Either way, we can listen to nearly anything, at any time. The possibilities in this new age of listening overturn old assumptions about what it means to properly appreciate music—to be an “educated” listener. In Every Song Ever, the veteran New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff reimagines the very idea of music appreciation for our times. As familiar subdivisions like “rock” and “jazz” matter less and less and music’s accessible past becomes longer and broader, listeners can put aside the intentions of composers and musicians and engage music afresh, on their own terms. Ratliff isolates signal musical traits—such as repetition, speed, and virtuosity—and traces them across wildly diverse recordings to reveal unexpected connections. When we listen for slowness, for instance, we may detect surprising affinities between the drone metal of Sunn O))), the mixtape manipulations of DJ Screw, Sarah Vaughan singing “Lover Man,” and the final works of Shostakovich. And if we listen for closeness, we might notice how the tight harmonies of bluegrass vocals illuminate the virtuosic synchrony of John Coltrane’s quartet. Ratliff also goes in search of “the perfect moment”; considers what it means to hear emotion by sampling the complex sadness that powers the music of Nick Drake and Slayer; and examines the meaning of certain common behaviors, such as the impulse to document and possess the entire performance history of the Grateful Dead. Encompassing the sounds of five continents and several centuries, Ratliff’s book is an artful work of criticism and a lesson in open-mindedness. It is a definitive field guide to our radically altered musical habitat.

    After a rejection from an elite New York conservatoire—a rejection she always believed stemmed from the color of her skin—she began performing jazz, blues, and classical songs in a bar to fund her music studies. In 1958 her rendition of the Gershwin standard “I Loves You Porgy” became a Top 40 hit, and her subsequent debut album Little Girl Blue launched what would become an extensive singing and songwriting career. Drawing on a wealth of original interviews with Simone’s closest associates, this extraordinary biography follows her sparkling career as well as her passionate belief in racial equality that eventually led her to undergo self-imposed exile from America in 1970. Featuring rare photographs and a review of Simone’s more than 40 albums and numerous hits, this is an extensive look at the complex and extremely talented diva.

    It draws on interviews with musicians, perfomers, arrangers and songwriters with whom Sinatra has worked.

    By temperament, he was a high-strung and sensitive romantic, a towering figure whose tempestuous personal life found powerfully coherent expression in the ever-shifting textures of his music. Now, acclaimed music critic Gene Santoro strips away the myths shrouding Jazz's Angry Man, revealing Mingus as more complex than even his lovers and close friends knew. A pioneering bassist and composer, Mingus redefined jazz's terrain. He penned over 300 works spanning gutbucket gospel, Colombian cumbias, orchestral tone poems, multimedia performance, and chamber jazz. By the time he was 35, his growing body of music won increasing attention as it unfolded into one pioneering musical venture after another, from classical-meets-jazz extended pieces to spoken-word and dramatic performances and television and movie soundtracks. Though critics and musicians debated his musical merits and his personality, by the late 1950s he was widely recognized as a major jazz star, a bellwether whose combined grasp of tradition and feel for change poured his inventive creativity into new musical outlets. But Mingus got headlines less for his art than for his volatile and often provocative behavior, which drew fans who wanted to watch his temper suddenly flare onstage. Impromptu outbursts and speeches formed an integral part of his long-running jazz workshop, modeled partly on dramatic models like Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. Keeping up with the organized chaos of Mingus's art demanded gymnastic improvisational skills and openness from his musicians-which is why some of them called it the Sweatshop. He hired and fired musicians on the bandstand, attacked a few musicians physically and many more verbally, twice threw Lionel Hampton's drummer off the stage, and routinely harangued chattering audiences, once chasing a table of inattentive patrons out of the FIVE SPOT with a meat cleaver. But the musical and mental challenges this volcanic man set his bands also nurtured deep loyalties. Key sidemen stayed with him for years and even decades. In this biography, Santoro probes the sore spots in Mingus's easily wounded nature that helped make him so explosive: his bullying father, his interracial background, his vulnerability to women and distrust of men, his views of political and social issues, his overwhelming need for love and acceptance. Of black, white, and Asian descent, Mingus made race a central issue in his life as well as a crucial aspect of his music, becoming an outspoken (and often misunderstood) critic of racial injustice. Santoro gives us a vivid portrait of Mingus's development, from the racially mixed Watts where he mingled with artists and writers as well as mobsters, union toughs, and pimps to the artistic ferment of postwar Greenwich Village, where he absorbed and extended the radical improvisation flowing through the work of Allen Ginsberg, Jackson Pollock, and Charlie Parker. Indeed, unlike Most jazz biographers, Santoro examines Mingus's extra-musical influences--from Orson Welles to Langston Hughes, Farwell Taylor, and Timothy Leary--and illuminates his achievement in the broader cultural context it demands. Written in a lively, novelistic style, Myself When I Am Real draws on dozens of new interviews and previously untapped letters and archival materials to explore the intricate connections between this extraordinary man and the extraordinary music he made.

