KSPACE.TV » jazz

Skate: Miles Davis Quintet Decks

tcroberts — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:20:20 +0000

No doubt Miles Davis would have been a skater had he been from this new generation. In fact, it would be easy to compare him to someone like Tommy Guererro or Lupe Fiasco, who have the birth of cool down, as well as skill-sets that mix skate and music. However, I think that either of these two contemporaries would kill to be considered in the same breath as Miles, and fight to get their hands on these decks. Beautifully illustrated by Ian Johnson, these decks aren’t those that are screen-printed en masse, these are true works of art, seemingly hand-painted. Even if they aren’t hanging these on the wall would easily win over doing boardslides down the rail.

via Boing Boing

Listen: The Crooked Spoke

Matt Diehl — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:35:22 +0000

Sure, Denmark has produced a number of good tennis stars, of the table variety or just the usual, very attractive blonde Scandanavian type. However, when it comes to wildly innovative music… Er, not so much. That’s why I was blown away today when I heard The Crooked Spoke sailing through the speakers on KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic”
(or KCRW.com) in L.A. this morning.

The Crooked Spoke are a mysterious Danish collective that blend smoky jazz, ye olde electronica, John Barry-style film scores, spooky spoken word and whatever else seems to float their frikadeller. I was particularly blown away by the track “The One You Left Behind”: think Massive Attack jamming with Scott Walker and Leonard Cohen, and you get the idea. Great Danes, indeed…

‘The One You Left Behind’

‘Black Tower Hotel Lulu Rouge’

Wynton Marsalis on the Rhythms of Basketball and Jazz

tcroberts — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:43:49 +0000

Anyone who knows basketball and jazz can see the relationship between the two pursuits: a marriage of form and improvisation, of individualism with teamwork; a primacy of rhythm (it’s all about tempo); and a requirement that players respond to one another’s choices and to rapidly changing situations in real time. Just as Kareem Abdul-Jabar was famous for listening to artists like Sonny Rollins before games, Wynton Marsalis has famously gone on record to describe is fondness for roundball. Recently, he spoke with the New York Times about the connections between his two loves:

“The most successful improvisation happens like the most successful ball when every person really knows the function of those plays from their perspective. We’ve seen great ball players, but I don’t think we’ve seen individual brilliance at every position. That would be an unbeatable team. That like the John Coltrane quartet.”

(video via New York Times)