224 Books About Music in David Byrne’s Personal Library

in Books, Music | February 14th, 2017

Image by LivePict, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

The mean­ing of the word “library” has nev­er been more ambigu­ous. When we can vir­tu­al­ly car­ry library-sized col­lec­tions of images, music, lit­er­a­ture and ref­er­ence data in our pock­ets, what are phys­i­cal libraries but muse­ums of a sort? Of course, from the point of view of librar­i­ans espe­cial­ly, this isn’t true in the least. Libraries are fortress­es of free speech, pub­lic edu­ca­tion, and “infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy” at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el. Rather than obso­lete or sec­ondary, they may be more nec­es­sary than ever.

On a larg­er view both of these things are true. For mil­lions of peo­ple, phys­i­cal libraries have become sec­ondary and will remain so, but they also remain com­mu­ni­ty resources of para­mount impor­tance. As Ted Mills post­ed here in the sum­mer of 2015, Talk­ing Heads front­man, “poly­math and all-around swell per­son David Byrne” affirmed that lat­ter sta­tus of the phys­i­cal library when he leant out 250 books on music from his per­son­al library to them­selves be leant out at a library host­ed by the 22nd annu­al Melt­down Fes­ti­val and London’s Poet­ry Library.

“I love a library,” wrote Byre in his own Guardian essay announc­ing the project.

I grew up in sub­ur­ban Bal­ti­more and the sub­urbs were not a par­tic­u­lar­ly cos­mopoli­tan place. We were des­per­ate to know what was going on in the cool places, and, giv­en some sug­ges­tions and direc­tion, the library was one place where that wider excit­ing world became avail­able. In my lit­tle town, the library also had vinyl that one could check out and I dis­cov­ered avant-garde com­posers such as Xenakis and Mes­si­aen, folk music from var­i­ous parts of the world and even some pop records that weren’t get­ting much radio play in Bal­ti­more. It was tru­ly a for­ma­tive place.

Hav­ing grown up in the DC sub­urbs in the years before the inter­net, I can relate, and would add the impor­tance of local music stores and afford­able all-age venues. But Byrne has nev­er stayed tied to the media of his youth. Dur­ing his sev­er­al decades as a cul­tur­al crit­ic and arts edu­ca­tor, he has made ecu­meni­cal use of mun­dane new tech­nolo­gies to inter­ro­gate the sta­tus of oth­er old­er forms. One recent project, for exam­ple, con­sist­ed of a 96-page book and 20-minute DVD about his exper­i­ments in Pow­er­Point art. One of the ques­tions raised by the project, writes Veronique Vienne, is whether the book is “an anti­quat­ed cul­tur­al arti­fact” in an age of hyper­vi­su­al­iza­tion.

Clear­ly for Byrne him­self, the answer is no, and that answer is close­ly con­nect­ed to the ques­tion of com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion vers­es open access, whether through libraries or free online archives. “The idea of read­ing books for free,” he writes, “didn’t kill the pub­lish­ing busi­ness, on the con­trary, it cre­at­ed nations of lit­er­ate and pas­sion­ate read­ers. Shared inter­ests and the impulse to cre­ate.” Byrne’s library reflects a life­time of shared inter­ests and cre­ative inspi­ra­tion. He him­self has spent his life writ­ing about music in spite of the clever max­im that such a ven­ture is like “danc­ing about archi­tec­ture.” It is, he writes, “stim­u­lat­ing and inspir­ing nonethe­less.”

In the spir­it of shar­ing infor­ma­tion and cham­pi­oning libraries, Brain Pick­ings’ Maria Popo­va pub­lished a list of near­ly all of the titles in Byrne’s lend­ing library, with links to pub­lic library edi­tions near you through World­Cat. Find the full list below, cour­tesy of David Byrne’s site, and see Brain Picking’s list and short essay here.

