Columbia College Chicago : On Our Shelves

On Our Shelves is a general interest and educational resource tool created by the CBMR staff as a way of sharing information about black music worldwide. Our staff members have wide-ranging interests and areas of expertise but all authors and artists discussed below are represented in the CBMR library and archival collections. Please follow the links for additional information. The ideas and opinions represented here are not formal institutional endorsements or reviews.

. Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit: Spirituals (Channel Classics Records CCS 2991 )
Click here to purchase.

The Negro spiritual is perhaps the most ubiquitous black music in the United States, in performance practices including unaccompanied vocal and instrumental solos, art song and choral arrangements, jazz settings, gospel settings (both black and white), and chamber ensemble and orchestral settings. In fact, the Negro spiritual may be found in just about any vocal or instrumental combination that can be imagined. Performances are in both sacred and profane settings, including the home, clubs, concert venues, recording studios, and in the most humble country or storefront church and largest cathedrals. They are performed in both outdoor and indoor settings by amateur, professional, and student musicians alike and are used in settings ranging from the most private and intimate spiritual moment to the most public extravaganza. They are used within the context of genuine religious worship and as entertainment, as folk music and as the basis for composed concert music. And, of course, they were heard in their original settings of slavery, forced labor, imprisonment, and human degradation; provided the repertoire for the Fisk Jubilee Singers who took the music to Europe; and were set as art songs by Burleigh and arranged for choruses by Hairston, Burleigh, Johnson, and a host of others. During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, it was nearly unthinkable to not include Negro spiritual settings on voice recitals and choral performances. Plus, who has not heard the recordings of Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, and Kathleen Battle? And the number of works by composers both black and white that use a Negro spiritual as a cantus prius factus is nearly uncountable.

Performed by male alto Derek Lee Ragin and pianist Moses Hogan, this 1991 CD features arrangements by Hogan, Hal Johnson, H. T. Burleigh, and Edward Boatner. It is hard to imagine more deeply felt and intimate vocals than those offered by Ragin, and Hogan's accompaniments demonstrate his musical artistry.

—Morris Phibbs
"Give Me Jesus (Derek Lee Ragin)"

In addition to owning a copy of this CD, the CBMR Library and Archives has a large collection of recordings, books, scores, sheet music, dissertations, concert programs and other ephemera that deal with the Negro spiritual.

William Chapman Nyaho. Senku: Piano Music by Composers of African Descent (Musicians Showcase MS1091 )
Click here to purchase.

William Chapman Nyaho is a classically trained pianist and educator who was born in Ghana. His CD Senku presents piano music by twentieth-century composers from throughout the diaspora. Included are works by Joshua Uzoigwe (Nigeria), Gyimah Labi (Ghana), Gamal Abdel-Rahim (Egypt), Oswald Russell (Jamaica), Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (England), and, from the United States, Margaret Bonds, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. A variety of sonorities and styles are included. Bonds's "Troubled Water," Dett's suite "In the Bottoms," and Coleridge-Taylor's variations on "Deep River" (from his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies) exemplify late Romanticism. Folk styles are the basis for Russel's Three Jamaican Dances and Abdel-Rahim's "Variations on an Egyptian Folksong." The pieces by Uzoigwe and Labi represent the contemporary compositional school known as "African pianism," which translates African drum idioms to the piano. Sheer contemporary verve and virtuosity mark Perkinson's "Scherzo."

It is difficult to pick one favorite in this panoply of music. No matter how often I listen, I always hear something new and interesting. My sentimental favorite is probably Perkinson's "Scherzo," which has all the inventiveness and modal richness we came to expect from our friend and colleague Perk. However, the African pieces are also eye-opening in their rhythmic intensity (Uzoigwe's "Ukom" is a personal favorite) and the subtlety with which Nyaho treats Bonds's often-played "Troubled Water" and the virtuosity with which he handles the complexities of Dett's "Juba Dance" are equally entertaining and enlightening. The variety of this CD and the virtuosity displayed are wonderful to experience. Maybe it takes an African performer to bring out the similarities in these pieces from throughout the African Diaspora.

