Essays
Happy Anniversary, Ozzy
Testament’s Alex Skolnick on two essential metal albums celebrating milestone anniversaries — Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ and Ozzy’s ‘Blizzard of Ozz.’
David Fricke on Hendrix’s Greatest Unsung Covers
The guitar god left us on Sept. 18, 1970. [repost]
Conversations
“Jazz Is Freedom Music”: Inside Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s Jazz Is Dead
The musician-producers’ continuing project highlights living legends on inspired old-school terms.
“The Sadness and the Love”: A Conversation with Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips
The psychedelic frontman on the Lips’ majestic, melancholy new LP, ‘American Head,’ the adverse effects of LSD, a teenage near-death experience and more.
“It Takes a While to Perfect Your Soul”: A Conversation With Sonny Rollins
The jazz immortal on baseball, Bird, Coltrane, his ceaseless spiritual journey and an explosive upcoming archival release from 1967.
In Memoriam
Sharon Isbin Remembers Julian Bream
The classical guitar luminary thinks back on the late maestro’s passion and dedication.
Toots Hibbert: 1942 – 2020
Remembering Jamaica’s original soul man.
Kool and the Gang’s Ronald Bell: 1951 – 2020
The late co-founder and his brother helmed their group from jazz to funk to astonishing, enduring commercial success.
What's Going On
Songs of Protest & Healing: Zara McFarlane on Bob Marley’s ‘War’
Bob as storyteller, poet, political thinker and ambassador.
Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin
How the cultural and literary icon continues to deliver lessons of freedom, humanity and humility.
Songs of Protest & Healing: Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah on ‘Shallow Water’
The visionary trumpeter finds his personal and ancestral heritage in an Afro New Orleanian anthem.
Discover
Understanding Bird
A century after his birth, the modern-jazz lodestar Charlie Parker remains an all-consuming yet continually misjudged influence.
First Things First: The Innovators the Rock Hall Needs
As the institution’s Cleveland museum turns 25, a look back at the profoundly influential artists not yet included. They all may not have been megasellers, but they made the pop-music landscape that followed possible.
Murda She Wrote: August 2020
Hot tracks by Jada Kingdom, Kabaka Pyramid, Popcaan and Skip Marley for your summer finale.
Features
You Don’t Have to Be Ashamed: The Tender Revolution of Steven Grossman
Recording for a major label in the mid-’70s, the brilliant but forgotten singer-songwriter offered an honest, thoughtful expression of gay identity.
Riffs, Rhymes, Rehabilitation
Compassionate, innovative projects helmed by Ani DiFranco, Wayne Kramer, David Jassy and others use music to help prisoners restore the humanity that incarceration strips away.