1. 40 Watts from Nowhere: A Jour­ney into Pirate Radio by Sue Car­pen­ter
2. A div­ina come­dia dos Mutantes by Car­los Cal­a­do
3. A Pho­to­graph­ic Record: 1969–1980 by Mick Rock
4. A Thelo­nious Monk: Study Album by Lionel Grig­son
5. A Whole Room for Music: A Short Guide to the Bal­four Build­ing Music Mak­ers’ Gallery by Helene La Rue
6. Acoustic Ter­ri­to­ries: Sound Cul­ture and Every­day Life by Bran­don Labelle
7. Acoustics for Radio and Tele­vi­sion Stu­dios by Christo­pher Gil­ford
8. Africa Dances by Geof­frey Gor­er
9. African Music: A People’s Art by Fran­cis Bebey
10. African Rhythm and African Sen­si­bil­i­ty by John Miller Cher­noff
11. Afro-Amer­i­can Folk Songs by H.E. Kre­hbiel
12. AfroPop! An Illus­trat­ed Guide to Con­tem­po­rary African Music by Sean Bar­low & Ban­ning Eyre
13. All You Need to Know About the Music Busi­ness by Don­ald S. Pass­man
14. Aloud: Voic­es from the Nuy­or­i­can Poets Cafè by Miguel Algar­in & Bob Hol­man
15. An Illus­trat­ed Trea­sury of Songs by Nation­al Gallery of Art
16. And They All Sang: Adven­tures of an Eclec­tic Disc Jock­ey by Studs Terkel
17. Arranged Mar­riage by Wal­lace Berman & Robert Watts
18. Audio Cul­ture: Read­ings in Mod­ern Music by Cristoph Cox & Daniel Warn­er
19. Austin City Lim­its: 35 Years in Pho­tographs by Scott New­ton & Ter­ry Lick­ona
20. Bacha­ta: A Social His­to­ry of a Domini­can Pop­u­lar Music by Deb­o­rah Paci­ni Her­nan­dez
21. Ban­dal­ism: The Rock Group Sur­vival Guide by Julian Ridg­way
22. Beats of the Heart: Pop­u­lar Music of the World by Jere­my Marre & Han­nah Charl­ton
23. Best Music Writ­ing 2001 by Nick Horn­by & Ben Schafer
24. Best Music Writ­ing 2002 by Jonathan Lethem & Paul Bres­nick
25. Best Music Writ­ing 2003 by Matt Groen­ing & Paul Bres­nick
26. Best Music Writ­ing 2006 by Mary Gait­skill & Daphne Carr
27. Best Music Writ­ing 2007 by Robert Christ­gau & Daphne Carr
28. Bicy­cle Diaries by David Byrne
29. Black Music of Two Worlds by John Storm Roberts
30. Black Rhythms of Peru: Reviv­ing African Musi­cal Her­itage in the Black Pacif­ic by Hei­di Car­olyn Fei­d­man
31. Blues Gui­tar: The Men Who Made the Music by Jas Obrecht
32. Bossa Nova: The Sto­ry of the Brazil­ian Music that Seduced the World by Ruy Cas­tro
33. Bots­ford Col­lec­tion of Folk Songs Vol­ume 1 by Flo­rence Hud­son Bots­ford
34. Bots­ford Col­lec­tion of Folk Songs Vol­ume 2 by Flo­rence Hud­son Bots­ford
35. Bound for Glo­ry by Woody Guthrie
36. Bour­bon Street Black: The New Orleans Black Jazzman by Jack V Buerkle & Dan­ny Bark­er
37. Brazil­ian Pop­u­lar Music and Cit­i­zen­ship by Idel­ber Ave­lar & Christo­pher Dunn
38. Bru­tal­i­ty Gar­den: Trop­i­calla and the Emer­gence of a Brazil­ian Coun­ter­cul­ture by Christo­pher Dunn
39. Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise by David Rothen­berg
40. But Beau­ti­ful: A Book About Jazz by Geoff Dyer
41. Can­cioneiro Vini­cius De Moraes by Orfeu
42. Cap­tur­ing Sound: How Tech­nol­o­gy Has Changed Music by Mark Katz
43. Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Mar­ley by Tim­o­thy White
44. Cham­bers by Alvin Luci­er & Dou­glas Simon
45. Chin­aber­ry Side­walks: A Mem­oir by Rod­ney Crow­ell
46. Chris Stein/Negative: Me, Blondie and the Advent of Punk by Deb­o­rah Har­ry, Glenn O’Brien & Shep­ard Fairey
47. Clan­des­ti­no: In Search of Manu Chao by Peter Cul­shaw
48. Clothes Music Boys by Viv Alber­tine
49. Coci­nan­do! Fifty Years of Latin Cov­er Art by Pablo Ygle­sias
50. Con­jun­to by John Dyer
51. Con­ver­sa­tions with Glenn Gould by Jonathan Cott
52. Con­vers­ing with Cage by Richard Koste­lan­etz
53. Copy­rights & Copy­wrongs: The Rise of Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty and How it Threat­ens Cre­ativ­i­ty by Siva Vaid­hyanathan
54. Danc­ing in Your Head: Jazz, Blues, Rock and Beyond by Gene San­toro
55. Desert Plants: Con­ver­sa­tions with Twen­ty-Three Amer­i­can Musi­cians by Wal­ter Zim­mer­man
56. Dic­cionario de Jazz Lati­no by Nat Che­di­ak
57. Dic­cionario del Rock Lati­no by Nat Che­di­ak
58. Dri­ving Through Cuba: Rare Encoun­ters in the Land of Sug­ar Cane and Rev­o­lu­tion by Car­lo Gebler
59. Drum­ming at the Edge of Mag­ic: A Jour­ney into the Spir­it of Per­cus­sion by Mick­ey Hart & Jay Stevens
60. Essays on Music by Theodor W. Adorno
61. Exper­i­men­tal Music: Cage and Beyond by Michael Nyman
62. Fair Use: The Sto­ry of the Let­ter U and the Numer­al 2 by Neg­a­tiv­land
63. Fela Fela: This Bitch of a Life by Car­los Moore
64. Fetish & Fame: The 1997 MTV Video Music Awards by David Fel­ton
65. Fin­ish­ing the Hat: Col­lect­ed Lyrics (1954–1981) with Atten­dant Com­ments, Prin­ci­ples, Here­sies, Grudges, Whines and Anec­dotes by Stephen Sond­heim
66. Folk and Tra­di­tion­al Music of the West­ern Con­ti­nents by Bruno Net­tl
67. Folk Song Style and Cul­ture by Alan Lomax
68. Folk: The Essen­tial Album Guide by Neal Walers & Bri­an Mans­field
69. For­mal­ized Music: Thought and Math­e­mat­ics in Com­po­si­tion by Ian­nis Xenakis
70. Fotografie in Musi­ca by Gui­do Harari
71. Gen­e­sis of a Music by Har­ry Partch
72. Give my Regards to Eighth Street: Col­lect­ed Writ­ings of Mor­ton Feld­man by B.H. Fried­man
73. Graviko­rds, Whirlies, & Pyro­phones: Exper­i­men­tal Musi­cal Instru­ments by Bart Hop­kin
74. Guia Esen­cial De La Sal­sa by Jose Manuel Gomez
75. Gui­tar Zero: The New Musi­cian and the Sci­ence of Learn­ing by Gary Mar­cus
77. Hear­ing Cul­tures: Essays on Sound, Lis­ten­ing, and Moder­ni­ty by Veit Erl­mann
78. Here Come the Reg­u­lars: How to Run a Record Label on a Shoe­string Bud­get by Ian Ander­son
79. He Stopped Lov­ing Her Today: George Jones, Bil­ly Sher­rill and the Pret­ty-Much Total­ly True Sto­ry of the Mak­ing of the Great­est Coun­try Record of All Time by Jack Isen­hour
80. Hip Hop: The Illus­trat­ed His­to­ry of Break Danc­ing, Rap Music and Graf­fi­ti by Steven Hager
81. Hit Men by Fred­er­ic Dan­nen
82. Hitsville: The 100 Great­est Rock ‘n’ Roll Mag­a­zines 1954–1968 by Alan Betrock
83. Homo Aes­theti­cus: Where Art Comes From and Why by Ellen Dis­sanayake
84. Hot Stuff: Dis­co and the Remak­ing of Amer­i­can Cul­ture by Alice Echols
85. How Music Works: The Sci­ence and Psy­chol­o­gy of Beau­ti­ful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Bea­t­les and Beyond by John Pow­ell
86. Hun­gry for Heav­en: Rock and Roll and the Search for Redemp­tion by Steve Turn­er
87. I Have Seen the End of the World and it Looks Like This by Bob Schnei­der
88. I’ll Take You There Mavis Sta­ples: The Sta­ple Songers, and the March Up Freedom’s High­way by Greg Kot
89. In Pur­suit of Silence: Lis­ten­ing for Mean­ing in a World of Noise by George Prochnik
90. Indi­an Music by B. Chai­tanya Deva
91. It Ain’t Easy: Long John Baldry and the Birth of the British Blues by Paul Myers
92. Japan­ese Music and Musi­cal Instru­ments by William P. Malm
93. Javanese Game­lan by Jen­nifer Lind­say
94. Jazz by William Clax­ton
95. Knit­ting Music by Michael Dorf
96. La Travi­a­ta: In Full Score by Giuseppe Ver­di
97. Lau­rie Ander­son by John How­ell
98. Leon Geico: Cron­i­ca de un Sueno by Oscar Finkel­stein
99. Lex­i­con of Musi­cal Invec­tive by Nico­las Slonim­sky
101. Light Strings: Impres­sions of the Gui­tar by Ralph Gib­son & Andy Sum­mers
102. Lis­ten Again: A Momen­tary His­to­ry of Pop Music by Eric Weis­bard
103. Lis­ten­ing Through the Noise: the Aes­thet­ics of Exper­i­men­tal Elec­tron­ic Music by Joan­na Demers
104. Lis­ten to This by Alex Ross
105. Look, I Made a Hat: Col­lect­ed Lyrics (1981–2011) with Atten­dant Com­ments, Ampli­fi­ca­tions, Dog­mas, Harangues, Digres­sions, Anec­dotes and Mis­cel­lany by Stephen Sond­heim
106. Love Goes to Build­ings on Fire: Music Made New in New York City in the ’70s by Will Her­mes
107. Love in Vain: The Life and Leg­end of Robert John­son by Allen Green­berg
108. Love Saves the Day: A His­to­ry of Amer­i­can Dance Music Cul­ture by Tim Lawrence
109. Low by Hugo Wilck­en
110. Luck­ing Out: My Life Get­ting Down and Semi-dirty in Sev­en­ties New York by James Wol­cott
111. Macum­ba: The Teach­ings of Maria-Jose, Moth­er of the Gods by Serge Bram­ly
112. Man­go Mam­bo by Adal
113. Mas­ters of Con­tem­po­rary Brazil­ian Song: MPB 1965–1985 by Charles Per­rone
114. Max’s Kansas City: Art, Glam­our, Rock and Roll by Steven Kash­er
115. Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Hel­lu­va Ride with Tom­my James and the Shon­dells by Tom­my James
116. Miles: The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy by Miles Davis with Quin­cy Troupe
117. Min­ger­ing Mike: The Amaz­ing Career of an imag­i­nary Soul Super­star by Dori Hadar
118. Mis­ter Jel­ly Roll: The For­tunes of Jel­ly Roll Mor­ton, New Orleans Cre­ole and “Inven­tor of Jazz” by Alan Lomax
119. Mix Tape: The Art of Cas­sette Cul­ture by Thurston Moore
120. Music by Paul Bowles
121. Music and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion by Ter­ence McLaugh­lin
122. Music and Glob­al­iza­tion: Crit­i­cal Encoun­ters by Bob W. White
123. Music and the Brain: Stud­ies in the Neu­rol­o­gy of Music by Mac­Don­ald Critch­ley & R. A. Hen­son
124. Music and the Mind by Antho­ny Storr
125. Music and Trance: A The­o­ry of the Rela­tions between Music and Pos­ses­sion by Gilbert Rouget
126. Music Cul­tures of the Pacif­ic, The Near East, and Asia by William P. Malm
128. Music in Cuba by Ale­jo Car­pen­tier
129. Music, Lan­guage and the Brain by Anirud­dh D. Patel
130. Musi­ca Cubana Del Arey­to a la Nue­va Tro­va by Dr. Cristo­bal Diaz Ayala
131. Musi­cal Instru­ments of the World: An Illus­trat­ed Ency­clo­pe­dia with More than 4,000 Orig­i­nal Draw­ings by Ruth Midge­ly
132. Musi­cophil­ia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliv­er Sacks
133. My Music by Susan D Crafts, Daniel Cav­ic­chi & Charles Keil
134. New York Noise: Art and Music from the New York Under­ground 1978–88 by Stu­art Bak­er
135. Noise: A Human His­to­ry of Sound & Lis­ten­ing by David Hendy
136. Noise: The Polit­i­cal Econ­o­my of Music by Jacques Attali
137. Nota­tions by John Cage
138. Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambi­ent Sound and Imag­i­nary Worlds by David Toop
139. On Son­ic Art by Trevor Wishart
140. Opera 101: A Com­plete Guide to Learn­ing and Lov­ing the Opera by Fred Plotkin
141. Patron­iz­ing The Arts by Mar­jorie Gar­ber
142. Per­fect­ing Sound For­ev­er: An Aur­al His­to­ry of Record­ed Music by Greg Mil­ner
143. Pet Shop Boys: Lit­er­al­ly by Chris Heath
144. Pop­u­lar Musics of the Non-West­ern World: An Intro­duc­to­ry Sur­vey by Peter Manuel
145. The Pow­er of Music: Pio­neer­ing Dis­cov­er­ies in the Sci­ence of Song by Ele­na Mannes
146. Pre­sent­ing Celia Cruz by Alex­is Rodriguez-Duarte
147. Psy­chot­ic Reac­tions and Car­bu­re­tor Dung by Lester Bangs
148. Queens of Havana: The Amaz­ing Adven­tures of the Leg­endary Anacaona, Cuba’s First All-Girl Dance Band by Ali­cia Cas­tro
149. Recor­dan­do a Tito Puente: El Rey del Tim­bal by Steven Loza
150. Reflec­tions on Mace­don­ian Music: Past and Future by Dim­itri­je Buzarovs­ki
151. Remem­ber­ing the Future by Luciano Berio
152. Repeat­ed Takes: A Short His­to­ry of Record­ing Music and Its Effect on Music by Michael Chanan
153. Rev­o­lu­tion in the Head: The Bea­t­les Records and the Six­ties by Ian Mac­don­ald
154. Rhythm & Blues in New Orleans by John Broven
155. Rock ‘n’ Roll is Here to Pay: The His­to­ry of Pol­i­tics in the Music Indus­try by Steve Shap­ple & Reebee Garo­fa­lo
156. Rock Archives by Michael Ochs
157. Rock Images: 1970–1990 by Claude Gassian
158. Rock Lives: Pro­files and Inter­views by Tim­o­thy White
159. Sal­sa Guide­book for Piano & Ensem­ble by Rebe­ca Mauleon
160. Sal­sa: The Rhythm of Latin Music by Ger­ard Sheller
161. Sal­si­ol­o­gy: Afro-Cuban Music and the Evo­lu­tion of Sal­sa in New York City by Ver­non W. Bog­gs
162. Sam­ba by Alma Guiller­mo­pri­eto
163. Son­ic Trans­ports: New Fron­tiers in Our Music by Cole Gagne
164. Son­ic War­fare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecol­o­gy of Fear by Steve Good­man
165. Souled Amer­i­can: How Black Music Trans­formed White Cul­ture by Kevin Phin­ney
166. Sound­ing New Media: Immer­sion and Embod­i­ment in the Arts and Cul­ture by Frances Dyson
167. Sound­ings by Neu­berg­er Muse­um
168. South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bay­ous by John Broven
169. Spaces Speak, Are You Lis­ten­ing: Expe­ri­enc­ing Aur­al Archi­tec­ture by Bar­ry Bless­er & Lin­da-Ruth Salter
170. Spir­it Ris­ing: My Life, My Music by Angelique Kid­jo
171. Star­mak­ing Machin­ery: The Odyssey of an Album by Geof­frey Stokes
172. Stock­hausen: Con­ver­sa­tions with the Com­pos­er by Jonathan Cott
173. Stolen Moments: Con­ver­sa­tions with Con­tem­po­rary Musi­cians by Tom Schn­abel
174. Stomp­ing the Blues by Albert Mur­ray
175. Tan­go: The Art His­to­ry of Love by Robert Far­ris Thomp­son
176. Text-Sound Texts by Richard Koste­lan­etz
177. The ABCs of Rock by Melis­sa Duke Mooney
178. The Agony of Mod­ern Music by Hen­ry Pleas­ants
179. The Anthro­pol­o­gy of Music by Alan P. Mer­ri­am
180. The Art of Ask­ing: How I Learned to Stop Wor­ry­ing and Let Peo­ple Help by Aman­da Palmer
181. The Bea­t­les: Record­ing Ses­sions by Mark Lewisohn
182. The Book of Drugs: A Mem­oir by Mike Dougher­ty
183. The Brazil­ian Sounds: Sam­ba, Bossa Nova, and the Pop­u­lar Music of Brazil by Chris McGowan & Ricar­do Pes­san­ha
184. The Faber Book of Pop by Hanif Kureishi & Jon Sav­age
185. The Great Ani­mal Orches­tra: Find­ing the Ori­gins of Music in the World’s Wild Places by Bernie Krause
186. The Human Voice by Jean Cocteau
187. The Kacham­ba Broth­ers’ Band: A Study of Neo-Tra­di­tion­al Music in Malawi by Ger­hard Kubik
188. The Last Hol­i­day: A Mem­oir by Gil Scott-Heron
189. The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin Amer­i­can Music on the Unit­ed States by John Storm Roberts
190. The Life and Times of Lit­tle Richard: The Quasar of Rock by Charles White
191. The Merge Records Com­pan­ion: A Visu­al Discog­ra­phy of the First Twen­ty Years by Merge Records
192. The Music Instinct by Philip Ball
193. The Music of Brazil by David P. Apple­by
194. The Mys­tery of Sam­ba: Pop­u­lar Music and the Nation­al Iden­ti­ty in Brazil by Her­mano Vian­na
195. The New Woman Poems: A Trib­ute to Mer­cedes Sosa by Nestor Rodriguez Lacoren
196. The Per­former Pre­pares by Robert Cald­well
197. The Ratio­nal and Social Foun­da­tions of Music by Max Weber
198. The Record: Con­tem­po­rary Art and Vinyl by Trevor Schoon­make
199. The Record­ing Angel: Music, Records and Cul­ture from Aris­to­tle to Zap­pa by Evan Eisen­berg
200. The Rest is Noise: Lis­ten­ing to the Twen­ti­eth Cen­tu­ry by Alex Ross
201. The Rolling Stone Inter­views: The 1980s by Var­i­ous
202. The Shape of Things to Come: Prophe­cy and the Amer­i­can Voice by Greil Mar­cus
203. The Sound Book: The Sci­ence of the Son­ic Won­ders of the World by Trevor Cox
204. The Sun and the Drum: African Roots in Jamaican Folk Tra­di­tion by Leonard Bar­rett
205. The Think­ing Ear by R. Mur­ray Schafer
206. The Tra­di­tion­al Music of Japan by Kishibe Shi­geo
207. The Tri­umph of Music: The Rise of Com­posers, Musi­cians and Their Art by Tim Blan­ning
208. The Veil of Silence by Dju­ra
209. The Wilco Book by Dan Nadel
210. This Busi­ness of Music: The Defin­i­tive Guide to the Music Indus­try by M. William Krasilovsky & Sid­ney Shemel
211. This is Your Brain on Music: The Sci­ence of Human Obses­sion by Daniel J. Lev­itin
212. Through Music to Self by Peter Michael Hamel
213. West African Rhythms for Drum­set by Roy­al Har­ti­gan
214. What Good are the Arts? by John Carey
215. White Bicy­cles: Mak­ing Music in the 1960’s by Joe Boyd
216. Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Pho­to­graph­ic His­to­ry 1955–Present by Gail Buck­land
218. Whose Music? A Soci­ol­o­gy of Musi­cal Lan­guages by John Shep­ard, Phil Vir­d­en, Gra­ham Vul­liamy, Trevor Wishart
219. Why is This Coun­try Danc­ing: A One-Man Sam­ba to the Beat of Brazil by John Krich
220. Woody Guthrie: A Life by Joe Klein
221. The Rough Guide to World Music: Latin and North Amer­i­ca, Caribbean, India, Asia, and Pacif­ic: An A‑Z of the Music, Musi­cians and Discs by Simon Broughton & Mark Elling­ham
222. The Rough Guide to World Music: Sal­sa to Souk­ous, Cajun to Calyp­so by Simon Broughton, Mark Elling­ham, David Mud­dy­man & Richard Tril­lo
223. World: The Essen­tial Album Guide by Adam McGov­ern
224. Yakety Yak: The Mid­night Con­fes­sions and Rev­e­la­tions of Thir­ty-Sev­en Rock Stars and Leg­ends by Scott Cohen