William Chapman Nyaho has also edited a two-volume collection of piano music for Oxford University Press titled Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora (2007), which can be found in the CBMR Library. Another excellent CD collection of contemporary piano music by African-American composers is Karen Walwyn's Dark Fires, a two-CD series from Albany Records (Troy 266 and Troy 384).

—Suzanne Flandreau
"Scherzo (composed by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson)"

Cedric Im Brooks and the Light of Saba. Cedric Im Brooks and the Light of Saba (Honest Jons Records HJRCD4, 2003 )
Click here to purchase.

Saxophonist and drummer Cedric Im Brooks is one of Jamaica's most unusual talents. After a stint playing ska, he moved to the United States in the late 1960s and studied the ideas and techniques of Sun Ra and other avant garde jazz luminaries while hanging out with members of the Arkestra in Philadelphia. He returned to Jamaica at the beginning of the 1970s and joined forces with Rastafarian master drummer Count Ossie to create the tremendously influential musical collective and performing group known as The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari. He also arranged horns at Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's legendary Studio One in Kingston, recorded albums and singles of his own, and on occasion arranged for and backed Bob Marley. During the Rastafarian cultural renaissance of the mid and late 70s, he led and recorded with his own band, The Light of Saba. This CD represents a selection of some of his more interesting work from this period, making it readily available for the first time to listeners outside of Jamaica. The collection roams over a broad territory, demonstrating Brooks's Pan Africanist convictions, drawing on elements of funk, Afrobeat, and traditional West African rhythms as well as specifically Jamaican genres such as mento; but at the core of most tracks is a jazz sensibility effectively blended with traditional Rastafarian Nyabinghi drum rhythms and/or bass-heavy "roots" reggae of the kind that came of age in Jamaica during the 1970s. Brooks remains active today as a jazz player and educator, moving between New York and Ethiopia, and often tours internationally with the current version of the Skatalites. Leading artists and intellectuals in Jamaica, such as Rex Nettleford, recognize him as one of the country’s cultural treasures.

—Kenneth Bilby
"Rasta Lead On Version"

In addition to owning a copy of this and other recordings featuring Cedric Brooks, the CBMR Library and Archives also owns original interview material and unpublished recordings of Cedric Brooks in concert, as well as field recordings of traditional Jamaican genres tapped by Brooks on this CD (such as mento and Nyabinghi), in its Caribbean collections.

Gerhard Kubik. "How My Research Developed from 1959 to Now," Papers Presented at the 4th Symposium on Ethnomusicology, edited by Andrew Tracey. (Grahamstown, South Africa: International Library of African Music, 1984 )

In 1959, music ethnologist Gerhard Kubik (b. 1934) hitchhiked from his native Vienna to Uganda, marking the beginning of his search for the African roots of jazz. Coming of age in post-war Vienna, Kubik felt the presence of American culture and became fascinated with swing music and jazz. He formed his own jazz band, in which he played clarinet, and developed an interest in learning to play various kinds of African music.
This symposium paper, which was reprinted from a speech given in South Africa, is one of my favorite writings by Kubik for two reasons. First, the autobiographical content situates Kubik's inspiration, initiative, and ethnographic procedures in a historical and cultural context that no longer exists and that is difficult for a younger generation to imagine. Second, the publication date of this speech/paper is critical because it falls halfway between 1959 and today. Reading Kubik's mid-career reflection on his efforts lends insight to a reader's interpretation of his later contributions.
In this paper, he describes his initial difficulties in communicating with his African music instructors and how this impacted his perspective on African music. At first, it was almost impossible for him express in his field notes—which were in German—musical concepts specific to the amadinda music he was learning; yet, it was equally difficult for him to ask his Ugandan teacher about amadinda because it could not be explained using Western musicological analysis. Kubik's ability to navigate this and other situations serves as a model for students of anthropology and ethnomusicology; he is known world-wide for his work on music in the African diaspora.

