Search Results
Below are your search results. You can also try a Basic Search.
(03/23/06 5:00am)
On spring break, somebody suckered me into sharing a bed with a bronchitis-ridden travel partner and, as you might guess, I started feeling the symptoms a few days into the trip. Still, it gave me an excuse to miss a few classes and reacquaint myself with my favorite teen movies. In 2004's Euro Trip, 18-year-old Scotty Thomas and his friends leave for Europe to find his German pen pal, Mieka. The backpackers move from the German countryside to the head shops of Amsterdam to the cathedrals of Vatican City, and, ultimately -- forgive me for giving it away -- Scotty gets the girl.
(12/01/05 5:00am)
Two years ago, a car making an illegal turn struck 19-year-old Community College of Philadelphia student Melody Gardot as she peddled through Old City on her bicycle. Physically and mentally debilitated, the New Jersey native searched for diversion between daily medical appointments and endless paperwork -- doctor's bills, insurance claims. Before the accident, Gardot had entertained in Philadelphia piano bars with her bluesy, mature voice, and one of her doctors suggested that she take up music again as a way of coping with her condition.
(11/17/05 5:00am)
It's their first show as an ensemble, and Elio Villafranca's Latin Superstars are playing Chris' Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia. On "Take the B Train," saxophonist Yosvany Terry unfurls a series of melodic flourishes; pianist Villafranca cranes his dreadlocked head to read the sheet music; drummer Francisco Mela contorts his face in apparent ecstasy. You'd never know the compositions were new. Since their immigration to the United States, the band members have been taking on fresh musical challenges -- new performing opportunities and audiences. That, after all, is why they left Cuba.
(11/10/05 5:00am)
Rejections never resonate with me. It's autumn of my senior year, and I just got word on my first job application. "Thanks for applying," they write, "but we're looking for someone with more experience." The writing is terse and impersonal, the signature fake -- a stamp. I compose a lengthy email to company x:
(11/10/05 5:00am)
I almost feel as if I'm channeling music when I improvise," says jazz saxophonist Ron Kerber. Performing at Chris's Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia on a warm November night, his eyes are shut, and at the climactic moments his countenance becomes mangled. Images can seize a jazz player's attention -- an old friend walking into the club, someone ordering a drink at the bar. "If I'm looking at things," he says, "it takes me away from that super-conscious place."
(10/27/05 4:00am)
Street Music: How is your latest album Underneath different from you older stuff? What were you trying to achieve?
(10/20/05 4:00am)
Death Cab for Cutie isn't just [Ben] Gibbard's band," drummer Jason McGerr says, speaking about the group's lauded lead man. Sure, Gibbard is a great songwriter; that's obvious with the success of his electronic side project, The Postal Service. But Death Cab is different. It's the sum of its constituent parts, not the product of one man's genius. Like each of his bandmates, McGerr fancies himself a significant contributor to the whole that is Death Cab.
(09/22/05 4:00am)
Any McCartney-branded album is bound to be a "big deal." Sales-wise, the quality of the music is almost trivial. But on Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, the former Beatle sweats the small stuff. A collaboration with producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck), Chaos lands the 63 year-old in a youthful new place. With Godrich at the helm, McCartney's songwriting breathes as readily as it did on Driving Rain (2001) but with less burdensome nostalgia.
(04/21/05 4:00am)
Freshman girls -- they're everywhere, I swear to you. Pert, chic first-year lovelies: waiting in the stir fry line, strolling the salad isle, perusing the pizza; in jean skirts, tank tops, large, buglike sunglasses; exuding perfumes, floral shampoos, body lotions of melon, berry and cocoa butter. The sun is effervescent out there, but I'm in here, 1920 Commons, to dine and socialize. The staff chef asks me what type of sauce I'd like on my stir fry. I answer, "Give me all of it. Szechwan, teriyaki, sweet and sour." Because I like it flavorful and spicy.
(03/24/05 5:00am)
It was Spring Break, and I had just gotten in from college. My parents and I were sipping Coronas, and I was explaining to them why I hadn't gone to the Bahamas. "It's such a drag to get down there," I said. "Then there's the commercialism, the sunburn, the overpriced drinks." My mom asked what would constitute my ideal Spring Break. I told her, "That's easy, Mom. I'd meet a beautiful Al Green fan, we'd smoke a couple of Js and make love in her Manhattan apartment until classes began again." I really hated the beach.
(09/30/04 4:00am)
Ludwig's GarTen
(09/16/04 4:00am)
Natalie's Lounge
(04/01/04 5:00am)
Jazz has long subsisted as an underground music -- an esoteric, impervious art form sheltered from consumer politics. But a drastic turn in the record industry -- the disruptive force of Internet file-sharing -- penetrated the vulnerable jazz industry. To compensate, traditionally jazz record labels (Blue Note and Verve, the most prominent) are delving into pop culture idioms hoping for the payoff, leaving the jazz musicians to ask: what will happen to the art?
(09/18/03 4:00am)
Are you a clove-smoking, beret-wearing, finger-snapping beatnik? Do you refer to your friends as "cats?" Perhaps you think John Coltrane is "hip" and Charlie Parker is "bad"-- in the positive sense of the word. If you fall into any of these categories, you're probably in the wrong decade.