Since I was a boy, my musical heroes have been jazz musicians — Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young, John Coltrane. My own trumpet playing was good enough to get me the solo chair in the school band, but my taste far outstripped my talent and I would never stoop to play in a band…
In the summer of 2014, on the strength of a BMI-Woody Guthrie Fellowship, I spent a glorious few weeks researching in the archives in the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The materials I found there not only fed into the writing of two books on Guthrie, but they also revealed some of the least…
There is a telling moment in “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story,” a new film by Martin Scorsese that played in theaters for one night only on June 11, before commencing to stream on Netflix on June 12. David Mansfield, who at age 19 played mandolin and pedal-steel guitar on the 1975 Rolling Thunder…
Leonard Cohen’s status as a musical and literary icon is a matter of historical record. But what the notoriously stoic poet and songwriter thought of his rise to fame remains more elusive; it was information shared only with a few intimates, Marianne Ihlen foremost among them. Over 50 letters that Cohen sent to Ihlen, his…
The late phase of Leonard Cohen’s career began, like a lot of artistic triumphs, with the desperate need for a quick buck. In 2004, Cohen learned that his manager, Kelley Lynch, had been quietly stealing his money and that he was now, at the age of seventy, virtually penniless. Lynch was ordered to pay 9.5…
The late Leonard Cohen worked in many mediums – poetry, music, fiction – less remembered is his contribution to the realm of drama. And what a contribution it is! Visitors to the new exhibit “A Crack in Everything” at the Jewish Museum will find, amid relics more germane to the artist’s ongoing influence in the…
Editor’s Note: Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky was born on this day in May 7, 1840. Here’s a look at the brilliant composer’s complicated history: When the conductor Semyon Bychkov arrived at a Russian-style cafe in midtown Manhattan to discuss the upcoming Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky festival at the New York Philharmonic, I handed the conductor a one-page…
The weathered words on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty endure to this day, even though most immigrants no longer encounter them on their journey. But the sonnet “The New Colossus,” written by Emma Lazarus, is only the poet’s most visible contribution to literature. This year, the American Jewish Historical Society, the steward of…
It’s been a year since the Metropolitan Opera fired conductor James Levine, its longtime music director, following allegations of sexual abuse. In short order, Levine sued the Met for breach of contract and defamation. On Tuesday, March 26, Justice Andrea Masley of the New York State Supreme Court moved to dismiss all but one of…
In recent years, the musicianship of André Previn — the conductor, pianist, and composer of German Jewish origin who has died at the age of 89 — has finally been celebrated more than his once-hectic personal life. Previn was formerly married to the songwriter Dory Previn, actress Mia Farrow, and violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, among his…
R. Kelly’s latest legal case was never going to be a low profile affair. The “Trapped in the Closet” singer, whose real name is Robert Kelly, was arrested in Chicago Friday, February 22, on charges of aggravated sexual abuse spanning over a decade and involving four women, three of whom were minors at the time,…
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