News & Updates — soundtrack

Groovy Guitarist Grant Green was a regular presence on Blue Note Records and with funky organ combos. He was rooted in bop, blues and R&B and adapted his sound and approach to many different styles. He was inspired mostly by horn players, although he rarely worked with them. He effortlessly laid down lots of fluid single-note runs, and the only guitarists he seems to have cited as influence were Charlie Christian and Jimmy Raney. From St Louis, was playing in gospel bands by 12, before getting into rock & roll and R&B. He first recorded in '59 with Jimmy Forrest...

The influential ambient/electronic/new age composer Edgar Froese, the figurehead for experimental krautrock band Tangerine Dream, was born on this day (D-Day in '44). He lost his father to the Nazis, but his mother and he ended up in West Berlin after the war. When Froese started Tangerine Dream in '67, he was interested in surrealism, dada, old poetry and free-form rock. Over the course of several decades (and line-up changes) the band would help to define krautrock, new age, ambient, electronica, going from Jimi Hendrix & Pink Floyd-inspired psychedelia to environmental music, classical passages to space rock, soundtracks for film...

Happy birthday to one of the greats, Curtis Mayfield! Singer, composer, guitarist, record label owner, businessman, civil rights hero, movie musician, talent scout, psych-soul songwriter, Black Power icon, Chicago legend and so much more.

Happy birthday to the Greek-French composer Iannis Xenakis, he of a million ideas. From chamber ensemble to reeds to percussion to electronics, game theory, computers, orchestral and architectural, he was, in my opinion, one of the most exciting and relevant on the so-called 20th Century composers. He took up arms against the British during the Greek civil war and had half his face blown off, losing an eye. After that he was exiled to France, as he was sentenced to death in Greece for his Communist actions. He sought to utilize his expertise in mathematics and architecture in his music...