The Jazz Journalists Association, a group of mainly New York-based jazz critics and writers, handed out its 2007 awards Thursday afternoon. Here are the winners, followed in parentheses by the musician that I voted for in each category:
A few things contributed:
"The same acoustic silence, embedded in two different excerpts, can be perceived dramatically differently," writes Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis in an article in the June issue of <I>Music Perception</I>.
<I>Living In Stereo</I> argues that, far from being the best Beatles album <I>SPLHCB</I> was the worst . . . least best . . . um, not greatest non-soundtrack album.
"A stinking, rat-infested cesspit that would never be tolerated now." And your point is . . . ?
Neil Gaiman argues that the science fiction novels of H.G. Wells, while fine, pale compared to his short stories. Gaiman says that the SF stories survive, while "many of the mainstream novels he considered more important and significant are gone and, for the most part, forgotten, perhaps because the novels were very much of their time."
I loved the first six volumes of <I>Tales of the City</I>, although the recently published <I>Michael Tolliver Lives</I> sounds pretty dire. Still, few writers have ever written more lovingly about the city by the bay.
Rilke, Durer, and the rise of science.
Does the Western 12-tone scale represent every tone possibility? Oh, grasshopper, you have so much to learn.
You can tell how nimble an animal is by checking the size of its inner ear.