At the onset of recorded sound, Bert Williams and his partner George Walker billed themselves as “Two Real Coons,” thus tossing up for grabs every term in the phrase but the word two. Right at the beginning they put the wink to the promise of recorded documentation. The reality they documented was not individual, not … Read more

The notion of the Great American Novel died the moment Hollywood was invented and though the idea was briefly resurrected in the mid-20th century, it died again with the birth of rock and roll. Bruce Springsteen has always gone for the grand gesture and his 9/11 album The Rising was an honorable attempt at a … Read more

Fate’s a bitch ain’t it? I mean here we are. Celebrating what the magic realist, essayist, poet – and literary seer of sorts – Ben Okri regards as “probably the first great historic moment with a positive charge in the 21st Century.” The man you are bound to hear about and from, possibly for the … Read more

Charles O’Brien’s “At Ease in Azania” was originally printed 20 years ago in an obscure (and now defunct) journal. It will be reprinted this fall in the next volume of “First of the Year”. O’Brien’s piece begins with Paul Simon’s “Graceland” but it rock and rolls back to the 60s before returning to the Motherland … Read more

Twenty-First Century Renaissance By Armond White Michael Jackson’s renaissance (occasioned by his death past June at age 50) is the most encouraging event to happen in pop culture over the last quarter century. All summer long now, every where you go, Jackson’s music rises from car speakers, p.a. systems, spills out of strangers’ headphones. It’s … Read more

Birdland, NYC Jan 19-23, 2010 When last (& first) they met, it was billed “The Grand Collaboration.” The production was the brainchild of the great Max Roach, one of the most formidable musicians to emerge in the 40’s with music media named “Bebop.” He is one of the original Boperators of that innovative upsurge of … Read more