that have since emerged, treating the people being studied not only as makers of music but also of knowledge. Incisive and comprehensive, A Respectable Spell tells the compelling story of an iconic Brazilian musical genre.
A Revolution in Music: The History of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales
by Évelyne GayouEstablished in the 1950s by musician and engineer Pierre Schaeffer, the Groupe de Recherches Musicales would become the nerve center for avant-garde artists experimenting with sound and acoustics, as well as the birthplace of a genre of music-making enabled by new recording technologies and sound pioneers: musique concrète. Évelyne Gayou—herself a researcher, composer, and producer at the GRM—tells the history of the storied institution through the people, works, technologies, and research developed there. Placing musique concrète within a broad historical context extending from the early twentieth-century avant-garde's experiments with noise to the development of techniques in sound recording (at the Studio d'Essai in the 1940s) and later in sound synthesis, Gayou shows how recording technology made it possible for composers to not only create music from sounds in the world around them but also create acousmatic music—novel sounds without a visible connection to their source. Available in English translation for the first time, this updated edition will be an important resource for readers interested in the pioneering works and techniques of Schaeffer and his contemporaries, as well as their influence on the makers of new music and the contemporary avant-garde.
A Revolution in Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge
by David Hajdu John CareyBert Williams—a Black man forced to perform in blackface who challenged the stereotypes of minstrelsy. Eva Tanguay—an entertainer with the signature song “I Don’t Care” who flouted the rules of propriety to redefine womanhood for the modern age. Julian Eltinge—a female impersonator who entranced and unnerved audiences by embodying the feminine ideal Tanguay rejected. At the turn of the twentieth century, they became three of the most provocative and popular performers in vaudeville, the form in which American mass entertainment first took shape.A Revolution in Three Acts explores how these vaudeville stars defied the standards of their time to change how their audiences thought about what it meant to be American, to be Black, to be a woman or a man. The writer David Hajdu and the artist John Carey collaborate in this work of graphic nonfiction, crafting powerful portrayals of Williams, Tanguay, and Eltinge to show how they transformed American culture. Hand-drawn images give vivid visual form to the lives and work of the book’s subjects and their world.This book is at once a deft telling of three intricately entwined stories, a lush evocation of a performance milieu with unabashed entertainment value, and an eye-opening account of a key moment in American cultural history with striking parallels to present-day questions of race, gender, and sexual identity.
A Riot of Our Own
by Johnny Green Garry Barker'Hugely enjoyable ... Green's great achievement is to recapture exactly how those moments felt, but remain sufficiently detached about the whole thing to render the experience honestly' MOJOJohnny Green first met the Clash in 1977. A RIOT OF OUR OWN is his tale of three delirious years of rock 'n' roll madness as confidant and road manager of the Clash, from the early punk days to LONDON CALLING and touring America. Ray Lowry accompanied the band as official 'war artist' on the second American tour and designed the London Calling album cover. Together, in words and pictures, Green and Lowry give the definitive, inside story on one of the most magnificent rock 'n' roll bands ever.
A Riot of Our Own: Night And Day On The Road With The Clash
by Johnny Green Garry Barker'Hugely enjoyable ... Green's great achievement is to recapture exactly how those moments felt, but remain sufficiently detached about the whole thing to render the experience honestly' MOJOJohnny Green first met the Clash in 1977. A RIOT OF OUR OWN is his tale of three delirious years of rock 'n' roll madness as confidant and road manager of the Clash, from the early punk days to LONDON CALLING and touring America. Ray Lowry accompanied the band as official 'war artist' on the second American tour and designed the London Calling album cover. Together, in words and pictures, Green and Lowry give the definitive, inside story on one of the most magnificent rock 'n' roll bands ever.
A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano
by Katie HafnerThe story of a legendary pianist's obsession with the unique, temperamental instrument he loved. Important figures in Gould's life are introduced including his nearly blind tuner.
