Confused revolutionary? Brilliant provocateur? As her Super Bowl digit malfunction reminded everyone, Maya Arulpragasam is one of the most polarizing figures in pop today, a neon blur of contradictions and conflations — but she may also be the most thrilling. Here's a handy primer to her life and art and everything in between SPIN originally published in our August 2010 issue. By some accounts — including her own — we should all be done talking about Maya Arulpragasam. In 2007, promoting her sophomore album, Kala , the singer known as M.I.A. told an interviewer, "I feel like a mirror reflecting back ...

The BBC Four television channel is planning a jazz weekend later this month with a special raft of programming that includes documentaries about Sonny Rollins and Barbara Thompson among its highlights.The opening evening is to include a significant new documentary film about Sonny Rollins, the focus of the long running Arena documentary strand, to be broadcast on Friday 17 February at 9pm. The film, Beyond The Notes , directed by Dick Fontaine, features footage from Rollins’ Beacon Theatre 80th birthday concert filmed in New York when Rollins was joined for the first time on stage by free jazz avatar Ornette ...

It’s safe to say that without the tireless efforts of  Alan Lomax , the world may never have been introduced to the likes of Woody Guthrie, Muddy Waters, Leadbelly or countless other musicians the folklorist and ethnomusicologist recorded on dusty back roads, barns or just about anywhere else he could set up his recording gear. Lomax spent his entire career making field recordings of folk and traditional music, both in the U.S. and abroad, amassing a collection of 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes, 5,000 photographs and piles of manuscripts ...

Yes, Warped Tour faithfuls, it really has been nearly a decade since the All-American Rejects released their first self-titled record in 2003. You really have been listening to "Swing, Swing" for almost half of your life. We've all grown up (somewhat) since then, and Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter is no exception. The band's new album, Kids in the Street , drops on March 26 (the single "Beekeeper's Daughter" arrived yesterday — listen to it below). We caught up with Ritter via phone from Aspen, Colorado, where he and the rest of the group recently performed at the X-Games, and ...

Released: 2012-04-17 “One of the most important musicians of our time. When we think of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye, J Dilla will be going down along that history line of greatness.” – Common (from XXL) “He inspired me so much. One of the best days of my life [...]

Twenty years after his death, jazz legend Miles Davis will be honored by the U.S. Postal Service with his own stamp. Forget email for a second, and mail a letter. According to Rolling Stone, Davis will be immortalized in a collection of musically-themed stamps that will also honor the singer Edith

I mentioned last week that when Ken Burns made the documentary Jazz, he neglected the soul-jazz stars who kept the music relevant in the 1960s, in favor of a continued focus on the declining careers of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, and on the fusion experiments of Miles Davis. There’s an argument that soul jazz [...]

Jazzwise reaches a youthful 15 years of age with its April issue, out on 22 March, and to celebrate this momentous anniversary occasion a special Jazzwise to the Power of 15 Festival will be held at the world famous Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London’s Soho from 12-17 March. The festival has been specially programmed by the Ronnie Scott’s team and Jazzwise’s Jon Newey to showcase the legacy, diversity, and cutting edge of jazz with six days of exceptional artistic talent championed by Jazzwise over the past 15 years. Jazzwise was launched in late-March 1997 and ...

Historic Wall to Wall Miles Davis Streams January 31st All-Star Cast Honors an American Jazz Giant Initiative Supports JazzNext Code for Other Jazz Presenters Symphony Space - one of New York's preeminent multi-disciplinary performing arts institutions, producers of Selected Shorts and ...

Paul Kantner & Starship">Jefferson Starship : Starship [ purchase ] This is not the Starship">Jefferson Starship of “Miracles” (which is still a great song, by a good band, in my opinion, despite its lack of critical respect) or the Starship of “We Built This City” (a bad song by a bad band, in my opinion, consistent with its critical loathing). This Starship">Jefferson Starship was what Paul Kantner, of the recently disintegrated Jefferson Airplane, decided to call the band that recorded a science fiction/popular revolution concept album called “Blows Against the Empire” originally released in 1970. The album included contributions from ...

During the 1964-68 period while he served as the “idea man” in Miles Davis’ Second Quintet, Wayne Shorter reeled off album after album under his own name that were extremely creative and sometimes breathtaking. Only another former Miles sideman bested him in the quality of recordings led by a tenor player during that same time frame. Originals like “Footprints,” “Yes [...]

Liam McCormick’s recommendation: “I love so many different kinds of music and so many different artists, that being asked to chose just one artist that moves me is an extremely hard task. Where does one start? I could talk about a number of well known artists like Miles Davis, Cursive, Claude Debussy, Kings of Convenience, [...]

Scott Williams played two pieces of spacey music, one from big band leader Don Ellis, then one from The North Sea. Ellis specialized in complex time signatures, and was using electronics on his albums two years before Miles Davis made...

On February 7, New York City’s B.B. King Blues Club will host a celebration in honor of legendary guitarist Cornell Dupree. The evening will pay tribute to the legacy and life of Dupree, who is known his session work with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Miles Davis and many others in ad...

I snapped this just last week. How…timely. Cyndi Lauper & Sarah McLachlan : Time After Time [ purchase ] Cassandra Wilson : Time After Time [ purchase ] Here's a 1983 classic that always seems more recent to me than it is…I have to remember that the 80s were 30-ish years ago. A boatload of covers exist for this song from artists all over the musical spectrum: I've got ones from Willy Nelson, Miles Davis, Bon Jovi, Ronan Keating, and Matchbox 20. It's got cross-genre appeal, for sure. The first version I've posted is a self-cover from Cyndi's 2005 album ...