Word: bandness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Some performers are criticized as being "too hip for the room" or "playing to the band." Lenny was plenty hip, maybe excessively so; his performances were crash courses in bop argot and Yiddish. And he did love cracking up the musicians, since he thought of himself as their kinsman: an improv artist with words. But he gained a large following, even though his material, even in his early prime, was deemed too controversial for TV. (Remember, there were only three networks and some independent stations. And this was the 50s. Only Steve Allen, an early and loyal fan, booked Lenny...
...filmed record of a 1965 Basin Street West gig, showed those who had never seen him "live" the highs and the lows, the electricity and the longueurs, of a Bruce performance. That summer, Lenny's face was on the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. His autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, published in 1963, found a new audience, and The Essential Lenny Bruce, transcriptions of his routines edited by John Cohen, sold 250,000 copies in two years. His old albums were reissued, and at least three of his major concerts were...
...confront, challenge, titillate, outrage it. I think only jazz musicians had tried that before. Secure in their improv skills, they dared to investigate the farthest reaches of aural experimentation. And if the ringsiders didn't get it ? if a Charlie Parker was literally playing only to the band, and sometimes even they couldn't follow him ? too bad. If Miles Davis did a whole set with his back to the customers, well, were they there to see his face or hear his music? In fact, who cares why or if they were there...
...political groups that control the militias are key components of the Shi'ite coalition that has the most seats in parliament and that includes al-Maliki's party. The only militia to feel the Prime Minister's "iron fist" was the toothless Mujahedin-e-Khalq, a small, unarmed band of Iranian rebels dedicated to toppling the regime in Tehran; it had been confined to a single base outside Baghdad and was monitored by the U.S. Nobody had accused the Mujahedin-e-Khalq of any atrocities on Iraqi soil, and al-Maliki's decision to evict the group smacked of tokenism...
...seething hatred in the Middle East has been festering for far too long. The rich and powerful nations of the world must band together under the banner of the U.N. and act to stop the carnage once...