It’s difficult to overstate the impact Thelonious Monk had on jazz. One needs to only look at the list of musicians he performed with over the years to understand just how vital he was to the genre. It’s a virtual who’s who of the style’s giants – Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Buddy Rich, just to name a few. He stands as a towering figure in modern music, performing for more than 30 years and inspiring virtually every jazz artist since he first hit a key. So, it would be difficult for an author to not produce a compelling story when presented with such a rich and fertile subject. However, Leslie Gourse somehow found a way to not find a story. Leslie Gourse's "Straight, No Chaser" provides a clinical, scholarly look at one ...
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Dystopian fiction often paints a dark and gritty picture of a far away future. The masses usually become subjected to a small ruling class that maintains order with strict and barbaric methods. It’s strange to me that they found a pocket of relevance in recent years with the box office success of “The Hunger Games” film franchise and the critical lauding of the TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale.” I’m sure people of a certain political persuasion would say this has to do with the current climate we find ourselves in. Maybe that’s true. However, it could also be true that as technological advances push us further from our hunter/gatherer roots, the prospect of total societal collapse feels more eminent than it ever has. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley often finds itself on the “Best Dyst...
Read MoreI am an unapologetic fan boy of virtually everything Jeff Tweedy has done. I won’t claim knowing about Uncle Tupelo while they were still making music, but I was lucky enough to catch part of Wilco’s second stage set at the Horde Festival in 1995. We were milling around in the main pavilion when my buddy Jason Bryant recognized one of their songs and dragged us all out to one of the saddest little stages I’ve ever seen. I don’t remember a whole lot about the songs we saw, but I do remember some nappy haired freak of a guitar player playing one of the fastest and amazing runs I had ever heard. From that point on, I was a convert and the devotion would only grow over time. Jeff Tweedy's memoir "Let's Go (So We Can Get Back)" features stories about his childhood, his family and his ba...
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