Can a sentence swing and a paragraph bop? Is it possible for prose to be as stripped down and cool as a Miles Davis trumpet solo, or a poem to be as incantatory as John Coltrane’s saxophone? Despite all of the musical genres which the United States contributed to contemporary culture, most of them born from the specifically African American experience it should be added, jazz remains in many ways the lodestar of our melodic and rhythmic firmament, the “Classical Music” of America (as complicated as that assertion might be). As to demonstrate the international inheritance which the music repre ..read more

Yesterday, the iconic Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna published a memoir with Ecco/HarperCollins. And Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk is already being touted as an “electric, searing” history from one of rock’s biggest icons. Unfortunately, the book has some competition. From a nefarious bevy of other Hanna biographies dropping this week, almost all of which appear to be written by AI. In a pretty-even-keeled-considering Instagram post, Hanna informed fans about the doppelganger books, and asked readers not to buy them. She, however, does plan to snag copies. Mostly out of curiosity re: the ..read more

Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary describes a jazzman as “a performer of jazz,” with the term dating back to the Jazz Age in 1926. But while it provides definitions for fancy woman, saleswoman, and madwoman, it doesn’t recognize the word jazzwoman (or jazz woman). The same holds true for sideman, which we learn means a member of a band, especially one playing jazz or swing, and more specifically “a supporting instrumentalist.” But nada for sidewoman or side woman (although it does define a widow woman and a little woman). What a dictionary includes and what it ignores offer insights int ..read more

On waking last Friday to news that somewhere, some poets were being tortured, I spent some time trawling through album reviews. Music criticism has always fascinated me. On the one hand, there is something ineffable baked into the enterprise. (I get why some have compared music writing to dancing about architecture.) On the other, consider the singular literary form. A good critique can be a passionate beast, blending essay and poetry and off-the-cuff musing. A great critique can point you to a future favorite, or simply be fun to read on its own. Such waxing got me sad all over again about t ..read more

In 1962, when Mary McCarthy reviewed Pale Fire for The New Republic, she called it “a Jack-in-the-box, a Faberge gem, a clockwork toy, a chess problem, an infernal machine, a trap to catch reviewers, a cat-and-mouse game, a do-it-yourself novel.” Sixty-two years later, the 27-year-old writer/actress Tavi Gevinson has released a gender-swapped pastiche of Pale Fire, about one writer’s obsession with arguably the most popular poet in America, in the form a 75-page self-published zine titled Fan Fiction that I consumed cover-to-cover in a state of monomaniacal ecstasy that reminded me of being—w ..read more

Angie calls in a high state of excitement: they’re going to see Elvis at Madison Square Garden in New York City. “Come over, David must look wonderful!” I want to go with them…there’s no chance of that happening, but still, a girl can dream. As I drive to Haddon Hall, I can’t help but think over and over…they’re going to see ELVIS! When I get there, David is full of nervous energy, pacing up and down, smoking one cigarette after another. All he talks about is meeting Elvis—how it will be, what he should say, what he should wear and, above all else, how can he look really young? He wants to be ..read more

I know there are more beautiful things than Beyoncé. But I’m also 1) grateful for any pop artist committed to reinvention and 2) actively trying to be less of a killjoy, just for my spirit’s sake. That said: happy New Bey day, to all who celebrate.  Much (tedious) has already been said about Bey’s “going country.” I am not here to litigate—though I will say that I wish I had a southbound highway to speed on, while listening to this album. What I am most fascinated by is the pastiche in Cowboy Carter. For as she paid tribute to disco in Renaissance, on the new record Bey is laying laurels ..read more

Image: Tom Verlaine of Television on stage in London, April 1978. Credit: Gus Stewart/Redferns Tom Verlaine—visionary Television frontman, saint you should know—died in January of 2023. But some fans are still sifting through his legacy. In the figurative sense, of course—1977’s Marquee Moon remains an iconic post-punk masterpiece—but also literally sifting, as in “through his possessions.” That’s right, superfans. If you crave a piece of music history, you too can currently purchase a book from the late singer’s personal library.  Verlaine was an avid and eccentric reader. (According to ..read more

In March 1989, I found myself riding an elevator, heart knocking, to the fourteenth floor of the Essex House on Central Park South to interview Miles Davis. It was an assignment I’d lucked into through my magazine‑editor brother, who knew a Vanity Fair editor who’d said he needed a profile of Miles to accompany an excerpt from the trumpet legend’s forthcoming memoir, coauthored by Quincy Troupe. The writer, the Vanity Fair editor told my brother, should know jazz. My brother, Peter W. Kaplan, told him that I didn’t just know jazz; I knew everything there was to know about it. This was hyperbo ..read more

When Nas described himself as the “most critically acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winner / Best storyteller / Thug narrator / My styles greater” on his song “Hate Me Now” (1999), he was foretelling something monumental on the horizon. The Pulitzer Prize for Music is considered one of the nation’s most distinguished honors. First awarded in 1943, it recognizes “a distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance in the United States during the year.” During the prize’s first eighty years, the award for music was given annually except on four occasions, in 1953, 1964 ..read more