News & Updates — classic albums

Groovy Guitarist Grant Green was a regular presence on Blue Note Records and with funky organ combos. He was rooted in bop, blues and R&B and adapted his sound and approach to many different styles. He was inspired mostly by horn players, although he rarely worked with them. He effortlessly laid down lots of fluid single-note runs, and the only guitarists he seems to have cited as influence were Charlie Christian and Jimmy Raney. From St Louis, was playing in gospel bands by 12, before getting into rock & roll and R&B. He first recorded in '59 with Jimmy Forrest...

The influential ambient/electronic/new age composer Edgar Froese, the figurehead for experimental krautrock band Tangerine Dream, was born on this day (D-Day in '44). He lost his father to the Nazis, but his mother and he ended up in West Berlin after the war. When Froese started Tangerine Dream in '67, he was interested in surrealism, dada, old poetry and free-form rock. Over the course of several decades (and line-up changes) the band would help to define krautrock, new age, ambient, electronica, going from Jimi Hendrix & Pink Floyd-inspired psychedelia to environmental music, classical passages to space rock, soundtracks for film...

Born day shout-out to Michael Campbell aka Mikey Dread! He operated sound systems, hosted the massively popular Jamaican radio show Dread At The Controls, worked on TV, cut sides with Lee Perry, Sonia Pottinger, Carlton Patterson and Joe Gibbs and performed with the Socialist Roots Sound System. He started his Dread At The Controls label, producing Edi Fitzroy, Sugar Minott, Earl Sixteen, Althea & Donna and Junior Murvin. He also produced music for and toured with The Clash. His contribution can be heard all over Sandinista! and "Bank Robber". In the '80s he worked with Adrian Sherwood and UB40, also...

Happy birthday to the Greek-French composer Iannis Xenakis, he of a million ideas. From chamber ensemble to reeds to percussion to electronics, game theory, computers, orchestral and architectural, he was, in my opinion, one of the most exciting and relevant on the so-called 20th Century composers. He took up arms against the British during the Greek civil war and had half his face blown off, losing an eye. After that he was exiled to France, as he was sentenced to death in Greece for his Communist actions. He sought to utilize his expertise in mathematics and architecture in his music...

"The Viking of 6th Avenue", Lewis Hardin was better known as "Moondog", composer, instrument-builder, philosopher and mystical NYC street character. He was from a Kansas farm and was blinded at 16 by dynamite. He attended music school for the blind and lived briefly in the South during the late '30s/early '40s before moving to NYC in '43. There he quickly befriended Charlie Parker, Toscanini, Benny Goodman, Leonard Bernstein and other musical luminaries. He was a busking musician and earned money selling his poems. He spent 25 years on the streets of NY, often along 6th ave, between 52nd & 55th...