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David Bowie

David Robert Jones was born in Brixton on January 8, 1947. At age 13, inspired by the jazz of the London West End, he picked up the saxophone and called up Ronnie Ross for lessons. Early bands he played with – The Kon-Rads, The King Bees, the Mannish Boys and the Lower Third –provided him with an introduction into the showy worlds of pop and mod, and by 1966 he was David Bowie, with long hair and aspirations of stardom rustling about his head. Kenneth Pitt signed on as his manager, and his career began with a handful of mostly forgotten singles and a head full of ideas. It was not until 1969 that the splash onto the charts would begin, with the legendary Space Oddity (which peaked at #5 in the UK). Amidst his musical wanderings in the late '60s, the young Bowie experimented with mixed media, cinema, mime, Tibetan Buddhism, acting and love. A first rock album, originally titled David Bowie then subsequently re-titled Man of Words, Man of Music and again as Space Oddity, paid homage to the kaleidoscopic influences of the London artistic scene, while hinting at a songwriting talent that was about to yield some of rock n roll's finest and most distinctive work—even if it would take the rest of the world a few years to catch up.

Early 70s The Man Who Sold The World was the first David Bowie album recorded as an entity unto itself and marks ground zero of the first definitive creative stretch to come. Mick Ronson's guitars are often referred to as the birth point of heavy metal, and certainly the auspicious beginnings of glam rock can be traced here. The album was released by Mercury in April 1971 to minimal fanfare and Bowie took his first trip to the United States to promote it that spring. In May of the same year, Duncan Zowie Haywood Bowie was born to David and his then wife Angela.

RCA was the next label to sign Bowie, and after a trip to America to complete the legalities, he returned to London to record two albums nearly back to back. Hunky Dory was built from a six-song demo that had enticed the label to sign him and features Changes and Life on Mars?. Almost immediately, it was followed by the instant classic The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars—a record without which any Greatest Albums of All Time list is simply incomplete.

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Catching Up With

Masayoshi Sukita: A Higher Place

Read "Masayoshi Sukita: A Higher Place" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Japanese photographer Masayoshi Sukita is a giant of 20th-century photography, and his contributions are immeasurable. His work ranges from documenting urban life, fashion and travel to taking celebrity portraits and film sets. Born in Nogata Shi, Japan, in 1938, his photo career began when he received his first camera as a present from his mother and used the device to take a portrait of her. According to Sukita, this photo is the most important one he has ever taken as ...

7
Book Review

Masayoshi Sukita: Eternity

Read "Masayoshi Sukita: Eternity" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Eternity Masayoshi Sukita 256 Pages ISBN: 9781788841078 ACC Art Books 2021 People may or may not recognize his name but they have certainly seen his photographs. For the past 50 years, photographer Masayoshi Sukita and his camera have captured an enormous number of genuinely emblematic images of pop culture luminaries, and these photographs can only be classified as iconic. Diving deep into one of the most significant photographic careers, his book Eternity ...

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What is Jazz?

Ghosts In The Machine, Part 3: Jazz Musicians And Popular Music

Read "Ghosts In The Machine, Part 3: Jazz Musicians And Popular Music" reviewed by Kurt Ellenberger


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 Part 3: The GhostsIn a recent essay in Commentary, Terry Teachout, arts and culture critic for the Wall Street Journal, makes an argument for the date on which the jazz era officially ended and the rock/pop era began--May 9, 1964, the last time a jazz musician (Louis Armstrong, with his version of “Hello Dolly," from the musical of the same name) topped the ...

5
Book Review

Bowie's Books: The Hundred Literary Heroes Who Changed His Life

Read "Bowie's Books: The Hundred Literary Heroes Who Changed His Life" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Bowie's Books. The Hundred Literary Heroes Who Changed His Life John O'Connell 263 Pages ISBN: 1526605805 Bloomsbury 2019 Only a handful of musicians have embraced the continuous changes of musical directions, characters, and styles that singer David Bowie has during his long and illustrious career. It is difficult to embrace or fathom the enormous influence and impact that he had on worldwide culture across the many decades as it spread to so many ...

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Book Review

Anton Corbijn: Mood/Mode

Read "Anton Corbijn: Mood/Mode" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Mode/Mood Anton Corbijn 240 Pages ISBN: 9463887377 Cannibal Publishing 2020 In a career that spans four plus decades, photographer and film director Anton Corbijn became one of the best-known names in music photography. He was behind the lens of some of the most iconic music images of all time. With his work gracing the front covers of some of the popular albums (such as The Joshua Tree (Island, 1987) and All That You ...

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Live Review

A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour at Irving Plaza

Read "A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour at Irving Plaza" reviewed by Mike Perciaccante


A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour Irving Plaza New York, NY March 5, 2019 David Bowie was one of the most influential musicians for the 20th Century. His career began in the early 1960s and continued until his death in 2016. Acclaimed by critics, fans and other musicians, Bowie's music, much like his persona/personality, was stylish, innovative, bold, experimental, iconic and flamboyant. Because of his background in art, design and acting, Bowie's oeuvre ...

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Book Review

Ricochet: David Bowie 1983

Read "Ricochet: David Bowie 1983" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Ricochet: David Bowie 1983 Denis O'Regan 328 pages ISBN: 9781846149726 Particular Books 2018 1983 was a great year for David Bowie. In the previous two years he bowed out of music for a spell in order to act, debuting on Broadway as The Elephant Man and on television in Bertolt Brecht's play Baal. This move culminated in 1983, when he landed leading roles in two movies. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, directed ...

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Music Industry

David Bowie's Legacy On Copyright: Did He See The Future?

David Bowie's Legacy On Copyright: Did He See The Future?

