When Native Dancer was first released in 1974, it was marketed as a Wayne Shorter album. That made a certain undeniable sense: an alumnus of one of Miles Davis’s greatest groups (it also included Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams and Ron Carter), Shorter was by...
written by
Joe Nocera
Gershwin: Bess, You Is My Woman Now
If you read my final New York Times op-ed column on Tuesday, you know that it drives me batty that American’s greatest opera company won’t perform America’s greatest opera. It has been nearly a quarter of a century since the Metropolitan Opera last put on a...
Adam Guettel: How Glory Goes
It is not exactly news that Adam Guettel is a composer of immense talent. The grandson of Richard Rodgers (one is required to note that when writing about Guettel), he has a transcendent melodic gift, and has written more than his fair share of gorgeous theater...
Louis Armstrong performs “Black and Blue”
On March 7, 1965, Louis Armstrong was in Denmark, where he watched in horror the televised images of civil rights marchers in Selma being brutally attacked by police. When Danish reporters asked Armstrong for his reaction, he said angrily that he had become...
Joyce Moreno
I fell in love with Joyce Moreno—musically, that is—two years ago when I stumbled into Birdland one evening in search of a Brazilian music fix. The well-known composer-singer Dori Caymmi (“Obsession; “The Look of Love”) was playing that night, and his group included a...
Song of the Day: November 6
Today’s Song of the Day selection comes from New York Times columnist Joe Nocera: When Native Dancer was first released in 1974, it was marketed as a Wayne Shorter album. That made a certain undeniable sense: an alumnus of one of Miles Davis’s greatest groups (it also...