—Melanie Zeck

The CBMR Library and Archives maintains a collection of writings by Kubik and his research partner, Moya Malamusi. In addition, the CBMR also has six videocassettes that contain edited video footage of music and dance events in Namibia, Zambia, Angola, South Africa, and Malawi.

Love. Forever Changes (Rhino R2 76717 )
(Originally issued on Elektra Records in 1967)
Click here to purchase.

Love's Forever Changes is one of my all-time favorite rock albums. It's unlike anything else you'll ever hear, and, as with all great music, something new is always gained from repeated listenings no matter how many times you've heard it before.
Love was a racially integrated group that came out of the 1960s Los Angeles rock scene that also included bands such as The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Doors. While Love's self-titled debut album reflected the rock influence of The Byrds and The Rolling Stones and their second album, Da Capo, incorporated the sounds of jazz, classical, and Latin music, the band's sound on Forever Changes was pared down to a mostly nonelectric and orchestral instrumentation, creating a gorgeous blend of guitars, strings, and horns in a way that had not previously been achieved in rock music. The band's songwriting (primarily done by enigmatic leader Arthur Lee and guitarist Bryan McLean) had also matured considerably, resulting in miniature suites with several nonrepeating sections, complex arrangements, and strangely evocative melodies and lyrics. Recorded throughout the summer of 1967 and released in November of that year, Forever Changes is all at once gentle yet haunting, beautiful yet dark, charming yet eerie. The vaguely unsettling feel of the album is due not only to its musical character but also to its often inscrutable and ominous lyrics. Lee, who has stated that he had the feeling his death was imminent during the writing of this album, sings songs that often give a sense of paranoia and dread, in stark contrast to much of the feel-good music generally associated with the Summer of Love.

While Forever Changes didn't sell well upon its release (generally attributed to the band's reluctance to perform much outside Los Angeles), it has gained much critical acclaim since that time and is now widely considered a rock masterpiece. The praise is well deserved, and the album should be held in the same high regard as the most celebrated rock records of its era (The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced?, and Pink Floyd's The Piper at the Gates of Dawn).

—Andrew Leach
"The Red Telephone"

The CBMR Library and Archives also owns other recordings of Love and other black rock musicians. For more information about our collections, click here.

Frederick Tillis. Freedom (New World Records 80455-2 )
Click here to purchase.

This recording, released in 1996, is the first devoted entirely to the music of Frederick Tillis. It includes works for a number of performance media including chorus, string quartet, and solo voice. Another highlight is the composer's personal rendering of "Motherless Child" (on soprano saxophone). Particularly striking are the other references to spirituals on this recording. All four movements of Spiritual Fantasy no. 12 feature treatments of African-American spiritual themes in varied compositional treatments. From highly developed motivic fragments to extended contrapuntal episodes, this piece further fortifies the viability of African-American spirituals and folk songs as strong sources for creative ingenuity. A slight contrast to the recognizable themes in Spiritual Fantasy no. 12 and the more folk-oriented pieces is the terse choral work, Freedom. Using the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as inspiration, Tillis offers a highly personal statement that displays a modern compositional technique framed with an atonal (nonserial) palate. The final tracks on the recording present Tillis's poetry in colorful song settings that mildly stretch musical conventions of that idiom.

—Horace Maxile
"Freedom"

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. 100 Days 100 Nights (Daptone Records DAP-012 )
Click here to purchase.

On a recommendation last year, I picked up the music issue of the Oxford American, an annual feature that includes essays on a wide variety of Southern musicians, plus a sampler disc containing tracks of their music. Among the artists featured was Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. As a fan of late-1960s and 1970s soul and funk, I loved their included track, “How Long Do I Have to Wait.” I was surprised to discover, however, that this wasn’t a band unearthed from the 1970s but one that was contemporary and still creating music. As Lindsey Miller (Oxford American, issue 54, 2006, p. 74) notes, “don’t call them retro-funk, and don’t slander them as revivalists. Jones and the Dap-Kings may be the funk-soul equivalent of Rip Van Winkle, passing by the last twenty years of music like it never existed but just as it was for Aretha [Franklin], J. B. [James Brown], Otis [Redding], George [Clinton], and Tina [Turner], their sound remains heart-thumpingly alive.”