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Byrne’s Per­son­al Lend­ing Library Is Now Open: 250 Books Ready to Be Checked Out

David Byrne & Neil deGrasse Tyson Explain the Impor­tance of an Arts Edu­ca­tion (and How It Strength­ens Sci­ence & Civ­i­liza­tion)

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The Velvet Underground’s John Cale Plays Erik Satie’s Vexations on I’ve Got a Secret (1963)

in Music, Television | February 13th, 2017

Few of us today, in search of uncon­ven­tion­al artistry, would imag­ine mid-20th-cen­tu­ry CBS game shows as a promis­ing resource. But look­ing back, it turns out that Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion of that era — a time and place when more peo­ple were exposed to the very same media than any before or since — man­aged to bring a sur­pris­ing num­ber of gen­uine cre­ators before its main­stream-of-the-main­stream audi­ence. In 1960, for instance, exper­i­men­tal com­pos­er John Cage per­formed Water Walk, his piece for a bath­tub, pitch­er, and ice cubes, on I’ve Got a Secret.

Three years lat­er, Cage’s near-name­sake John Cale took the show’s stage to play Erik Satie’s “melan­cholic yet dead­pan, eccle­si­as­ti­cal yet demon­ic” Vex­a­tions. Though Cage did­n’t make a reap­pear­ance for the occa­sion, he did have a con­nec­tion to the music itself.

Dat­ing to 1893 or 1894 and unpub­lished dur­ing Satie’s life­time, Vex­a­tions’ score con­tains a note from the com­pos­er: “Pour se jouer 840 fois de suite ce motif, il sera bon de se pré­par­er au préal­able, et dans le plus grand silence, par des immo­bil­ités sérieuses,” tak­en by the piece’s inter­preters to mean that they should play it 840 times in a row.

Or at least that’s how Cage and col­lab­o­ra­tor Lewis Lloyd inter­pret­ed it when they staged its first pub­lic per­for­mance in 1963 at the Pock­et The­atre in Man­hat­tan. Its rotat­ing ros­ter of play­ers, under the ban­ner of the Pock­et The­atre Piano Relay Team, includ­ed a 21-year-old Cale. One week lat­er on I’ve Got a Secret, the young Welsh­man’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in this dar­ing per­for­mance con­sti­tut­ed the secret the play­ers had to guess. Hav­ing deter­mined that his achieve­ment has some­thing to do with music, one lady asks the crit­i­cal ques­tion: “Does it have any­thing to do with endurance?”

Yes, replies Cale, although the episode’s oth­er secret-bear­er, Karl Schen­z­er of the Liv­ing The­ater, may have per­formed the real act of endurance as the sole audi­ence mem­ber who stayed to watch the whole eigh­teen hours and forty min­utes. (He cer­tain­ly got a deal: Cage, believ­ing that “the more art you con­sume, the less it should cost,” gave each audi­ence mem­ber a five-cent refund for every twen­ty min­utes they stayed.) I’ve Got a Secret’s home view­ers then saw and heard Cale play Vex­a­tions, or at least 1/840th of it. They would hear from him again in his capac­i­ty as a found­ing mem­ber of the Vel­vet Under­ground — a band some of them would learn about a cou­ple years lat­er on the very same net­work’s Evening News with Wal­ter Cronkite.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nico, Lou Reed & John Cale Sing the Clas­sic Vel­vet Under­ground Song ‘Femme Fatale’ (Paris, 1972)

Lou Reed, John Cale & Nico Reunite, Play Acoustic Vel­vet Under­ground Songs on French TV, 1972

Watch William S. Bur­roughs’ Ah Pook is Here as an Ani­mat­ed Film, with Music By John Cale

John Cage Per­forms Water Walk on US Game Show I’ve Got a Secret (1960)

A Son­ic Intro­duc­tion to Avant-Garde Music: Stream 145 Min­utes of 20th Cen­tu­ry Art Music, Includ­ing Mod­ernism, Futur­ism, Dadaism & Beyond

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Hear the First Jazz Record, Which Launched the Jazz Age: “Livery Stable Blues” (1917)

in Music | February 10th, 2017

Through turn-of-the-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca mean­dered blues, blue­grass, and “old time” music. Gospel hymns, waltzes, and march­es. Per­haps the first tru­ly nation­al musi­cal style, Rag­time took a lit­tle bit from all of these and fused them togeth­er, influ­enc­ing every­thing from the crud­est vaude­ville to the work of some of Europe’s most inno­v­a­tive com­posers, includ­ing Antonin Dvořák, Claude Debussy, and Erik Satie. But rag­time was still very much tied to the past, to its late 19th roots in min­strel­sy and march­es.

