Star-Spangled Banner Performances: The 15 Most Awe-Inspiring Versions

"... With its wide range of notes, 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is considered to be one of the most challenging songs to sing. Performed regularly at sports games and ceremonial events, a handful of singers and musicians have the chance to perform the song live each year, as audiences listen with bated breath. Over the decades, many of the country’s biggest stars have tackled the song (some better than others), making their mark on the hallowed tune. Here’s a look back at 15 of the best 'Star-Spangled Banner' performances – from soulful balladry to all-out guitar shreds – proving that 'traditional' doesn’t always need to be dull. ..."

udiscover (Video)

Last Refuge of a Rock Critic: A Bicentennial Search for Patriotism - Greil Marcus

"Editors’ note, June 29, 2023: There was so much happening in New York City during the Bicentennial all those years ago that the Village Voice spread its coverage over two issues, spanning June 28 to July 12, 1976. The Big Apple was ready to party: King Kong had just left town and the Democrats were rolling in, preparing for their quadrennial convention two years after a Republican president — a liar, cheat, and bully who attempted to use his office to punish political and personal enemies — had resigned in disgrace. There was some sort of cosmic justice in Richard Nixon flaming out after winning re-election in a landslide but before he could preside over the Bicentennial, that nationwide celebration of American democracy’s survival after one civil war, two world conflicts, and countless cultural battles. It was in the Spirit of ’76 that Greil Marcus, author of the previous year’s Mystery Train — a monumental collection of essays delving into the heart of rock ’n’ roll to reveal a luminous chunk of America’s soul — undertook a wide-ranging disquisition on the meaning of patriotism in the pages of the Village Voice. (Mark Alan Stamaty’s boisterous, labyrinthine cartoons added to the wild and woolly mood.) ... My, how times have changed. —R.C. Baker ..."

Voice

5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Wayne Shorter

"This month we feature Wayne Shorter, the iconoclastic composer and tenor saxophonist whose work with Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Weather Report and through his own solo discography has influenced generations of like-minded visionaries to push the boundaries of jazz. Since his death in 2023 at 89, it’s felt like he’s still around. That’s because his music always felt so otherworldly and progressive, as if it were beamed in from outer space or somewhere deep into the future. Shorter rose to prominence in the late 1950s and early ’60s as a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, where his husky and complex sound proved a worthy complement to Blakey’s propulsive rhythms. ..."

NY Times (Video)

2015 December: JuJu (1964), 2015 December: Art Blakey - Paris Jam Session (1959), 2019 August: Night Dreamer (1964), 2019 July: Blue Note Records at 80: Can a Symbol of Jazz’s Past Help Shape Its Future?, 2020 August: Mr. Gone - 10 CD (The Best Of The Early Years), 2023 March: Wayne Shorter, Innovator During an Era of Change in Jazz, Dies at 89

Rebel Music: 11 Of The Best Reggae Protest Songs

"Whether warning rudies of doom around the corner, fighting for the legalization of cannabis, or battling dark forces in politics, the best reggae protest songs have spoken to their times and yet continue to resonate today. Here are 11 of the best reggae protest songs that remain timeless classics. ... Peter Tosh: Legalize It (1976) First released as a Jamaican single on Peter Tosh’s own Intel Diplo label, 'Legalize It' was a typically forthright slice of rebel-rousing by the former Wailer. Over a one-drop rhythm with The Wailers Band and The I-Threes providing the backing, Tosh demands that the herb be set free, pointing out the hypocrisy of its contraband status by stating that judges and doctors smoke it. He also lists its medical benefits as well as its place as a relaxant for animals (one Rasta name for it was 'lamb’s bread'). ..."

udiscover (Video)

Three Letters from Rilke - Rainer Maria Rilke

"Rainer Maria Rilke and the Expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker met in the summer of 1900 in the German artists’ colony of Worpswede, which lies to the north of Bremen in a flat, windswept landscape of peat bogs, heather, and silver birch trees. Born just a year apart in the mid-1870s, Modersohn-Becker and Rilke were trailblazers in art and poetry at the dawn of the twentieth century. Their correspondence bears witness to their lively, ongoing dialogue and underlying creative affinities. Modersohn-Becker’s haunting portrait of Rilke, and Rilke’s meditative poem 'Requiem for a Friend,' written in the aftermath of Modersohn-Becker’s untimely death, commemorate the importance each held in the other’s life. Below are three letters from Rilke to Modersohn-Becker, written late in the year 1900. —Jill Lloyd ..."

The Paris Review 

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