Newport Jazz Festival Explores Relationship Between Jazz & Hip-Hop
by A.A. Cristi
- Jul 3, 2019
There is a definite relationship between rap and jazz. Musicians improvise with notes. Rappers improvise with words. Many of the great hip-hop recordings featured samples from some of the greatest jazz albums. So it should be no surprise that there are rappers who are not only comfortable in post-bop sonic settings, but can also deliver some swinging verses themselves. The result of this fusion of styles, motifs, and genres is a corps of instrumentalists who are influenced by rappers, who in turn, are influenced by musicians.
BWW Review: RAGTIME Celebrates the Search for Freedom and Equality at the Turn of the 20th Century
by Shari Barrett
- Nov 17, 2016
RAGTIME: The Musical, currently being presented brilliantly by Actors' Repertory Theatre of Simi at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center through December 4, 2016, is set in the volatile melting pot of turn-of-the-century New York. Based on the classic E. L. Doctorow novel, featuring a Tony Award-winning book by Terrence McNally, RAGTIME weaves together three distinctly American tales -- that of a stifled suburban mother represented by Mother, the matriarch of a white upper-class family in New Rochelle, New York; Tateh, an inventive Jewish immigrant from Latvia; and Coalhouse Walker Jr., a daring young Harlem musician - all united by their courage, compassion and belief in the promise of the future in America at the turn of the 20th Century.
