Prince was a legend of artistry and individuality, a man who lived for his music and positioned himself outside the confines of the recording industry. News of his untimely passing shocked and shattered his millions of fans. Filled with rare and carefully curated photos of Prince from all stages of his career, this visually stunning unofficial music biography tells Prince s story through conversations that journalist (and Prince fanatic) Mobeen Azhar had with the people who knew him best friends, musicians, artists, and members of his inner circle many speaking out about the great artist for the first time. These firsthand accounts paint a more personal picture of Prince than any seen before, and, along with the images, pay homage to the originality, musical genius, glamour, and sex appeal that Prince embodied."

    This work demonstrates Popper's importance across the whole range of philosophy and provides an introduction to the main themes of philosophy itself.

    Packed from cover to cover with stunning color photographs.

    Everyone's wearing black. And on-stage a tenor is blowing his heart out, a searching, jagged saxophone journey played out against a moody, walking bass and the swish of a drummer's brushes. To a great many listeners--from African American aficionados of the period to a whole new group of fans today--this is the very embodiment of jazz. It is also quintessential hard bop. In this, the first thorough study of the subject, jazz expert and enthusiast David H. Rosenthal vividly examines the roots, traditions, explorations and permutations, personalities and recordings of a climactic period in jazz history. Beginning with hard bop's origins as an amalgam of bebop and R&B, Rosenthal narrates the growth of a movement that embraced the heavy beat and bluesy phrasing of such popular artists as Horace Silver and Cannonball Adderley; the stark, astringent, tormented music of saxophonists Jackie McLean and Tina Brooks; the gentler, more lyrical contributions of trumpeter Art Farmer, pianists Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan, composers Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce; and such consciously experimental and truly one-of-a-kind players and composers as Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus. Hard bop welcomed all influences--whether Gospel, the blues, Latin rhythms, or Debussy and Ravel--into its astonishingly creative, hard-swinging orbit. Although its emphasis on expression and downright badness over technical virtuosity was unappreciated by critics, hard bop was the music of black neighborhoods and the last jazz movement to attract the most talented young black musicians. Fortunately, records were there to catch it all. The years between 1955 and 1965 are unrivaled in jazz history for the number of milestones on vinyl. Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um, Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners, Horace Silver's Further Explorations--Rosenthal gives a perceptive cut-by-cut analysis of these and other jazz masterpieces, supplying an essential discography as well. For knowledgeable jazz-lovers and novices alike, Hard Bop is a lively, multi-dimensional, much-needed examination of the artists, the milieus, and above all the sounds of one of America's great musical epochs.

    In the spirit of that iconic, timeless show, these mysterious and gripping narratives explore parallel worlds, faraway planets, dystopian societies, and unsettling reality.•A toddler shifts through parallel worlds, changing into different versions of herself. What would a mother do for her daughter?•A chef finds an alternate food source on a remote world. When the new chef arrives, will he be forced to reveal a horrific secret?•A twelve-year-old Earth girl is randomly chosen to rule the galaxy. Why are galactic administrators so desperate to stop her?•Humanity is on trial, annihilation at stake. Can an underdog alien lawyer save us?•Time seems to stand still as a young boy bikes with his troubled friend. Is the friend causing this phenomenon—and what if he doesn’t stop it?Explore space and time—and confront humanity’s deepest fears—with Ten Tales of a Dark Tomorrow.

    But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics.In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivanthe Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state itself-a history that is drenched in liquor. Scrutinizing (rather than dismissing) the role of alcohol in Russian politics yields a more nuanced understanding of Russian history itself: from palaceintrigues under the tsars to the drunken antics of Soviet and post-Soviet leadership, vodka is there in abundance.Beyond vivid anecdotes, Schrad scours original documents and archival evidence to answer provocative historical questions. How have Russia's rulers used alcohol to solidify their autocratic rule? What role did alcohol play in tsarist coups? Was Nicholas II's ill-fated prohibition a catalyst for theBolshevik Revolution? Could the Soviet Union have become a world power without liquor? How did vodka politics contribute to the collapse of both communism and public health in the 1990s? How can the Kremlin overcome vodka's hurdles to produce greater social well-being, prosperity, and democracy intothe future?Viewing Russian history through the bottom of the vodka bottle helps us to understand why the liquor question remains important to Russian high politics even today-almost a century after the issue had been put to bed in most every other modern state. Indeed, recognizing and confronting vodka'sdevastating political legacies may be the greatest political challenge for this generation of Russia's leadership, as well as the next.

    His close musical associations included such towering figures as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and John and Alan Lomax. He helped lay the foundations for blues, modern folk music, and rock 'n' roll. This definitive biography draws on a wealth of new archival material, interviews, and previously unknown recordings to detail Leadbelly's proud, tumultuous, and often violent life.

    He was an authority on rock & roll, blues, jazz, punk, avant-garde, and world music -- often discovering new artists and trends years (even decades) before they hit the mainstream. Now, noted music writer Anthony DeCurtis has compiled the best pieces from Palmer's oeuvre and presents them here, in one compelling volume.A member of the elite group of the defining rock critics who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, Palmer possessed a vision so complete that, as DeCurtis writes, "it's almost as if, if you read Bob, you didn't need to read anyone else." Blues & Chaos features some of his most memorable pieces, including gripping stories about John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Moroccan trance music, Miles Davis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Philip Glass, and Muddy Waters.Wonderfully entertaining, infused with passion, and deeply inspiring, Blues & Chaos is a must for music fans everywhere.Flirtations with chaos / by Anthony DeCurtis --The big picture : "The opinions expressed are dangerously subjective." --The blues : "A post-Heisenberg-uncertainty-principle mojo hand" --Jazz : "A kinetic kaleidoscope" --The originators : "Where the hell did this man come from?" --Soul and R&B : "It had to come from somewhere, and the church is where it all came from" --Classic rock : "Musically, we weren't afraid to go in any direction whatsoever" --John Lennon and Yoko Ono : "Now the music's coming through me again" --Punk rock and beyond : "Fear and nothing" --World music : "The world is changing and so is our music" --Morocco : "We fell through each other, weightless, into the sky" --On the edge : "Listen, as if a new world had suddenly opened up" --Sonic guitar maelstrom : "All hail the overdriven amp."

