News & Features

I have mentioned the musical sub-genre Dubstep before, and the practitioners including Daft Punk, Deadmau5 and Skrillex. My son is a MASSIVE fan of this style of music, so I have become more aware of it than I would otherwise. It is hard to describe the musical style to someone who hasn’t heard it, but from his bio at AllMusic they say he “combines the Benny Benassi and Deadmau5 styles of electro with the over the top samples and giant noises of acts like the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim.” Here is the official video for his biggest hit, Scary…

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has been a touchstone in the ‘what is jazz’ debate for more than three decades now. After growing up in a jazz family – his father is pianist Ellis Marsalis – Wynton came up through the ranks with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and then did a stint with Herbie Hancock’s VSOP before striking out on his own. Soon Wynton was simultaneously winning Jazz and Classical Grammy Awards, and record labels were signing jazz artists to recording contracts again. He has maintained a high profile – and been very vocal with his opinion of music –…

Composer Steve Reich, along with Terry Riley and Philip Glass, form the core driving force in the modern classical music genre of ‘minimalism’. In the music the harmonic structure and density are sparse and relatively simple, with shifting elements and slow thematic development. Much of the action in minimalism is with the slowly evolving polyrhythms, which are deceptively straightforward but in reality menacingly complex and intriguing. This week marks Steve Reich’s 75th birthday, so I wanted to share a few memorable video clips. The sheet music at the top is for his 1972 piece ‘Clapping Music’, an intriguing study in…