    Understanding the unique talents and training of musicians, veteran music career counselor Angela Myles Beeching presents a wealth of creative solutions for career advancement in the highly competitive music industry. Step-by-step instructions detail how to design promotional materials, book performances, network and access resources and assistance, jump start a stalled career, and expand your employment opportunities while remaining true to your music. Beeching untangles artist management and the recording industry, explains how to find and create performance opportunities, and provides guidance on grant writing and fundraising, day jobs, freelancing, and how to manage money, time, and stress. The companion website puts numerous up-to-date and useful internet resources at your fingertips. This essential handbook goes beyond the usual how-to, helping musicians tackle the core questions about career goals, and create a meaningful life as a professional musician. Beyond Talent is the ideal companion for students and professionals, emerging musicians and mid-career artists.

    Lebrecht compellingly demonstrates that classical recording has reached its end point, but this is not simply an expos? of decline and fall. It is, for the first time, the full story of a minor art form, analyzing the cultural revolution wrought by Schnabel, Toscanini, Callas, Rattle, the Three Tenors, and Charlotte Church. It is the story of how stars were made and broken by the record business; how a war criminal conspired with a concentration-camp victim to create a record empire; and how advancing technology, boardroom wars, public credulity and unscrupulous exploitation shaped the musical backdrop to our modern lives. The book ends with a suitable shrine to classical recording: the author's critical selection of the 100 most important recordings, and the 20 most appalling.Filled with memorable incidents and unforgettable personalities, from Goddard Lieberson, legendary head of CBS Masterworks who signed his letters as God; to Georg Solti, who turned the Chicago Symphony into the loudest symphony on earth - this is at once the captivating story of the life and death of classical recording and an opinionated, insider's guide to appreciating the genre, now and for years to come.

    Naomi Hill, a singer at the Blue Angel club, has been poised on the brink of stardom for nearly ten years. But when her big break, the cover of Look magazine finally arrives, it carries with it an enormous personal cost. Sensual and magnetic, Naomi is a fiercely ambitious yet self-destructive woman whose charms tend to hurt those around her, and no one knows this better than her daughter, Sophia.As the only child of a single mother growing up in an adult world, Sophia is wise beyond her years, a casualty of her mother's desperate struggle for fame and adoration. Unsettled by her home life, she harbors a terrible fear that her world could disappear at any moment, and compulsively maintains a list of everyday objects she might need to reinvent should nuclear catastrophe strike. Her only constant is the colorful and unconventional family that surrounds her and her mother, particularly the photographer, Jim, who is Sophia's best friend, surrogate father and protector but Jim is also deeply in love with Naomi.Weaving between the perspectives of Sophia and Naomi, Last Night at the Blue Angel is a poignant and unforgettable story about what happens when our passion for the life we want is at sharp odds with the life we have. Part stylish period piece, part heartbreaking family drama, it's a novel rife with revelations, a vivid and propulsive page-turner and the major debut of an extraordinary new writer.

