The Famous Door
More Thoughts on Keef
It's Good to Love the Banana
David Hajdu Wins a Deems Taylor Award for Excellence in Music Coverage
This week, TNR’s music critic David Hajdu was honored with a Deems Taylor Award, given out by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for outstanding coverage of music. Hajdu won for his book of essays Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture. Many of the essays in the book were originally published in TNR, and we link to a few of them here. Congratulations to one of TNR’s own! READ MORE >>
Moody's Mood
James Moody, the veteran jazz saxophinist, flutist, and sometime singer, is ill with cancer, and his wife Linda, who has acted as his manager for years, made public this week Moody's decision to have no further treatment. With a new sense of the preciousness of Moody's presence, I've been listening to his music and asking myself why I've always been reluctant to take it more seriously. READ MORE >>
Keith Richards's 'Life'
Sufjan Stevens's "The Age of Adz"
I like Sufjan Stevens more than I want to. The self-conscious contrarian in me tells me to resist him just for his status as an idol of Brooklyn hipsterdom. He's a pretentious white guy who plays the banjo, as well as half a dozen other instruments (including the oboe and the English horn). As such, he is beloved by the Williamsburg smarties, and he's the sort of artist who tends to gratify rock critics eager to validate their own pretentious white guyness. READ MORE >>
Esperanza Spalding Sings Blake
Growing Old Without Him
We know how old John Lennon would have been this Saturday—70—but who he would have been, we can only imagine. There were so many Johns: Teddy boy, moptop, Walrus, avant-gardist, Mr. Ono, politicker, house husband, and, finally, in the months before his death 30 years ago this December, model of middle-age content. READ MORE >>