Source: HypeBot

While all of David Bowie's predictions about copyright- like its no longer existing- may not have been one hundred percent accurate, he was correct about the panic the copyright industry would experience, causing them to enact policy which is now hurting, rather than incentivizing, the creative economy. Guest Post by Mike Godwin and Zach Graves on Techdirt Amid the steady stream of “hot takes" the past few weeks on the legacy of the late great David Bowie, The Washington Post's ...

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Music Industry

The Genius Behind Bowie’s Bonds

The Genius Behind Bowie’s Bonds

Source: HypeBot

Although primarily famous for his work as a musician, David Bowie (with the help of a Wall Street investor) is also notable for being one of the first artists to use celebrity bonds as a means of extricating himself from his financial woes. Guest Post by  Eduardo Loret de Mola on the Berklee College of Music: Music Business Journal David Bowie is a legend in more ways than one. In the 1970s his on stage alter egos could have been shunned; instead, they shattered conventions and ...

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Video / DVD

Bowie Scores First Ever #1, Makes Vevo History With 51M Video Views In Single Day

Bowie Scores First Ever #1, Makes Vevo History With 51M Video Views In Single Day

Source: HypeBot

Just a week after his death, iconic rocker David Bowie’s final album Blackstar debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, his first ever No. 1 album. Bowie reached a major video milestone, as well. Vevo announced that following the music icon's passing, David Bowie's catalog drew 51M views on January 11th, the most views for any artist in one day in Vevo history. The previous record holder for same day views was Adele, whose catalog garnered 36M views when “Hello" ...

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Music Industry

David Bowie Was More Than A Music Visionary, But A Digital, Business Visionary Too

David Bowie Was More Than A Music Visionary, But A Digital, Business Visionary Too

Source: HypeBot

David Bowie's musical genius is celebrated, but less well known is his acumen as a businessman and digital visionary.  "The internet carries the flag of being subversive and possibly rebellious and chaotic and nihilistic.... Forget about the Microsoft element. The monopolies do not have a monopoly," said Bowie in a 1999 interview. By Mick Masnik from Techdirt As I'm sure you've heard by now, famed musician David Bowie passed away yesterday at age 69 due to cancer. As someone who ...

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Obituary

David Bowie (1947-2016)

David Bowie (1947-2016)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

David Bowie, a British singer-songwriter from South London who transformed rock into high art by combining the audacity of pop, the decadence and androgyny of Weimar cabaret, the melancholy of working class pubs and the flamboyance of the circus, died on Jan. 10. He was 69. His death came two days after his birthday and the release of what became his final studio album—Black Star. As a musician-performer, Bowie's vision was the absence of vision or style, preferring instead to ...

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Recording

David Bowie to release new "Jazz-Oriented" single

David Bowie to release new "Jazz-Oriented" single

Source: Michael Ricci

Bowie has teamed up with the Maria Schneider Orchestra to release his first new material since 2013 comeback album The Next Day David Bowie has revealed he has teamed up with a leading jazz orchestra for his new single. The track, called “Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)," is under wraps until it is premiered this weekend but is said to be “jazz-oriented". The song—also to feature on a forthcoming collection drawn from across his half century recording career—was ...

Music Industry

Ty Roberts: From Working with David Bowie to CO-Founding Gracenote

Ty Roberts: From Working with David Bowie to CO-Founding Gracenote

Source: HypeBot

Gracenote CTO and Co-Founder Ty Roberts is one of those tech guys who crosses such divisions as the creation of the World Wide Web and the boundaries between art, music and technology. At a time when programmers are ascendant with a growing pushback from creative types, Roberts is someone whose work back in the days of interactive CD-Roms with artists such as David Bowie and Brian Eno carried over into the creation of music metadata company Gracenote. I spoke yesterday ...

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Recording

Beach Boys + David Bowie

Beach Boys + David Bowie

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Last month, on the same date, EMI Music released two fascinating rock albums—one a new recording by a '60s rock band and the other a remastered classic by one of the most influential artists of the '70s. The new one is the Beach Boys' That's Why God Made the Radio, and the remastered CD is David Bowie's masterpiece The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Startdust and the Spiders from Mars (1972). Both are concept albums—one celebrating the romantic possibilities of ...

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Recording

The Wee Trio - Ashes to Ashes: A David Bowie Intraspective (2012)

The Wee Trio - Ashes to Ashes: A David Bowie Intraspective (2012)

Source: Something Else!

A finely judged treatment of David Bowie's music, done without hewing too closely to the old sides—and without fear of going too deep into his catalog for material. Along the way, the Wee Trio gives us a new understanding of Bowie's sometimes overlooked way with a pop tune. But, more importantly, Ashes to Ashes is such a complete recording that it holds up even if you don't consider yourself a Bowie completist. That's perhaps best heard on the title track ...

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Performance / Tour

The Wee Trio On Tour In Support of "Ashes To Ashes - A David Bowie Intraspective"

The Wee Trio On Tour In Support of "Ashes To Ashes - A David Bowie Intraspective"

Source: Jason Byrne, Red Cat Publicity

..."infectious ...raucous ...More, please." —The Boston Globe “an investigative vehicle which shakes with energy... inventive jazz which works on its own merits while retaining Bowie's spirit and self- assurance." —Audiophile Audition “Ashes to Ashes suggests that if you wash 30 years of glam off of Bowie, durable songs remain... there's plenty of adventure and invention in these tracks." —OffBeat Magazine THE WEE TRIO Announces National Tour In Support & Celebration of: ASHES TO ASHES—A DAVID BOWIE INTRASPECTIVE (released on New ...

Alix Tucou
trombone, bass
Ike Moriz
vocals
Frank Vitolo
saxophone, tenor
Fee Aaij
piano

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