Then in 1917, a sound arrived that was so per­fect­ly in tune with the age that it became sin­gu­lar­ly evoca­tive of next decade to come. This was jazz, of course, or “jass,” as it was spelled on “Liv­ery Sta­ble Blues,” the first record of such music ever released, com­posed and played by the Orig­i­nal Dix­ieland ‘Jass’ Band. The music arrived with the force of the “garage rock of the 1960s…. It was sim­ple music played with so much irrev­er­ence that it proved irre­sistible” to Amer­i­cans caught up in the coun­try’s rapid urban­iza­tion and mod­ern­iz­ing.

The first jazz record was tran­si­tion­al music—not nec­es­sar­i­ly a jazz big bang moment; “loos­er and more spon­ta­neous than the rag­time that had swept the coun­try at the turn of the cen­tu­ry,” writes Geof­frey Himes at Smith­son­ian, “but lack­ing the impro­vised solos and elas­tic rhythm of jazz to come.” Just as in the emer­gence of rock and roll in the 1950s, most jazz fans first came to know white groups like the Orig­i­nal Dix­ieland ‘Jass’ Band before they met the black New Orlea­ni­ans who invent­ed the music.

But imme­di­ate­ly after “Liv­ery Sta­ble Blues” the mar­ket was awash with both “jass” and “jazz” releas­es, includ­ing the first by a black Amer­i­can jazz act, Wilbur Sweat­man and his Jass Band, and a jazz record from the leg­endary blues pio­neer W.C. Handy from Mem­phis. Between 1916 and 1917, jazz went nation­wide: New York, Chica­go, St. Louis, San Fran­cis­co, and just about every­where else in-between. As it spread its ori­gins became mud­dled. “Just how the Jazz Band orig­i­nat­ed and where it came from is very hard to say,” wrote the sleeve of one lat­er 1917 release.

Music his­to­ri­ans agree that jazz was born in the night­clubs and on the streets of New Orleans, the home town of the Orig­i­nal Dix­ieland ‘Jass’ Band. But “the ques­tion of who did what first,” writes Scott Alexan­der, “and what was rag­time and what was jazz is often a divi­sive ques­tion among those who are inter­est­ed in ear­ly jazz.” Yet when it comes to mak­ing pop his­to­ry, “Liv­ery Sta­ble Blues” had greater impact than some­what sim­i­lar-sound­ing records released around the same time. “The band was a sen­sa­tion” writes Himes. And almost overnight the sound of jazz became the sound of 20th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Smith­son­ian

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Langston Hugh­es Presents the His­to­ry of Jazz in an Illus­trat­ed Children’s Book (1955)

1959: The Year That Changed Jazz

The His­to­ry of Spir­i­tu­al Jazz: Hear a Tran­scen­dent 12-Hour Mix Fea­tur­ing John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Her­bie Han­cock & More

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Why We Love Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”: An Animated Music Lesson

in Animation, K-12, Life, Music, TED Talks | February 10th, 2017

Remem­ber lis­ten­ing to Peter and the Wolf as a child, how the nar­ra­tor would explain that cer­tain instru­ments cor­re­spond to par­tic­u­lar char­ac­ters:  the duck — an oboe, the wolf — three horns, and so on?

In the above TED-Ed les­son (mem­o­rably ani­mat­ed by Com­pote Col­lec­tive), music his­to­ri­an Bet­sy Schwarm ful­fills much the same role for The Four Sea­sons by Anto­nio Vival­di. (Stream it here.)

Why are we so drawn to this Baroque con­cer­to? Is it because we asso­ciate it with brunch?

The hun­dreds of movies and com­mer­cials that have fea­tured it?

(Direc­tor Robert Ben­ton chose Vival­di rather than an orig­i­nal com­pos­er for the score of Kramer vs. Kramer, argu­ing that “Con­cer­to in C Major for Man­dolin & Strings” cap­tured the trou­bled Man­hat­tan couple’s refined lifestyle far bet­ter than the John Williams-esque bom­bast the ear asso­ciates with some many oth­er cin­e­mat­ic hits of the peri­od. The 1979 film’s suc­cess sent “The Four Sea­sons” to the top of the charts.)

These pleas­ant asso­ci­a­tions no doubt account for some of our fond­ness, but Pro­fes­sor Schwarm posits that the sto­ries con­tained in the melodies are what real­ly reel us in.

Basi­cal­ly, we’re in the thrall of a musi­cal weath­er report, rev­el­ing in the way Vival­di man­ages to bring to life both the birdies’ sun­ny spring song and the sud­den thun­der­storm that dis­rupts it.

Sum­mer rolls out the mete­o­ro­log­i­cal big guns with a hail­storm.

Autumn’s cool­er night­time tem­per­a­tures keep the wine-flushed peas­ants from turn­ing their har­vest cel­e­bra­tions into a full-on bac­cha­nal.

Win­ter? Well per­haps you’re tucked up con­tent­ed­ly in front of the fire­place right now, grat­i­fied to be hear­ing your own com­fort echoed in the largo sec­tion.

Inspired by the land­scape paint­ings of artist, Mar­co Ric­ci, Vival­di penned four poems that dri­ve the move­ments of his most famous work. Their trans­la­tions, below, are nowhere near as elo­quent to the mod­ern listener’s ear, but you’ll find that read­ing them along with your favorite record­ing of the Four Sea­sons will cor­rob­o­rate Pro­fes­sor Schwarm’s the­sis.

Spring – Con­cer­to in E Major

Alle­gro

Spring­time is upon us.

The birds cel­e­brate her return with fes­tive song,

and mur­mur­ing streams are soft­ly caressed by the breezes.

Thun­der­storms, those her­alds of Spring, roar, cast­ing their dark man­tle over heav­en,

Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charm­ing songs once more.

Largo

On the flower-strewn mead­ow, with leafy branch­es rustling over­head, the goat-herd sleeps, his faith­ful dog beside him.

Alle­gro

Led by the fes­tive sound of rus­tic bag­pipes, nymphs and shep­herds light­ly dance beneath the bril­liant canopy of spring.

Sum­mer – Con­cer­to in g‑minor

Alle­gro non molto

Beneath the blaz­ing sun’s relent­less heat

men and flocks are swel­ter­ing,

pines are scorched.

We hear the cuck­oo’s voice; then sweet songs of the tur­tle dove and finch are heard.

Soft breezes stir the air….but threat­en­ing north wind sweeps them sud­den­ly aside. The shep­herd trem­bles, fear­ful of vio­lent storm and what may lie ahead.

Ada­gio e piano — Presto e forte

His limbs are now awak­ened from their repose by fear of light­ning’s flash and thun­der’s roar, as gnats and flies buzz furi­ous­ly around.

Presto

Alas, his worst fears were jus­ti­fied, as the heav­ens roar and great hail­stones beat down upon the proud­ly stand­ing corn.

Autumn – Con­cer­to in F Major

Alle­gro

The peas­ant cel­e­brates with song and dance the har­vest safe­ly gath­ered in.

