At the center of our #ChickForever celebration , WBGO is proud to present highlights from across a nearly 60-year recording career. Our announcers have
Initiation to music
I was living in Lebanon since 1981, after a stint of 4 years in the US for higher education and a year in Africa. And I had a job that I could Not stand and had no idea what were my functions. Sort of “
Are you feeling redundant?” kind of impression.
It was during that period that I tried to learn
musical instruments that I was never initiated to in my upbringing. Thus, I purchased an accordion and a classical guitar, but gave up quickly.
I enrolled for music lessons on Saturday mornings at the University of Kaslik, but had no musical ears or talent in that art. And I bitterly learned that it was too late for me to acquire any musical skills.
It did not take long for a booking at Little Tokyo’s Blue Whale to become a stamp of approval among music fans with an ear for improvisatory sounds. If you could get your name on the chalkboard marquee, it was a validation from the owner and booker Joon Lee that you were doing something interesting. Probably not commercial. Maybe a little hip. But definitely new and worth pursuing.
That approval was enough to keep the club as the centerpiece of L.A.’s imaginative and expanding jazz scene for more than a decade. But amid an evaporated source of revenue and unforgiving lease obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic, Blue Whale has permanently closed.
Posted: Dec 28, 2020 3:00 AM ET | Last Updated: January 4
We said goodbye to many greats in 2020, including the one and only Little Richard.(Stephane de Sakutin/AFP/Stringer/Getty Images; design by Andrea Warner/CBC Music.) comments
This year took and it took and it took.
Great musicians and talented artists were no exceptions. In 2020, we said goodbye to pioneers of everything from reggae to conga to rock; virtuosos and geniuses alike; and artists who broke through racial barriers and gender binaries, trailblazers who changed music for everyone that followed.
In 2020, the global experience coronavirus, the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality and anti-Black violence has been both shared and cruelly individual. Perpetual absence this is where the sorrow lives. Where the rage, fear and grief make it almost impossible to acknowledge the moments of gratitude and grace. A perfect high note, a glass ceiling shattered, constant disruptions to th
ONLINE: Isaiah Collier, Micah Collier, Kevin Carnes
Dec 27, 2020 7:00 PM
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Cafe Coda has kept up a steady pace of excellent online offerings during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this livestream is a great way to wrap up the year by experiencing music from a young jazz prodigy. Saxophonist Collier is an alum of the Jazz Institute of Chicago and ChiArts and is a go-to player in the avant-garde scene. If you missed him last February in person, hereâs another chance, as part of Cafe Coda s Night of the Improvisor series. Following this concert, Coda plans to take the month of January off to recharge.