News & Updates — vintage footage

Unless you are a Brasileiro or follow modern Brazilian music you probably don't know who Chico Science was but he was a favorite of mine. In fact his band, Nação Zumbi, have continued to tour the world and make fresh albums mixing samba, psychedelia, funk and hard rock, along with regional folk styles of Northeast Brazil. Francisco de Assis França was born in the Northeastern state of Pernambuco, literally coming out of the swamps ("mangue"), and he helped found the manguebeat movement in Recife, a collective identity that nurtured the highly original arts and music scene that was on the...

The Italian-Argentine immigrant Astor Piazzolla rose out of the NYC slums to become the world's most noted avant-tango composer, fusing the traditional with classical, jazz and (later) electronics. He was a standing-up master of the bandoneon, but could also play piano. He heard jazz while growing up in NYC, but still loved tango orchestras and studied classical. One of his heroes, the great tango bandleader Carlos Gardel, was impressed enough with Astor's chops that he asked the 13-yr old to join his orchestra for a tour but Piazzolla's father refused to allow it. Of course, it was that very tour...

Happy birthday to the Italian-American sculptor and sound artist Harry Bertoia! He was a jewelry-maker and designer who hit big with some finely crafted chairs. This allowed him to concentrate on creating these unique sound sculptures that lived in his barn that doubled as a mini concert hall. He would strike or "play" these things and the sound would reverberate into my amazed eardrums. I first heard these otherwordly sounds when a cache of self-produced "Sonambient" albums were found and distributed to the public in the mid-1990s. I bought a few of these records and still treasure them to this...

Happy birthday to the harmolodic genius Ornette Coleman! His saxophone crying and unique compositional style were as groundbreaking on the avant-garde jazz front as John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor & Sunny Murray, Sun Ra and Albert Ayler were in that new freedom era that started in the late '50s and caused an avalanche of free-jazz in the '60s. In fact, it was Coleman's "double-quartet" album, Free Jazz -from '60, which gave name to a whole genre to follow. The musical revolutionary grew up poor in Fort Worth TX and learned to sight-read and started teaching himself alto sax at 14, right...

The Memphis-born Arthur Lee heard and played jazz, R&B and surf music before forming a psychedelic folk-rock band in 1965 called Love, and they became one of the most popular bands on the L.A. club scene and remain a cult favorite to this day. Love's music was not just folk-rock, as the music sounded flamenco, garage, pop, blues, hard rock and funk elements as well, and Lee himself collaborated with several singers and musicians including Jimi Hendrix, Billy Preston and Ornette Coleman and is considered a proto-punk figure. He was born as Arthur Taylor, his early years were spent in...