"Because ignorance of your culture is considered uncool"
Within the vast heading of The History Of Music, I don’t think there is, or will ever be, a shortage of musicians and composers whose work has gone mostly unnoticed, or at best, largely underrated. Lily Bienvenu is one of those composers. To be fair, she is known for composing...
News clips, various stations and broadcasts – August 1959 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – L.A. has never been a town to shy away from controversy – the city was practically built on it. Unlike former rival San Francisco, who embraced quirky and bohemian almost like a long-lost relative, L.A....
The Amazing Horace Silver this weekend. Recorded from the stage at Newport 1958 for the Voice Of America. After playing tenor saxophone and piano at school in Connecticut, Horace Silver got his break on piano when his trio was recruited by Stan Getz in 1950. Silver soon moved to New...
With the Cold War in full-bloom, the war of nerves and the hysteria was reaching fever-pitch. From Capitol Hill came a contentious set of Congressional hearings over purported Communist influence in the State Department. In the witness chair was Senator Joseph McCarthy and the war of words raged for hours,...
Another historic concert from the vault. This week it’s the BBC Symphony, in concert from Royal Festival Hall in May of 1959, guest conducted by Nino Sanzogno with the legendary Italian Pianist Pietro Scarpini in music of Mendelssohn, Petrassi and Moussorgsky. The program starts with the Italian Symphony of Mendelssohn....
News for the week ending on March 4, 1950 had a lot to do with the Cold War and the ever-present threatening cloud of catastrophe which seemed to spread over most of the world. One of the key figures in the development of the Atomic Bomb, David Lilienthal referred to...
Background For Headlines: The Beat Generation – CBS-West Coast/KNX, Los Angeles – 1958 – USC Digital Library Collection – With the passing earlier this week of Beat Generation icon, publisher and activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti, attention has been drawn to that period of our cultural history that has, to a degree,...
Lawrence Ferlinghetti Reads A Coney Island Of The Mind – December 12, 1956 – SFSU Poetry Center Digital Archives – With the sad, although somewhat inevitable news that Poet, Publisher and Political iconoclast Lawrence Ferlinghetti left the earth plane earlier today at age 101, it struck home that one more...
Busy day in World affairs and a busy day in domestic ones. While the eyes of the world were focused on Britain this February 23rd in 1950, waiting for election results, the eyes of American were focused on the Coal Strike where ten states were called on to invoke emergency...
Rescuing and preserving take a village: Become a Patron! Back to Paris tonight for a 1st French performance of the Concerto for 2 Cellos and Orchestra by Paul Tortelier. The Concerto was originally premiered in Germany in 1951, but since there is no date on the transcriptions I have, it’s...
