Sonny Rollins playing on the Williamsburg Bridge with tenor saxophonist, arranger, and educator Paul Jeffrey in 1968.
By 1959, Sonny Rollins had grown increasingly dissatisfied with what he felt were his own musical shortcomings and withdrew from the public eye to embark on the first—and most storied—of his self-imposed sabbaticals. Residing on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, he sought refuge on the pedestrian walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge, where he could practice without disturbing a pregnant neighbor.
From the summer of 1959 until the end of 1961, Rollins returned to the bridge almost daily, playing for as long as 15 or 16 hours at a stretch, through heat, wind, and snow, alongside the rumble of passing trains. Today, a fifteen-story apartment building named The Rollins stands on Grand Street, marking the site of his former home—a quiet monument to one of the most disciplined and transformative chapters in jazz history.
To create the album cover for 'Operation: Doomsday,' MF DOOM paused his VHS copy of the Fantastic Four cartoon on a scene featuring Doctor Doom holding a microphone in a helicopter. It was traced and recreated by Lord Scotch.
Happy 25th bday to Operation: Doomsday
The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.
- James Baldwin
i'm cautiously optimistic that only the biz and psych teachers, whose students are never going to crack a book anyway, will try this, and then stop using them within 3 years
Remembering the great Yusef Lateef who was born on this day in 1920. Known for having been an innovator in the blending of jazz with “Eastern” music, Lateef played non-western instruments such as the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, xun, arghul and koto alongside the tenor saxophone and flute which were his main instruments.
At a time when jazz musicians in the United States rarely sought inspiration any farther geographically than Latin America, Lateef looked well beyond the Western Hemisphere. Anticipating the cross-cultural fusions of later decades, he flavored his music with scales, drones and percussion effects borrowed from Asia and the Middle East. He played world music before world music had a name.
In later years he incorporated elements of contemporary concert music and composed symphonic and chamber works. African influences became more noticeable in his music when he spent four years studying and teaching in Nigeria in the early 1980s. He professed to find the word “jazz” limiting and degrading; he preferred “autophysiopsychic music,” a term he invented.
Here, he is performing “Brother John” on an oboe with Cannonball Adderley on saxophone, Nat Adderley on trumpet, Joe Zawinul on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Louis Hayes on drums live in Germany, 1963.
What a staggering story. A 2-year investigation from the Associated Press finds that prison labor is connected to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods, sold by some of the biggest food companies. https://t.co/cGfUSFvwgm
Sen. Joe Biden on congressional war powers in 1984:
"The President does not have the authority to make war, he has the authority to conduct a war. A Commander in Chief does not initiate a war, he conducts a war."
I am the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, and my perspective is needed here now more than ever. I will not be silenced and I will not let anyone distort my words.
I’m from Detroit, where I learned to speak truth to power, even if my voice shakes.
Historian of US foreign policy here. One of the core functions of US diplomacy towards client states engaging in mass murder is denial of death tolls. I cannot think of a single example of simple acknowledgment of client state atrocities since 1945. A few examples:
Gaza and Barcelona are twin cities. The Gazan local government has sent a farewell letter to Barcelona. This is an imperfect translation of the bit has been made public. It's the saddest thing I've ever read.
In case you were wondering why the United States has failed to get the global south's support on Ukraine, it is precisely about moments like this when the US makes clear war crimes are totally acceptable if done by their friends and that international law doesn't matter.
“[T]he four companies that conservatively account for about 70 per cent of the global food market share registered a dramatic rise in profits during 2021–2022”
Meanwhile, the number of people who are food insecure in 2023 has more than doubled compared to 2020.
@UNCTAD