A Sacred Feast: Reflections on Sacred Harp Singing and Dinner on the Ground (At Table)
by Kathryn EastburnSome have called Sacred Harp singing America&’s earliest music. This powerful nondenominational religious singing, part of a deeply held Southern culture, has spread throughout the nation over the past two centuries. In A Sacred Feast, Kathryn Eastburn journeys into the community of Sacred Harp singers across the country and introduces readers to the curious glories of a tradition that is practiced today just as it was two hundred years ago. Each of the book&’s chapters visits a different region and features recipes from the accompanying culinary tradition—dinner on the ground, a hearty noontime feast. From oven-cooked pulled pork barbeque to Dollar Store cornbread dressing to red velvet cake, these recipes tell a story of nourishing the body, the soul, and the voice. The Sacred Harp&’s deeply moving sound and spirit resonate through these pages, captured at conventions in Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, Colorado, and Washington, conveyed in portraits of singers, and celebrated in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of all-day singing and dinner on the ground echoing through generations and centuries.
A Schoenberg Reader: Documents of a Life
by Joseph Henry AunerArnold Schoenberg and his music have been objects of celebration, controversy, and vilification for more than a century, from the time of his first performances to the present day. Not surprisingly, in accounts of his life and works by both his champions and his critics the adjective Schoenbergian has come to mean so many things as to be almost meaningless.
A Scots Song: A Life of Music
by James MacmillanThe celebrated composer shares the story of his musical development and discusses the inspiration he finds in spirituality and his Scottish roots. Sir James MacMillan first burst into prominence in 1990 with the premiere of his composition The Confessions of Isobel Gowdie, about a 17th century Scottish woman who confessed to withccraft. A steady stream of works followed, many of which combined spiritual and political themes. Working extensively in the realm of religious music, MacMillan composed Tu Es Petrus for the Pope&’s mass at Westminster Cathedral in 2010. His works are heard around the world, and his Stabat Mater received a private performance at the Sistine Chapel in 2018. In A Scots Song, MacMillan recounts his journey to becoming one of the most acclaimed composures in contemporary classical music.
A Seat at the Table: Interviews with Women on the Frontline of Music
by Amy Raphael'Fascinating and illuminating' STYLIST'Perceptive and candid' IRISH TIMES'Wide-ranging, deep-dive, soul-baring interviews, full of candid, intimate, spiky meditations on inspiration, artistry, sexuality, race, love, self-doubt, abuse, defiance and everything in between' OBSERVER'Variously optimistic, troubling, joyful, illuminating, fierce and thoughtful' GUARDIANINTERVIEWS WITH WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINE OF MUSICWriter and critic Amy Raphael has interviewed some of the world's most iconic musicians, including Courtney Love, Patti Smith, Björk, Kurt Cobain and Elton John. In 1995 she wrote the critically-acclaimed Never Mind the Bollocks: Women Rewrite Rock, which included a foreword by Debbie Harry. More than two decades on, the music business has changed, but the way women are regarded has not. In this new book, A Seat at the Table, Raphael interviews eighteen women who work in the music industry about learning to speak out, #MeToo, social media, queer politics and the subtleness of everyday misogyny. Featuring interviews with:CHRISTINE & THE QUEENS, IBEYI, KAE TEMPEST, ALISON MOYET, NADINE SHAH, JESSICA CURRY, MAGGIE ROGERS, EMMY THE GREAT, DREAM WIFE, NATALIE MERCHANT, LAUREN MAYBERRY, POPPY AJUDHA, KALIE SHORR, TRACEY THORN, MITSKI, CATHERINE MARKS, GEORGIA, CLARA AMFO
A Semiotic Approach to Open Notations: Ambiguity as Opportunity (Elements in Music since 1945)
by Tristan McKayAlong with twentieth-century developments in playing techniques, technologies, and concepts of musical sound, the notations employed by composers have also changed. Composers of what Umberto Eco calls 'open works' often employ intentionally ambiguous music notations. These open notations ask the performer to play a radical and active role in co-creating the musical work. Scores that feature open notations have been part of the Western classical music landscape since the mid-twentieth century, and continue to have a vibrant community of practitioners today. In this Element, Tristan McKay considers intersections of ambiguity, authority, and identity in works with open notations. He develops a semiotic approach to open notation analysis and puts it into practice with in-depth analyses of openly notated works by Earle Brown, Will Redman, and Leah Asher.
