Tag Archives: Articles
One More Once: Echoes of Past Futures and Inaugurating Redress in the New Term(s)
“When children grow up, where does the hope go? Is it outgrown like a pair of shoes or has it gone to sleep? Or is it lost somewhere inside of us?” – William Parker Because of an early start to the Spring 2017 semester, I missed the superb Winter Jazz Fest this year, following from […]
To Rush Would Be A Crime: After Shirley Horn’s Riffs on Albert Murray
Last Tuesday I joined Greg Thomas, Clifford Thompson, and Robert O’Meally on a panel celebrating Albert Murray’s writing and scholarship at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem on the occasion of Murray’s 100th birthday. Given the depth of their personal and studied familiarities with Murray, I’ll admit to being both honored and a bit daunted by the […]
Book review…Oxford Series in Recorded Jazz
My review of the first five books of the Oxford Series of Recorded Jazz was just published in the journal Twentieth-Century Music. The complete text (with hyperlinks added) is below and available on my academia.edu site as published. Here’s the proper citation: Mark Lomanno. “Oxford Series in Recorded Jazz.” Twentieth-Century Music vol. 12, no. 2 (September 2015): 279-285. […]
Science and Soul: Emergent Themes & the Improvising Classroom
In 2007 I left the NYC jazz scene to attend a PhD program in ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin. One of the reasons I chose the program was for its reputation as one of the strongest programs in the country for incorporating anthropology and the social sciences into music research. As someone interested […]
Jazz in the Hollywood Machine: ‘Whiplash’, Insider Anxiety, and Riffing Violence
So the other day I finally watched Whiplash, in part because of the attention the film garnered on the Oscars. And I didn’t hate it. I mean, as a jazz musician, educator, and an empathetic person, there’s a lot to dislike and revile about the plot and particularly about the lightning rod bandleader Terence Fletcher, the […]
Methodological Potentiality and the Untranslatable: Sounding Difference in the Translating Riff. A Response to Helga Zambrano
Thanks to my colleagues at Ethnomusicology Review for inviting me to submit a response to a recent article on the Cuban poet Nicolas Guillén and Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. My article is posted here, but I’m including the text below as well. In her article, “Reimagining the Poetic and Musical Translation of ‘Sensemayá,’” Helga Zambrano presents […]
Enunciating Power and Ex…Plosive Time: Cécile McLorin Salvant’s “Woman Child” and Silence Undone
Of all the countless, captivating moments I have heard and re-heard in WomanChild, there are two that struck me right away—on my first listen to the album—and that continue to surprise me each time I hear them. I haven’t been able to let these moments go—not for the three months prior to the album release […]
Inspired Intuition and Dissociative Play: The Improvising World of Jean-Michel Pilc
One of my old piano teachers used to tell me, “Play the note all the way to the bottom of the key.” His advice was less about volume than about intent: he was cautioning me against the timid play of young improvisers. In that moment, I might know generally what I hoped to accomplish, but […]
Biography…Arturo Sandoval (jazz.com)
An important part of the jazz.com site is its encyclopedia of jazz musicians. I wrote this entry for Arturo Sandoval in 2008 (the original post can be found here): In 1982, Dizzy Gillespie hatched a plan to introduce a young discovery of his, Cuban trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, to the world. When the two met at […]
The Rhythm of Study 