Words and Music

IF IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE for a virtuoso reedman to step out of a jazz 78 in a kind of “Purple Rose of Cairo” move, that person would be clari...

SO DISGUSTING AND PERVASIVE is the odor of hog waste that a researcher who was hired to take measurements of particulate evidence in and aro...

TENOR SAX ICON SCOTT HAMILTON seems to lead as relaxed a life as his playing suggests. He’s based in Florence, Italy, playing festivals and ...

WHAT’S MOST REMARKABLE about Jonathan Ward’s Excavated Shellac collection – a project he began on his website and which now has been issued...

MOSAIC RECORDS’ NEW COLLECTION of jazz sessions from the Black & White label nominally covers 1942-49, but a couple of Petrillo-led musi...

IN AUGUST 2022, the US Department of Agriculture released a new draft rule which they insist will bring organic egg and livestock companies ...

Guest Blogger Dept.: As we near the end of summer, let’s remind ourselves that this year’s disastrous attempts at muscling into what passes...

From the Classical Vault Dept. : I’m guessing that Julia Fischer is now priced out of the range of small-city chamber-music programs, so I h...

From the Food Vault Dept. : To have chef Roger Vergé visit Albany in 1987 was a Very Big Deal. I was already a fan by way of his book Cuisin...

A MOLCAJETE IS A THREE-LEGGED BOWL, traditionally made of basalt, which has been used as a mortar for food-grinding for thousands of years ...

From the Classical Vault Dept. : William Bolcom’s Piano Concerto No. 2 was premiered in April of this year, by Igor Levit and the Mahler Cha...

AGRICULTURE IS NOW INEXTRICABLY LINKED TO CLIMATE CHANGE. The evidence is incontrovertible; the damage is already taking place. As Laura Len...

MATTERS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH inform the two one-act operas comprising “Double Bill” at the Glimmerglass Festival, productions that show how ef...

THE IDEA OF A JUKEBOX OPERA using Rossini’s music is a terrific one – so good, in fact, that the world-premiere production of Tenor Overboar...

Guest Blogger Dept. : Stephen Leacock insists that he’s been overlooked. No longer shall I allow this indignity to continue, so here’s one o...

From the Food Vault: It’s outdoor dining weather, and Metroland magazine used to devote an annual issue to the topic, wheedling ad dollars ...

From the Very Soil Dept.: This is a companion piece to my review of What Your Food Ate , the incredibly compelling new book by David Montgo...

From the Food Vault Dept. : Things have been getting a little too healthy around here, so here’s a review I wrote in 2013 about a barbecue j...

WHAT YOUR FOOD ATE is the startlingly portentous title of a new study by the married team of David Montgomery and Anne Biklé, a book that ta...

WILLIAM BOLCOM’S INTEREST IN RAGTIME began in 1967, when he learned of a vanished ragtime opera by Scott Joplin – a name he’d never heard – ...