A Severed Wasp (Vigneras #3)
by Madeleine L'EngleFamed concert pianist Katherine Vigneras returns home to New York City for her retirement and hopes to enjoy the simple pleasures of living and a respite from the celebrity's life she once enjoyed. Unhappily, other people's problems intrude and she begins to function as an adviser, which stirs up forgotten memories.
A Ship Without A Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart
by Gary MarmorsteinAn unforgettable portrait of an exuberant yet troubled artist who so enriched the American songbook "Blue Moon, " "Where or When, " "The Lady Is a Tramp," "My Funny Valentine," "Isn't It Romantic?," "My Romance," "There's a Small Hotel," "Falling in Love with Love," "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"--lyricist Lorenz Hart, together with composer Richard Rodgers, wrote some of the most memorable songs ever created. More than half a century after their collaboration ended, Rodgers & Hart songs are indispensable to the repertoire of nightclub singers everywhere. A Ship Without a Sail is the story of the complicated man who was Lorenz Hart. His lyrics spin with brilliance and sophistication, yet at their core is an unmistakable wistfulness. The sweetness of "My Romance" and "Isn't It Romantic?" is unsurpassed in American song, but Hart's lyrics could also be cynical, funny, ironic. He brought a unique wit and elegance to popular music. Larry Hart and Richard Rodgers wrote approximately thirty Broadway musicals and dozens of songs for Hollywood films. At least four of their musicals--On Your Toes, Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse, and Pal Joey-- have become classics. But despite their prodigious collaboration, Rodgers and Hart were an odd couple. Rodgers was precise, punctual, heterosexual, handsome, and eager to be accepted by Society. Hart was barely five feet tall, alcoholic, homosexual, and more comfortable in a bar or restaurant than anywhere else. Terrified of solitude, he invariably threw the party and picked up the check. His lyrics are all the more remarkable considering that he never sustained a romantic relationship, living his entire life with his mother, who died only months before he died at age forty-eight. Gary Marmorstein's revelatory biography includes many of the lyrics that define Hart's legacy--those clever, touching stanzas that still move us or make us laugh.
A Ship without a Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart
by Gary MarmorsteinAn unforgettable portrait of an exuberant yet troubled artist who so enriched the American songbook "Blue Moon, " "Where or When, " "The Lady Is a Tramp," "My Funny Valentine," "Isn't It Romantic?," "My Romance," "There's a Small Hotel," "Falling in Love with Love," "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"--lyricist Lorenz Hart, together with composer Richard Rodgers, wrote some of the most memorable songs ever created. More than half a century after their collaboration ended, Rodgers & Hart songs are indispensable to the repertoire of nightclub singers everywhere. A Ship Without a Sail is the story of the complicated man who was Lorenz Hart. His lyrics spin with brilliance and sophistication, yet at their core is an unmistakable wistfulness. The sweetness of "My Romance" and "Isn't It Romantic?" is unsurpassed in American song, but Hart's lyrics could also be cynical, funny, ironic. He brought a unique wit and elegance to popular music. Larry Hart and Richard Rodgers wrote approximately thirty Broadway musicals and dozens of songs for Hollywood films. At least four of their musicals--On Your Toes, Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse, and Pal Joey-- have become classics. But despite their prodigious collaboration, Rodgers and Hart were an odd couple. Rodgers was precise, punctual, heterosexual, handsome, and eager to be accepted by Society. Hart was barely five feet tall, alcoholic, homosexual, and more comfortable in a bar or restaurant than anywhere else. Terrified of solitude, he invariably threw the party and picked up the check. His lyrics are all the more remarkable considering that he never sustained a romantic relationship, living his entire life with his mother, who died only months before he died at age forty-eight. Gary Marmorstein's revelatory biography includes many of the lyrics that define Hart's legacy--those clever, touching stanzas that still move us or make us laugh.
