Today marks the 109th birthday of tenor saxophonist Lester Young, the first so-called modernist instrumental stylist in jazz. His playing and hip, creative use of musician’s jargon is admired for breaking from the prevailing saxophone style of Coleman Hawkins. In his classic recordings with Count Basie’s Orchestra, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman and others, he demonstrated …
“Yes, yes, let’s talk about the weather.” – Chorus, Act I, No. 9, The Pirates of Penzance, or, the Slave of Duty It has been an unusually rainy summer here in the Mid-Atlantic (and spring, for that matter)! Let’s get through this deluge with a variety of music about rain from the Music Division’s collections. …
The following is a guest post from Dr. Daniel Callahan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at Boston College, who will be presenting the Spring 2018 American Musicological Society/Library of Congress lecture on Tuesday, May 15, 2018 (tomorrow). The event is free and open to the public. Dear Bradley Cooper and Jake Gyllenhaal, …
It’s International Jazz Day! When our friends from the Prints & Photographs Division let us know that they’d be featuring favorite jazz-related items today on their blog, Picture This, I couldn’t let the day go by without a related post. Of course, the Music Division is home to outstanding jazz collections that document the life …