The cup of Bac­chus flows freely, and many find their relief in deep slum­ber.

Ada­gio molto

The singing and the danc­ing die away

as cool­ing breezes fan the pleas­ant air,

invit­ing all to sleep

with­out a care.

Alle­gro

The hunters emerge at dawn,

ready for the chase,

with horns and dogs and cries.

Their quar­ry flees while they give chase.

Ter­ri­fied and wound­ed, the prey strug­gles on,

but, har­ried, dies

Win­ter – Con­cer­to in F‑minor

Alle­gro non molto

Shiv­er­ing, frozen mid the frosty snow in bit­ing, sting­ing winds;

run­ning to and fro to stamp one’s icy feet, teeth chat­ter­ing in the bit­ter chill.

Largo

To rest con­tent­ed­ly beside the hearth, while those out­side are drenched by pour­ing rain.

Alle­gro

We tread the icy path slow­ly and cau­tious­ly, for fear of trip­ping and falling.

Then turn abrupt­ly, slip, crash on the ground and, ris­ing, has­ten on across the ice lest it cracks up.

We feel the chill north winds coarse through the home despite the locked and bolt­ed doors…

this is win­ter, which nonethe­less brings its own delights.

 


You can down­load the Wichi­ta State Uni­ver­si­ty Cham­ber Play­ers’ record­ing of Vivaldi’s “Four Sea­sons” for free here.

See how well you retained your TED-ED les­son with a mul­ti­ple choice quiz, then read more here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Why We Love Rep­e­ti­tion in Music: Explained in a New TED-Ed Ani­ma­tion

Stream 58 Hours of Free Clas­si­cal Music Select­ed to Help You Study, Work, or Sim­ply Relax

The World Con­cert Hall: Lis­ten To The Best Live Clas­si­cal Music Con­certs for Free

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her play Zam­boni Godot is open­ing in New York City in less than three weeks. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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A Sonic Introduction to Avant-Garde Music: Stream 145 Minutes of 20th Century Art Music, Including Modernism, Futurism, Dadaism & Beyond

in Art, Music | February 9th, 2017

Avant-garde com­posers of the 20th cen­tu­ry have left a vex­ing lega­cy, begin­ning per­haps with one of the cen­tu­ry’s first min­i­mal­ists, Erik Satie (1866 –1925), whose career illus­trates a cen­tral para­dox of exper­i­men­tal music: it can seem to most of us total­ly inac­ces­si­ble, alien, and frus­trat­ing, yet it is also a per­va­sive influ­ence on the sound of our every­day life.

For exam­ple, we are like­ly to nev­er encounter, much less could most of us endure, the full mea­sure of Satie’s 1893 Vex­a­tions, a short piece “melan­cholic yet dead­pan, eccle­si­as­ti­cal yet demon­ic, strange­ly lack­ing direc­tion,” and meant, writes Nick Shave at The Guardian, to be “repeat­ed 840 times.” Long thought an iron­ic joke, in 1963 John Cage took up the chal­lenge and with a “relay team of pianists, includ­ing John Cale,” staged a marathon per­for­mance at the end of which only one per­son remained in the audi­ence.

Then we have the Satie of Gymnopédie No.1, a mov­ing com­po­si­tion we’ve heard count­less times in films, tele­vi­sion shows, din­ner par­ties, restau­rants, etc. This piece and oth­ers like it, argues WFMU’s Ken­neth Gold­smith, mark the birth of Ambi­ent music, or what Satie puck­ish­ly called Fur­ni­ture Music. “Today,” Gold­smith writes, “Fur­ni­ture Music is unavoid­able,” and every­one from Bri­an Eno to Aphex Twin to “the entire Muzak phe­nom­e­non… owes a debt to The Vel­vet Gen­tle­man.”

Both the acces­si­ble and dif­fi­cult strains of the eccen­tric French com­pos­er have been equal­ly influ­en­tial, and “just about every rad­i­cal musi­cal move­ment” of the pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry “can trace its roots back to Satie.” As we move through the century—encountering the work of Dada artists, Futur­ists, sym­phon­ic mod­ernists, and musique con­crète and ear­ly elec­tron­ic pioneers—we find an enor­mous breadth of exper­i­men­ta­tion, both strange­ly intim­i­dat­ing and often strange­ly famil­iar, giv­en how per­va­sive its influ­ence on film and “fur­ni­ture” music as well as on con­tem­po­rary com­posers.

If you’re new to the dis­so­nant and play­ful inno­va­tions of artists like Satie, F.T. Marinet­ti, Kurt Schwit­ters, Arnold Schoen­berg, Karl­heinz Stock­hausen, Györ­gy Ligeti and oth­er provo­ca­teurs and rad­i­cals of the ear­ly decades of the last cen­tu­ry, you could hard­ly do worse by way of intro­duc­tion than the dou­ble com­pi­la­tion album above from LTM Record­ings. Titled A Young Person’s Guide to the Avant-Garde and con­sist­ing of 26 tracks in total, the com­pi­la­tion includes an excerpt of Igor Stravinsky’s scandalous—for the time—1913 The Rite of Spring, and John Cage’s per­plex­ing 1952 work of silence, 4’33” and begins with a mer­ci­ful­ly brief 3‑minute ren­di­tion of Satie’s Vex­a­tions. (If you need Spo­ti­fy’s free soft­ware, down­load it here. If you have any prob­lems play­ing the embed­ded playlist, please click on this link.)

We also have music from names we typ­i­cal­ly asso­ciate with visu­al art (Mar­cel Duchamp, Fran­cis Picabia) and film (Jean Cocteau). And you will sure­ly rec­og­nize the final piece, Ligeti’s “Atmos­pheres,” from Stan­ley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The col­lec­tion, writes The Tre­buchet in their review, “sub­tly hints at the fact that film sound­tracks are the clos­est thing we have to grand com­po­si­tions these days, and in fact the seeds for change were plant­ed long ago dur­ing the era when Con­ti­nen­tal artists and musi­cians took an inter­est in the emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies of auto­mo­biles, planes, and film.”

Then, of course, there were emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies of sound. A Young Person’s Guide (pur­chase a copy online here) ends with Ligeti in 1961, and only hints at the elec­tron­ic avant-garde to come with a 1953 com­po­si­tion from Stock­hausen. This is a shame, since the elec­tron­ic rev­o­lu­tion in music opened doors for so many female exper­i­men­tal­ists like Pauline Oliv­eros, Daphne Oram, and Eliane Radigue. As it stands, the col­lec­tion gives us an all-male line­up of artists—and one sure to pro­voke excla­ma­tions of “What about [insert name here]!”

