Breaking

Ranging Across Time and Scale, V. Shayne Frederick Holds Office Hours at Uncle Bobbie’s

MusiQ Department Artist Vince Anthony Debuts “Hurricane” Music Video

MusiQology Rx Fundraiser for One Art Community Center

Beyoncé’s Homecoming Film Preserves and Reveres Black History

Why Country Music is So Scared of Black People

DaMaris B. Hill’s New Book is a Powerful, Wondrous Thing

(FREE SHOW) Dr. Guy Performs with Ursula Rucker this Thursday, March 14, at World Café

Hide/Melt/Ghost’s Harlem Debut is a Major Moment for Black Music Scholarship & Performance

The Time Stevie Wonder Taught White Surfers how to Dance

Music Lives with MusiQology Events in Virginia and Philadelphia

The 2019 GRAMMYs: Streaks Broken, Questions Unanswered

The 2019 MusiQology GRAMMYs Preview

Ursula Rucker Talks Womanhood and Courage in Art

I Remember Roy: Remembering Roy Hargrove

The #BLACKBOYJOY of Smino

Save the Date!: Dr. Guy brings Hide/Melt/Ghost to Harlem Stage on March 9!

Happy Holidays from MusiQology!

Happy Talk (for Nancy Wilson)

Bridget Ramsey’s “Save Your Love for Me” is Assertive Artistry (and a Fitting Tribute to Nancy Wilson)

The Encouraging 2019 GRAMMY Nominations are Just One Step in a Long Process

Home 2011 June

Breeze/Madness/Time: Notes on the Musical Semiotics of Summer

Black Music Month Day #29 Note: This is my final 2011 Black Music Month post.  Tomorrow, I will publish an index to the entire series. I hope you have enjoyed the writing and the music. Happy Summer!–GR Although the official calendar doesn’t agree, for most of us, July is the start of summer....

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 29, 2011
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How Small is a Piece of Funk?: Beats, Loops and Turntables in the Digital Divide

Black Music Month Day #28 The revolution might not be televised but it most certainly will be digital.  When James Brown recorded the song “Licking Stick” in 1968 on the album Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud, he almost single-handedly turned the pop music world on it’s ear.  The recording,...

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 28, 2011
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Live!: The Apollo Theater and the Black Star System

Black Music Month, Day #27 Before MTV videos, You Tube, digital downloads, nickelodeons, and television variety shows, fans of American popular music had to go to live music venues to enjoy their favorite artists.  From the stages of these spaces, both large and small, audiences experienced the larger-than-life...

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 27, 2011
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Mental Health and Jazz Musicians: Looking for Bud Powell

Black Music Month, Day #26 Two ideas bubble to the surface in all accounts of bebop musician Bud Powell (1924-1966).  The first thread is his supreme musical prowess.  The reputation that he built rests chiefly on his ability solo in the idiom, although he also composed memorable original works known...

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 26, 2011
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Take Six Takes House: Sounding History, Channeling the Ancestors

Black Music Month Day #25–In Memory of Michael Jackson I was thinking about writing something new about Michael Jackson for Day #25 of my black music month series.  It seemed only appropriate to commit some new words to paper to mark the occasion of him being gone for two years.  But during the virtuoso...

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 25, 2011
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Jazz On My Mind @ The Clifford Brown Jazz Fest

The Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in Wilmington, Delaware is one of the largest free festivals of its kind on the east coast.  Lineups always impress: the musicians play leisurely sets, and many prepare special shows–not just blowing standards–as they tour their latest efforts.  Wilmington...

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 24, 2011
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Step in the Name of Culture: The Dancing Body and Local Knowledge

Black Music Month, Day 23 On the remix of his #1 song “Step in the Name of Love” from 2003, R&B hit maker R. Kelly pronounces that “stepping is not just a dance, it’s a culture . . . it’s what we eat, think, and breathe.”  Sounds a little silly right?  Yeah, but the Chicago...

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 23, 2011
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Gender, Sexuality and Tonéx: Toward a Queer Criticism of Gospel Music

Black Music Month, Day #22 In a stunning article titled “Revelations,” journalist Kelefa Sanneh detailed the scandal surrounding contemporary gospel artist Tonéx’s (b. Anthony Charles Williams II) coming out as a gay man in a 2009 interview.   The prolific singer/songwriter whose body of expansive...

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 22, 2011
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On Yard Work, Public Musicology, and the Roots of Drastic Interpretation

It’s instructive to look back sometimes and try to understand the who, what, when, where, and how that got you here—and more interesting still to consider the “what is keeping me wherever here is.”  I think about it a lot. On planet musicology there are many divisions available to anyone invested...

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 21, 2011
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When the Master is a Woman: Rhetoric and Device in Karen Clark Sheard’s Will to Blend

Black Music Month, Day #20 Contemporary gospel, a sub-style of the black gospel music genre, has its roots in the style’s insatiable proclivity for absorbing and re-contextualizing the conventions of multiple genres.  One can observe this cross traffic from the very beginnings of gospel’s recognized...

By Dr. Guthrie /  June 20, 2011
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