    The company had been a fixture on the national opera scene--as the populist antithesis of the grand Metropolitan Opera, a nurturing home for young American talent, and a place where new, lively ideas shook up a venerable art form. But NYCO's demise represented more than the loss of a cherished organization: it was a harbinger of massive upheaval in the performing arts--and a warning about how cultural institutions would need to change in order to survive.Drawing on extensive research and reporting, Heidi Waleson, one of the foremost American opera critics, recounts the history of this scrappy company and reveals how, from the beginning, it precariously balanced an ambitious artistic program on fragile financial supports. Waleson also looks forward and considers some better-managed, more visionary opera companies that have taken City Opera's lessons to heart.Above all, Mad Scenes and Exit Arias is a story of money, ego, changes in institutional identity, competing forces of populism and elitism, and the ongoing debate about the role of the arts in society. It serves as a detailed case study not only for an American arts organization, but also for the sustainability and management of nonprofit organizations across the country.

    This reader for lovers of the piano distils his musical and linguistic eloquence and vast knowledge, and will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest in the technique, history and repertoire of the piano. Erudite, witty, enlightening and deeply personal, A Pianist's A to Z is the ideal book for all piano lovers, musicians and music aficionados: rarely has the instrument been described in such an entertaining and intelligent fashion.

    

    Pages: 40. Chapters: Justin Bieber albums, Justin Bieber songs, My World, My World 2.0, Baby, Somebody to Love, Justin Bieber discography, One Time, My World Tour, Eenie Meenie, One Less Lonely Girl, My Worlds: The Collection, Never Say Never, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, My Worlds Acoustic, Pray, U Smile, Never Say Never - The Remixes, Love Me, Coon vs. Coon and Friends, Never Let You Go, That Should Be Me, Favorite Girl, Bigger, Down to Earth, First Dance. Excerpt: Justin Drew Bieber (pronounced -b r, born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian pop/R&B singer, songwriter and actor. Bieber was discovered in 2008 by Scooter Braun, who happened to come across Bieber's videos on YouTube and later became his manager. Braun arranged for him to meet with Usher in Atlanta, Georgia, and Bieber was soon signed to Raymond Braun Media Group (RBMG), a joint venture between Braun and Usher, and then to a recording contract with Island Records offered by L.A. Reid. His debut single, "One Time," released worldwide in 2009, peaked in the top ten in Canada and charted in the top thirty in several international markets. His debut release, My World, followed on November 17, 2009, and was eventually certified platinum in the United States. He became the first artist to have seven songs from a debut album chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Bieber's first full studio release, My World 2.0, was released on March 23, 2010 and has since received similar success; it debuted at number one and within the top ten of several countries, and was certified platinum in the United States. It was preceded by the worldwide top-ten single, "Baby," in January 2010. The music video of "Baby" is currently ranked as the most viewed and most discussed YouTube video, and was the most disliked until being overtaken by Rebecca Black's song "Friday." Bieber followed-up the release of his deb...

    Two generations of this remarkable family transformed and popularised the waltz, delighting all of Viennese society with their prolific compositions. But behind the melody lay a darker discord, as the Strausses tore themselves apart while Vienna itself struggled to secure its place in a rapidly changing world.In The Last Waltz John Suchet skilfully portrays this gripping story, capturing the family dramas, the tensions, triumphs and disasters, all set against the turbulent backdrop of Austria in the nineteenth century, from revolution to regicide.Discover the truth behind Vienna’s extraordinary musical dynasty.

