Category Archives: Books

Event Recommendation: Hamid Dabashi – The World of Persian Literary Humanism

A discussion on the origin and influence of Persian humanism on Islamic civilization

Date: Thursday, November 29, 2012
Time: 6:30pm – 8:30pm (Followed by a book sale and signing.)
Venue: Asia Society (725 Park Avenue at 70th Street, NY)

What does it mean to be human? Humanism has mostly considered this question from a Western perspective. Columbia University professor and author Hamid Dabashi asks the questions anew, from a non-European point of view. His groundbreaking study The World of Persian Literary Humanism presents this rich tradition as the creative and subversive subconscious of Islamic civilization. In conversation with Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Robert I. Williams Term Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.

Continue reading →

Recommended Drum Book & CD: Swiss Chris “Modern Drum Set Stickings”

Texy by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Let me introduce you to one of my great drummers and let me tell you what I know about him: Swiss Chris, who’s real name is Christoph Flueck, is originally from Switzerland. I met and played with him for the first time in Greg Tate’s  Burnt Sugar Orchestra in Harlem in 2008. Later he invited me to play with him at his Aung San Suu Kyi benefit concert in Williamsburg later that year. We both enjoyed playing together. I liked his modern drumming approach: fusing drumming and sample manipulation and his ability to play polyrhythms. Like me he loves improvisation. With all this said it was very easy for me to ask him to join my band, called the Tehran-Dakar Brothers at that time, later in 2009. He also recorded with me on my new CD SoSaLa Nu World Trash. 

Continue reading →

Book recommendation: John Cage and the Music of Zen — a new John Cage biography!

Author: Kay Larson
Title: Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner LIfe of Artists
Publisher: Penguin Press, NY, NY
Country: USA
Format: book (illustrated. 474 pages)
Price: $29.95
Publishing date: September 5, 2012

John Cage ‘s immense contribution to the arts – and to music by Brian Eno and Philip Glass, Morton Feldman and Pierre Boulez, Nam June Paik and La Monte Young – has a crucial yet invisible Zen component.

A new biography, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Life of Artists (Penguin Press, 2012), by critic Kay Larson (New York Magazine, the New York Times), makes visible the music of Cage’s Zen path.

Continue reading →

Book recommendation: Blues & Chaos: The Music Writing of Robert Palmer

The anthology Blues & Chaos: The Music Writing of Robert Palmer edited by Anthony DeCurtis and published by Scribner is now out in paperback. In honor of the paperback, Robert Palmer’s daughter Augusta Palmer and partner Chris Arnold made the Youtube video below about the book , which features a great interview with Mr. DeCurtis.

Related post: The Hand of Fatima DVD release (a personal documentary film about music critic Robert Palmer and his musical family).

Book: James Hamilton’s “You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen”, collecting four decades of photo journalism!

On Friday, November 12th 2010 James Hamilton opened his first exhibition of B & W photographs of music world luminaries at KS Art in Tribeca, in conjunction with the launching of his monograph published by Peace Library. The book was edited by musician Thurston Moore, and the exhibition was curated by Elisabeth Biondi, editor of images at The New Yorker.

This book combines the eye of a fine-art photographer with the passion of a true music fan.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Continue reading →