It’s an under­stand­able reac­tion to an ambi­tious but lim­it­ed sur­vey. For the ama­teur or “young per­son” just dis­cov­er­ing this musi­cal his­to­ry, how­ev­er, A Young Person’s Guide to the Avant-Garde offers a rich, com­pelling, and fre­quent­ly con­found­ing selec­tion that can serve as a stur­dy spring­board for fur­ther study and explo­ration. Those so inspired to hear more can find it in the mas­sive archive of The Avant-Garde Project.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Avant-Garde Project: An Archive of Music by 200 Cut­ting-Edge Com­posers, Includ­ing Stravin­sky, Schoen­berg, Cage & More

The Music of Avant-Garde Com­pos­er John Cage Now Avail­able in a Free Online Archive

The Women of the Avant-Garde: An Intro­duc­tion Fea­tur­ing Audio by Gertrude Stein, Kathy Ack­er, Pat­ti Smith & More

Hear the Exper­i­men­tal Music of the Dada Move­ment: Avant-Garde Sounds from a Cen­tu­ry Ago

Meet Four Women Who Pio­neered Elec­tron­ic Music: Daphne Oram, Lau­rie Spiegel, Éliane Radigue & Pauline Oliv­eros

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Improvises and Plays, Completely Unrehearsed, Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell,” Live Onstage (2013)

in Music | February 7th, 2017

Most musi­cians have lit­tle chance of achiev­ing last­ing wealth and fame. It’s a pro­fes­sion in which only a tiny per­cent­age of peo­ple ever “make it”—at least accord­ing to the impos­si­bly high stan­dards of celebri­ty we tend to apply. So why do peo­ple stick with it, year after year, through health scares, finan­cial crises, and all the oth­er grown-up hard­ships that kill many a child­hood dream?

We often mor­bid­ly focus on rock and roll casu­al­ties. Look, how­ev­er, at the stars who do sur­vive the busi­ness decade after decade. Though music may not stave off aging, it clear­ly has the pow­er to pre­serve youth­ful enthu­si­asm long into what some still call retire­ment years. The exam­ples are too numer­ous to list; we could hard­ly do bet­ter than to look at the late career of Bruce Spring­steen.

Like many of his gen­er­a­tion, Spring­steen was turned on to rock and roll by see­ing Elvis, then lat­er the Bea­t­les, on The Ed Sul­li­van Show. And like bud­ding musi­cians still today, he received his first gui­tar at 16 as a gift from his moth­er. (He lat­er wrote a song about it.) Over 50 years lat­er, he’s still got the wide-eyed won­der of his six­teen-year-old self. Or at least he’s will­ing to take teenage risks, pulling out one song every night dur­ing a recent tour with the E Street Band “that we haven’t played since we were, I don’t know, six­teen, or maybe nev­er.”

It takes a youth­ful degree of fearlessness—or recklessness—to stand on stage in front of thou­sands of fans and play a total­ly unre­hearsed tune, espe­cial­ly one as wordy and fine­ly-tuned as Chuck Berry’s “You Nev­er Can Tell.” We know Bruce and the band have chops, so watch­ing them run through a few dif­fer­ent keys before they dig in does­n’t pro­duce too much anx­i­ety. Nonethe­less, their abil­i­ty to throw them­selves into the total unknown, just for fun, makes the per­for­mance seem like the kind of stunt most of us only attempt before we’re taught to set­tle into much more pre­dictable grown-up rou­tines.

How well do they pull off the Berry clas­sic on the spot and unre­hearsed? See for your­self, and then com­pare it to the eter­nal­ly youth­ful man him­self, who at 90 years of age will soon release his first new album in 38 years.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bruce Spring­steen Nar­rates Audio­book Ver­sion of His New Mem­oir (and How to Down­load It for Free)

Bruce Spring­steen Lists 20 of His Favorite Books: The Books That Have Inspired the Song­writer & Now Mem­oirist

Bruce Spring­steen Plays East Berlin in 1988: I’m Not Here For Any Gov­ern­ment. I’ve Come to Play Rock

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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How to Respond to the Challenges of Our Time?: Jazz Legends Herbie Hancock & Wayne Shorter Give 10 Pieces of Advice to Young Artists, and Everyone Else

in Art, Creativity, Current Affairs, Jazz, Music | February 7th, 2017

Some moments in his­to­ry strike us as dra­mat­ic rup­tures. Cer­tain­ties are super­seded, thrown into chaos by a seis­mic event, and we find our­selves adrift and anx­ious. What are artists to do? Gripped by the same fears as every­one else, the same sense of urgency, writ­ers, musi­cians, film­mak­ers, painters, etc. may find them­selves unable to “breathe with uncon­di­tion­al breath / the uncon­di­tioned air,” as Wen­dell Berry once described the cre­ative process.

We might remem­ber the rad­i­cal break with tra­di­tion when the shock­ing car­nage of World War I sent poets and painters into fright­en­ing places they had pre­vi­ous­ly left unex­plored. Vir­ginia Woolf summed up the sit­u­a­tion in her essay The Lean­ing Tow­er: “sud­den­ly like a chasm in a smooth road, the [Great] war came.” Shat­tered as they were, her gen­er­a­tion over­came their paral­y­sis. Mod­ernists of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry were able to speak to their bro­ken age in ways that con­tin­ue to speak to ours.

But we should tem­per our belief that bad times make good art by not­ing that the most vision­ary cre­ative minds are not sim­ply reac­tive, respond­ing to tragedy like reporters on a crime scene. As Wayne Short­er and Her­bie Han­cock— two of the 20th century’s most con­sis­tent­ly inno­v­a­tive musicians—suggest, artists at all times need a set of guid­ing prin­ci­ples. (See the two play “Mem­o­ry of Enchant­ment” above in 2002.) There is always a lot of per­son­al work to do. And in “tur­bu­lent and unpre­dictable times,” the two jazz greats advise, “the answer to peace is sim­ple; it begins with you.”

A plat­i­tude, per­haps, but one they illus­trat­ed near­ly a year ago in an open let­ter at Nest HQ with some pro­found, if chal­leng­ing, pre­scrip­tions for our present cul­tur­al ill­ness­es. Short­er and Hancock’s coun­sel is not a reac­tion to the rup­ture of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, but a response to the events that pre­ced­ed it, “the hor­ror at the Bat­a­clan… the upheaval in Syr­ia and the sense­less blood­shed in San Bernardi­no.” Not pas­sive­ly wait­ing to find out where the past few years’ vio­lence and unrest would lead, the two have made eth­i­cal, philo­soph­i­cal, and spir­i­tu­al inter­ven­tions, pre­sent­ing their phi­los­o­phy and ethics through jazz, Bud­dhism, sci­ence, art, and lit­er­a­ture.

Below, you can read their ten pieces of advice “to the next gen­er­a­tion of artists,” or at least excerpts there­of. They begin with a reas­sur­ing pref­ace: “As an artist, cre­ator and dream­er of this world, we ask you not to be dis­cour­aged by what you see but to use your own lives, and by exten­sion your art, as vehi­cles for the con­struc­tion of peace…. You mat­ter, your actions mat­ter, your art mat­ters.” That said, they also want to assure read­ers that “these thoughts tran­scend pro­fes­sion­al bound­aries and apply to all peo­ple, regard­less of pro­fes­sion.”

First, awak­en to your human­i­ty

You can­not hide behind a pro­fes­sion or instru­ment; you have to be human. Focus your ener­gy on becom­ing the best human you can be. Focus on devel­op­ing empa­thy and com­pas­sion. Through the process you’ll tap into a wealth of inspi­ra­tion root­ed in the com­plex­i­ty and curios­i­ty of what it means to sim­ply exist on this plan­et.

Embrace and con­quer the road less trav­eled

Don’t allow your­self to be hijacked by com­mon rhetoric, or false beliefs and illu­sions about how life should be lived. It’s up to you to be the pio­neers.

Wel­come to the Unknown

Every rela­tion­ship, obsta­cle, inter­ac­tion, etc. is a rehearsal for the next adven­ture in life. Every­thing is con­nect­ed. Every­thing builds. Noth­ing is ever wast­ed. This type of think­ing requires courage. Be coura­geous and do not lose your sense of exhil­a­ra­tion and rev­er­ence for this won­der­ful world around you.