     "Simon’s star-studded debut memoir populated with humorous details and matter-of-fact commentary is incredibly readable, with plenty of quote-worthy anecdotes. Over the span of his lengthy career as a music producer, the author worked with some legendary artists, including Janis Joplin, Simon and Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, and The Band. In this remembrance, he details his lifelong engagement with music, which follows the trajectory of American popular music as a whole, from jazz to Broadway musicals to rock ’n’ roll. An intriguing memoir about an unusual career involving some celebrated musical figures." - - Kirkus Reviews Celebrated music producer John Simon has produced some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll ever recorded including THE BAND’s "Music from Big Pink", "The Band", and "The Last Waltz", JANIS JOPLIN’s Cheap Thrills, SIMON AND GARFUNKEL’s Bookends, and the first albums by LEONARD COHEN and BLOOD, SWEAT and TEARS. His contributions to popular music have helped tell the story of a generation in the 1960s and 70s, and now he is sharing his own. "WHEN JOHN SIMON JOINED THE BAND’S BROTHERHOOD HE FIT LIKE A GLOVE. I CAN’T IMAGINE ANOTHER RECORD PRODUCER IN THE WHOLE WORLD WHO COULD’VE MATCHED JOHN’S WORK ON: MUSIC FROM BIG PINK AND THE BAND, ALBUMS." - - Robbie Robertson “Reflecting on the amazing life he’s led, I found myself thinking he ought to write a book. Then I realized that he did. Now he tells never-before-told tales of those rich, often rollicking years in his colorful new book.” --- Steve Israel * * * * * * * Given his truly unique perspective on music and the music business, Simon has been been courted by interviewers for years. With so many anecdotes to choose from, Simon found himself only skimming the surface of his experiences. Now, in writing TRUTH, LIES & HEARSAY, he has drawn on a lifetime of numerous first-hand accounts revealed in this memoir for first time, including: • Getting down the sounds for MUSIC FROM BIG PINK and THE BAND’s 2nd album • How everything was changed by a hit record of a PAUL SIMON song that Paul didn’t even like • Experiencing the volatile personal dynamics during the recording of CHEAP THRILLS by BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY featuring their new vocalist, JANIS JOPLIN • Living and playing in Woodstock when it was just a small-town safe haven for musicians. • Behind-the-scenes at THE BAND’s “farewell concert appearance” • Writing two ballet scores for legendary choreographer TWYLA THARP • Touring with American blues master, TAJ MAHAL • Recording secrets revealed and much, much more! With an unerring ear for music and eye for a good story, John Simon has amassed a collection of remarkable stories to delight any music fan! Read about Leonard Cohen, Levon Helm, Janis Joplin, Robbie Robertson, The Band, Mama Cass, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Gordon Lightfoot, Leon Russell, Eric Clapton, Wilson Pickett, Peter Yarrow, Gil Evans, Elizabeth Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Les Paul, Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters, Steve Forbert, Marshall McLuhan and The Beatles – -- All of these people and more turn up in the pages of TRUTH, LIES and HEARSAY: A Memoir of a Musical Life In and Out of Rock and Roll. You will really like this book.

    The embarrassment is palatable, but perseverance is the most touching part of these stories. These awful things that happened don't interrupt the dream. The dream of performing and stardom. The dream of connecting with an audience. No Encore! is a glimpse into the analog past; a trip to a distant world when artists made albums and suites of songs you listened in order." —Bret Easton Ellis   “They hated us and started throwing cups, bottles, change, chairs, and anything that wasn’t nailed down.” —Dean Ween This hilarious, sometimes horrifying, collection spans four decades and chronicles the craziest, druggiest, and most embarrassing concert moments in music history—direct from the artists who survived them.  “In the midst of my insanity, I thought it would be a very romantic gesture to go into Fiona Apple’s dressing room and write a message on her wall in my own blood.” —Dave Navarro From wardrobe malfunctions to equipment failures, from bad decisions to even worse choices, this is a riveting look into what happens when things go wrong onstage and off. “Ozzy had a sixty-inch teleprompter with the song lyrics, and that got stolen, along with microphones, snare drums and cymbals. Our drummer at the time was stabbing people in the neck with his drumstick.” —Zakk Wylde No Encore! is an unflinchingly honest account of the shows that tested the dedication to a dream—from Alice Cooper’s python having a violent, gastric malfunction on stage to Lou Barlow’s disastrous attempt to sober up at Glastonbury, from Shirley Manson’s desperate search for a bathroom to the extraordinary effort made to awaken Al Jourgenson as Ministry was taking the stage. As Hunter S. Thompson famously wrote, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”  “I go to exit the venue, and there’s 25 people marching towards us. It’s about 3:00 AM, and they weren’t there to be nice. They were carrying bats, boards, chains, hammers, and they were coming for us.” —Dee Snider

    More than 100 luminaries and leading organizations from the world of touring—among them Chris Connelly, Henry Rollins, the House of Blues, and the Vans Warped Tour, as well as club owners, tour managers, and even sex advisors—provide handy insider know-how along with insight on mistakes commonly made by novice bands. Chapters address the nitty-gritty of touring, with instructions on how to secure venues and publicity, how to stay healthy on the road, and how to keep the budget in the black. Loaded with hundreds of years' worth of collective hands-on experience from those steeped in the music business, this is a must-have resource for creating an unforgettable tour.