    In a collaboration between the Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Neel and her friend, the Tibetan lama Aphur Yongden, these teaching are presented clearly and elegantly, intended for the layman who seeks a way to practice and experience the realization of oneness with all existence."...this is the most direct, no-nonsense, and down-to-earth explanation of Mahayana Buddhism that has been written. Specifically, it is a wonderfully lucid account of the Middle Way method of enlightenment worked out by the great Indian sage Nagarjuna." —Alan Watts, The Book"The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects by Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden, is always on my night stand. I return to it again and again in different stages of my life." —Marina Ambramovic"David-Neél herself is often relegated to the ranks of "women adventurers" this despite the production of some forty-odd books, several of which have wielded an extraordinary influence." —Harry Oldmeadow, La Trobe University, Bendigo, AustraliaAlexandra David-Neel was born in 1868 in Paris. In her youth she wrote an incendiary anarchist treatise and was an acclaimed opera singer; then she decided to devote her life to exploration and the study of world religions, including Buddhist philosophy. She traveled extensively to in Central Asia and the Far East, where she learned a number of Asian languages, including Tibetan. In 1914, she met Lama Yongden, who became her adopted son, teacher, and companion. In 1923, at the age of fifty-five, she disguised herself as a pilgrim and journeyed to Tibet, where she was the first European woman to enter Lhasa, which was closed to foreigners at the time. In her late seventies, she settled in the south of France, where she lived until her death at 101 in 1969.

    . . lightened not only by cartoons but by narrative approach."-New York Herald TribuneThe history of New Orleans is a street-level story, with names like Iberville, Terpsichore, Gravier, Tchoupitoulas, and, of course, Bourbon, presenting the city's past with every step. The late John Churchill Chase eloquently chronicles the origins and development of the most fascinating of American cities in this humorous read.Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children details the interesting stories of the developers and families as well as the infamous and famous people, places, and events from which the city's names and character are drawn. First published by now-defunct New Orleans publisher Robert L. Crager in 1949, the book remains funny and informative, generally accepted as a standard reference about the Crescent City.

    Whether you want to play pop, folk, country, rock, blues, jazz, classical, or any other style of music, you will pick up the basic techniques without tedious drills and exercises. Using real music and a step-by-step approach, How to Play Guitar will teach you about:- Choosing and buying a guitar- Tuning your instrument correctlyReading sheet music, guitar music, and tablature- Playing melodies with chordsFingerpicking- Mastering left-hand techniques, including sliding and bending notes- Transposing melodies from one key to another and much more.

    He was a giant of the saxophone and a major composer. His music influenced both rock stars and classical musicians. There was a mystical quality, a profound melancholy emanating from this quiet, self-contained man that moved listeners--some of whom knew little about music but heard something beyond music's boundaries in the sounds his saxophone created. J. C. Thomas traces John Coltrane's life and career from his North Carolina childhood through his apprenticeship with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis, to its culmination in the saxophonist's classic quartet that played to steadily increasing audiences throughout America, Europe, and Japan.The author has drawn on the recollections of the people who knew Coltrane best--boyhood friends, band members like Elvin Jones, spiritual mentors like Ravi Shankar, and the women who loved him." Chasin' the Trane" is the story of a man who struggled against drug addiction, studied African and Eastern music and philosophy, admired both Einstein's expanding universe and the shimmering sounds a harp makes, and left behind the enduring legacy of a master musician who was also a beautiful man.

    Wexler has worked with the entire range of American genius: Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and others. 75 photographs.

    Two people still pastoring reflect honestly here on both the joys and the challenges of their vocation. Anecdotal and extremely readable, the book covers a diversity of subjects revealing the incredible variety of a pastor’s day. The chapters move from comedy to pathos, story to theology, Scripture to contemporary culture. This Odd and Wondrous Calling is both serious and fun and is ideal for those who are considering the ministry or who want a better understanding of their own minister’s life.

    But how did the funeral home come to hold such a position? What is its history? And is it guilty of the charges sometimes leveled against it? In Rest in Peace, Gary Laderman traces the origins of American funeral rituals, from the evolution of embalming techniques during and after the Civil War and the shift from home funerals to funeral homes at the turn of the century, to the increasing subordination of priests, ministers, and other religious figures to the funeral director throughout the twentieth century. In doing so he shows that far from manipulating vulnerable mourners, as Jessica Mitford claimed in her best-selling The American Way of Death (1963), funeral directors are highly respected figures whose services reflect the community's deepest needs and wishes. Indeed, Laderman shows that funeral directors generally give the people what they want when it is time to bury our dead. He reveals, for example, that the open casket, often criticized as barbaric, provides a deeply meaningful moment for friends and family who must say goodbye to their loved one. But he also shows how the dead often come back to life in the popular imagination to disturb the peace of the living. Drawing upon interviews with funeral directors, major historical events like the funerals of John F. Kennedy and Rudolf Valentino, films, television, newspaper reports, proposals for funeral reform, and other primary sources, Rest in Peace cuts through the rhetoric to show us the reality--and the real cultural value--of the American funeral.