Under­stand the True Nature of Obsta­cles

We have this idea of fail­ure, but it’s not real; it’s an illu­sion. There is no such thing as fail­ure. What you per­ceive as fail­ure is real­ly a new oppor­tu­ni­ty, a new hand of cards, or a new can­vas to cre­ate upon.

Don’t Be Afraid to Inter­act with Those Who Are Dif­fer­ent from You

The world needs more one-on-one inter­ac­tion among peo­ple of diverse ori­gins with a greater empha­sis on art, cul­ture and edu­ca­tion. Our dif­fer­ences are what we have in com­mon…. We need to be con­nect­ing with one anoth­er, learn­ing about one anoth­er, and expe­ri­enc­ing life with one anoth­er. We can nev­er have peace if we can­not under­stand the pain in each other’s hearts.

Strive to Cre­ate Agen­da-Free Dia­logue

Art in any form is a medi­um for dia­logue, which is a pow­er­ful tool… we’re talk­ing about reflect­ing and chal­leng­ing the fears, which pre­vent us from dis­cov­er­ing our unlim­it­ed access to the courage inher­ent in us all.

Be Wary of Ego

Cre­ativ­i­ty can­not flow when only the ego is served.

Work Towards a Busi­ness with­out Bor­ders

The med­ical field has an orga­ni­za­tion called Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders. This lofty effort can serve as a mod­el for tran­scend­ing the lim­i­ta­tions and strate­gies of old busi­ness for­mu­las which are designed to per­pet­u­ate old sys­tems in the guise of new ones.

Appre­ci­ate the Gen­er­a­tion that Walked Before You

Your elders can help you. They are a source of wealth in the form of wis­dom…. Don’t waste time repeat­ing their mis­takes.

Last­ly, We Hope that You Live in a State of Con­stant Won­der

As we accu­mu­late years, parts of our imag­i­na­tion tend to dull. Whether from sad­ness, pro­longed strug­gle, or social con­di­tion­ing, some­where along the way peo­ple for­get how to tap into the inher­ent mag­ic that exists with­in our minds. Don’t let that part of your imag­i­na­tion fade away.

Whether you’re a jazz fan, musi­cian, artist, writer, accoun­tant, cashier, truck­er, teacher, or what­ev­er, I can’t think of a wis­er set of guide­lines with which to con­front the suf­fo­cat­ing epi­dem­ic of cyn­i­cism, delu­sion­al think­ing, ram­pant big­otry, hatred, and self-absorp­tion of our time. Read Short­er and Hancock’s full open let­ter at Nest HQ.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Her­bie Han­cock Presents the Pres­ti­gious Nor­ton Lec­tures at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty: Watch Online

Philoso­pher Jacques Der­ri­da Inter­views Jazz Leg­end Ornette Cole­man: Talk Impro­vi­sa­tion, Lan­guage & Racism (1997)

Jean-Paul Sartre on How Amer­i­can Jazz Lets You Expe­ri­ence Exis­ten­tial­ist Free­dom & Tran­scen­dence

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Discover the 1126 Books in John Cage’s Personal Library: Foucault, Joyce, Wittgenstein, Virginia Woolf, Buckminster Fuller & More

in Books, Literature, Music, Philosophy | February 6th, 2017

Image by or Rob Bogaerts/Fotocollectie Ane­fo

To prop­er­ly hon­or your cul­tur­al role mod­els, don’t try to do what they did, or even to think what they thought, but to think how they thought. This goes at least dou­ble for John Cage, the exper­i­men­tal com­pos­er whose inno­v­a­tive works can be, and often are, re-staged (go on, have four min­utes and 33 sec­onds of silence to your­self), but it takes a dif­fer­ent kind of effort alto­geth­er to cul­ti­vate the kind of mind that would come up with them in the first place. As a means of acti­vat­ing your own inner Cage­ness, you could do much worse than read through his per­son­al library, a list of whose books you’ll find at johncage.org.

The vol­umes num­ber 1126 in total, and if you load the library’s main page, it will present you with a list of ten ran­dom­ly select­ed books. (You can get a list of all of them by select­ing the “See Entire Library” option on the left side­bar.)

Hit­ting refresh a few times will give you a sense of the breadth of Cage’s read­ing: Emma Gold­man on anar­chism, Chi­nese poet­ry gath­ered by Ken­neth Rexroth, M. Con­rad Hyers’ Zen and the Com­ic Spir­it (two of Cage’s dri­ving forces if ever I’ve heard them), How to Play Backgam­mon, essays on Ulysses (an inter­est shared with Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe), and even essays on John Cage. Here we’ve assem­bled a list of ten books from Cage’s library of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to the Open Cul­ture read­er:

To those who know any­thing of Cage’s life and inter­ests, his shelves on healthy eating—on which Din­ing Nat­u­ral­ly in Japan: A Restau­rant Guide to Whole­some Food also appears, as, nat­u­ral­ly giv­en the era and Cage’s acquired north­ern-Cal­i­for­ni­an­ness, The Tas­sa­jara Bread Book—and espe­cial­ly the eat­ing of mush­rooms, come as no sur­prise, nor might his incli­na­tion toward phi­los­o­phy. But we should note what looks like a par­tic­u­lar fas­ci­na­tion with the work of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein, evi­denced by 22 of the books in his library: his best-known works like the Trac­ta­tus Logi­co-Philo­soph­i­cus, but also his let­ters, lec­tures, and note­books, as well as biogra­phies, com­men­taries, and Wittgen­stein and Bud­dhism, which Cage must have con­sid­ered an excit­ing find indeed.

In one of his most quotable quotes, Cage describes col­lege as “two hun­dred peo­ple read­ing the same book. An obvi­ous mis­take. Two hun­dred peo­ple can read two hun­dred books.” And indeed, 1126 peo­ple can read 1126 books—or many more peo­ple can each read a dif­fer­ent sub­set of those books. While you could method­i­cal­ly read your way through Cage’s entire library, and would sure­ly learn a great deal in the process, would­n’t mak­ing use of the unthink­ing guid­ance of the ten-ran­dom-books func­tion, sur­ren­der­ing the direc­tion of this infor­mal edu­ca­tion to the kind of chance that places Paul Bowles next to the com­mon fun­gi of North Amer­i­can and Charles Ives next to Ital­ian futur­ism, be a much more Cagean way of going about it?

(h/t @lrlarson)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Avant-Garde Com­pos­er John Cage’s Sur­pris­ing Mush­room Obses­sion (Which Began with His Pover­ty in the Depres­sion)

The Music of Avant-Garde Com­pos­er John Cage Now Avail­able in a Free Online Archive

John Cage Unbound: A New Dig­i­tal Archive Pre­sent­ed by The New York Pub­lic Library

Jorge Luis Borges Selects 74 Books for Your Per­son­al Library

The 321 Books in David Fos­ter Wallace’s Per­son­al Library: From Blood Merid­i­an to Con­fes­sions of an Unlike­ly Body­builder

A Look Inside Han­nah Arendt’s Per­son­al Library: Down­load Mar­gin­a­lia from 90 Books (Hei­deg­ger, Kant, Marx & More)

The 430 Books in Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Library: How Many Have You Read?

Darwin’s Per­son­al Library Goes Dig­i­tal: 330 Books Online

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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