News & Updates — Celebrate Icons

Unless you are a Brasileiro or follow modern Brazilian music you probably don't know who Chico Science was but he was a favorite of mine. In fact his band, Nação Zumbi, have continued to tour the world and make fresh albums mixing samba, psychedelia, funk and hard rock, along with regional folk styles of Northeast Brazil. Francisco de Assis França was born in the Northeastern state of Pernambuco, literally coming out of the swamps ("mangue"), and he helped found the manguebeat movement in Recife, a collective identity that nurtured the highly original arts and music scene that was on the...

Despite the unfortunate late portion of Don Drummond's unstable life, he remains a major figure in Jamaican music. A street youth who saw dire poverty early on, the trombonist came out of the Alpha Boys School (home to many great Jamaican artists) and played jazz for several years before helping found the pioneering Skatalites in 1964. He became one of the most high profile early converts to Rastafarianism, political awareness and all. A man of impressive chops (considered by many to be one of the top trombone players in the world), he was teacher to Rico Rodriguez and Vin Gordon,...

One of the best of improvised violin & viola, Leroy Jenkins was a member of Chicago's musicians collective AACM, co-formed Creative Construction Company (with Anthony Braxton) and the incredible out-jazz protest trio Revolutionary Ensemble (with Sirone and Jerome Cooper--check out Vietnam on ESP-Disk and Manhattan Cycles on India Navigation). He also worked with Alice Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, Rashied Ali, the JCOA, Andrew Cyrille, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Frank Lowe, Henry Threadgill, Paul Motian and many more. A native of Chicago, he brought classical chops into a radicalized improv-jazz setting, with a percussive yet mesmerizing style. His group...

The Italian-Argentine immigrant Astor Piazzolla rose out of the NYC slums to become the world's most noted avant-tango composer, fusing the traditional with classical, jazz and (later) electronics. He was a standing-up master of the bandoneon, but could also play piano. He heard jazz while growing up in NYC, but still loved tango orchestras and studied classical. One of his heroes, the great tango bandleader Carlos Gardel, was impressed enough with Astor's chops that he asked the 13-yr old to join his orchestra for a tour but Piazzolla's father refused to allow it. Of course, it was that very tour...

Happy birthday to the Italian-American sculptor and sound artist Harry Bertoia! He was a jewelry-maker and designer who hit big with some finely crafted chairs. This allowed him to concentrate on creating these unique sound sculptures that lived in his barn that doubled as a mini concert hall. He would strike or "play" these things and the sound would reverberate into my amazed eardrums. I first heard these otherwordly sounds when a cache of self-produced "Sonambient" albums were found and distributed to the public in the mid-1990s. I bought a few of these records and still treasure them to this...