A Shirt Box Full of Songs: The Autobiography
by Barbara DicksonFrom singing to the postman when she was two years old to her annual sell-out tours in the 2000s, Barbara Dickson has been captivating her fans for the best part of sixty years. In her autobiography she describes the joys of growing up in Fife with her talented brother and loving parents, of moving to Edinburgh to find her place in the world and the stresses and strains of trying to make a living on the Scottish folk scene. Not content to have just a successful singing career, she turned to another: acting. A regular on prime-time television, Barbara also took to musicals and was the original lead role in Spend, Spend, Spend. Her hugely successful time onstage earned her many acting accolades but her pursuit of perfection led to complete exhaustion from which she fought hard to recover. Barbara writes beautifully about the close relationships she cultivated over these years with people such as Willy Russell, Elaine Paige and Billy Connolly. The result is a warm, fascinating story encompassing the best of British music, stage and television.
A Short Guide to Writing about Music
by Jonathan D. BellmanWritten in a clear and conversational style, A Short Guide to Writing About Music examines a wide range of writing assignments for music courses at all levels of the undergraduate curriculum. Employing a variety of writing samples as a means to illustrate effective writing, this brief and inexpensive text teaches writers how to deftly research and write about music.
A Short History of Opera
by Hermine Weigel Williams Donald GroutWhen first published in 1947, A Short History of Opera immediately achieved international status as a classic in the field. Now, more than five decades later, this thoroughly revised and expanded fourth edition informs and entertains opera lovers just as its predecessors have.The fourth edition incorporates new scholarship that traces the most important developments in the evolution of musical drama. After surveying anticipations of the operatic form in the lyric theater of the Greeks, medieval dramatic music, and other forerunners, the book reveals the genre's beginnings in the seventeenth century and follows its progress to the present day. A Short History of Opera examines not only the standard performance repertoire, but also works considered important for the genre's development. Its expanded scope investigates opera from Eastern European countries and Finland. The section on twentieth-century opera has been reorganized around national operatic traditions including a chapter devoted solely to opera in the United States, which incorporates material on the American musical and ties between classical opera and popular musical theater. A separate section on Chinese opera is also included.With an extensive multilanguage bibliography, more than one hundred musical examples, and stage illustrations, this authoritative one-volume survey will be invaluable to students and serious opera buffs. New fans will also find it highly accessible and informative. Extremely thorough in its coverage, A Short History of Opera is now more than ever the book to turn to for anyone who wants to know about the history of this art form.
A Shostakovich Casebook (Russian Music Studies)
by Malcolm Hamrick BrownA collection of writings analyzing the controversial 1979 posthumous memoirs of the great Russian composer at their significance.In 1979, the alleged memoirs of legendary composer Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975) were published as Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitry Shostakovich As Related to and Edited by Solomon Volkov. Since its appearance, however, Testimony has been the focus of controversy in Shostakovich studies as doubts were raised concerning its authenticity and the role of its editor, Volkov, in creating the book.A Shostakovich Casebook presents twenty-five essays, interviews, newspaper articles, and reviews—many newly available since the collapse of the Soviet Union—that review the “case” of Shostakovich. In addition to authoritatively reassessing Testimony’s genesis and reception, the authors in this book address issues of political influence on musical creativity and the role of the artist within a totalitarian society. Internationally known contributors include Richard Taruskin, Laurel E. Fay, and Irina Antonovna Shostakovich, the composer’s widow. This volume combines a balanced reconsideration of the Testimony controversy with an examination of what the controversy signifies for all music historians, performers, and thoughtful listeners.Praise for A Shostakovich Casebook“A major event . . . This Casebook is not only about Volkov’s Testimony, it is about music old and new in the 20th century, about the cultural legacy of one of that century’s most extravagant social experiments, and what we have to learn from them, not only what they ought to learn from us.” —Caryl Emerson, Princeton University