News & Updates — Philly

POSTER by Tess Gadwa for artmeetscode.com We're two amazing parties in!! And more to come! Check out our tour schedule for Spring: Peace & Rhythm Spring 2018 Tour continues... May 11 Washington DC Safari DC Restaurant & Lounge Details: Funky Tropical Party: Leon City Sounds and Peace & Rhythm DJs with Leon City Sounds May 12 Richmond VA The HofGarden details: Skyyline with special guests Peace & Rhythm Records! with BODY TALK May 13 Richmond VA Steady Sounds with Armando Muñoz details: Peace & Rhythm Records In-Store at Steady Sounds May 14 Chapel Hill NC Nightlight Bar & Club details:...

A happy birthday shoutout to free jazz reedsman Byard Lancaster, a dude who always had a funky side to him! He came out of Philly and spent some time in Boston before participating in the NYC free jazz revolution, playing often with drummer Sunny Murray. He worked with Elvin Jones, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra and Bill Dixon in the '60s, as well as releasing his own 1968 classic It's Not Up To Us album (with Sonny Sharrock). The '70s found him releasing a string of what are now "rare groove classics" for the French label Palm and others (with Khan...

There are so many interesting artists born on July 15 that it is impossible in my schedule to write pieces about them. So here are some shorties, along with a video or two for each. --Francis Bebey / July 15, 1929 - May 28, 2001 This unique Cameroonian composer and his interesting DIY synth-pop crossed with traditional music has been justly making new fans in recent years. --James Jacson / July 15, 1932 - Aug 10, 1997 Happy cosmic birthday to James Jacson, one of my favorite characters from Sun Ra's Arkestra. Jacson is the one who was instructed to...

One of the leading lights of the hard bop era, trumpeter Lee Morgan broke onto the scene as a teen prodigy, playing with John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Hank Mobley and Art Blakey in the mid-to-late '50s. His driving style and clear, bold tone contributed all over the hard bop landscape, from funky to bluesy, and from more adventurous modal stuff to delicate standards. Throughout his short but steadily working career he played with Wayne Shorter, Elvin Jones, Charlie Persip, Grachan Moncur III, Andrew Hill, Benny Golson, Jackie McLean, Larry Young, Curtis Fuller, Jimmy Smith (The Sermon), Bobbi Humphrey and in...

The cult jazz artist Rufus Harley started out like any other Philly kid, taking lessons from Dennis Sandole, playing saxophone and other reeds, jamming with Philly scenesters like John Coltrane and Philly Joe Jones and gigging as a professional tenor player in his teens. But hearing the Scottish bagpipes during JFK's funeral procession got him really obsessed and he became the first bagpiper of jazz. After months of practicing the instrument (he even held them "wrong") to the dismay of his neighbors who would call the pigs (to which he would say "Officer, do I look Scottish to you?"--Harley was...