—Laura Haefner
"100 Days 100 Nights"

The CBMR Library and Archives owns materials pertaining to soul performers of the late-1960s and 1970s in its Sue Cassidy Clark Collection.

Burning Spear. Marcus Garvey (Palm PALMCD 2122-2) (Originally issued on Island Records in 1975 )
Click here to purchase.

Burning Spear was a renowned, politically charged reggae group that recorded their first single, "Door Peep," in 1969. They released their first album in 1973, and Marcus Garvey, their third album, was the first released by Island Records. The original lead singer, Winston Rodney, is now known himself as Burning Spear and won a Grammy for the album Calling Rastafari in 2000. If you love and appreciate reggae, you will appreciate Burning Spear. "Marcus Garvey" and "Red, Gold and Green" are two of my favorite tracks on this CD, both featuring beautiful bass and horn arrangements (by some of Jamaica's best studio musicians) behind Winston Rodney's emotional vocals.

—Linda Hunter
"Marcus Garvey"

The CBMR Library and Archives also owns numerous other reggae recordings. For more information about our collections, click here.

Thomas Dorsey. Georgia Tom (Thomas A. Dorsey): Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order (RST Records BDCD-6022) (2 volume set) (Previously released recordings. )

Before Thomas Dorsey became the beloved father of gospel music, he was a famous blues artist, first performing with Ma Rainey and later performing on his own. With Ma Rainey, he played piano, arranged music, and assembled her touring band, Wildcats Jazz Band. They last recorded together in 1928 as a trio, with Ma Rainey on vocals, Dorsey on piano, and Tampa Red on guitar. On his own, Dorsey performed and recorded as Georgia Tom, often teaming with Tampa Red. The two had a hit single in 1928 with "It's Tight Like That." Dorsey's solo blues career lasted less than four years; he gave up performing blues soon after the death of his wife and infant son in 1932.
This two-volume set of recordings documents Dorsey's solo blues career and his transition from blues to gospel. It begins with a 1928 vocal duet by Ma Rainey's Boys, with Dorsey accompanying them on piano. It continues with Dorsey performing solo under the pseudonyms Georgia Tom and Memphis Mose, with accompanying guitarists Tampa Red, Scrapper Blackwell, and Big Bill Broonzy. It ends with Dorsey's last blues duet with Tampa Red, "If You Want Me to Love You," his last blues solo, "M & O Blues," which he recorded under the pseudonym Railroad Bill, and his famous gospel tune "How About You," all recorded in 1932. As a gospel artist, Dorsey seldom recorded.

—Janet Harper
"Lonesome Man Blues"

Eileen M. Hayes and Linda F. Williams, eds. Black Women and Music: More Than the Blues (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007 )
Click here to purchase.

As the back cover states, Black Women and Music is the "first interdisciplinary volume to examine black women's negotiation of race and gender in African American music." Musicians represented work in the fields of classical, electric blues, hip hop, jazz, gospel, musical theater and the avant-garde. They are vocalists, instrumentalists, composers, conductors, emcees, and announcers; the essays draw from musicology and ethnomusicology as well as rhetoric and theater, English, women's studies, writing, and performance.This collection is not chronological, is not meant to be comprehensive, and does not invest in canon-building. However, it does present an impressively wide range of experiences, questions, genres, and approaches organized in three broadly thematic sections. The first, "Having Her Say: Power and Complication in Popular Music," considers gender and race issues in hip hop, electric blues, and musical theater, as well as how they are negotiated by artists and audiences. The second section, "When and Where She Enters: Black Women in Unsung Places," looks at black women's musicking in under-examined contexts such as those of the gospel announcer, the contemporary jazz musician, the jazz avant-garde, and "women's music" scenes. The third and final section, "Revisiting Musical Herstories," recovers black women's histories in concert music. Black Women in Music provides clear evidence for the fact that music making has historically been and continues to be an arena in which black American women explore and create identities that consider categories of race, gender, class, generation, and sexuality. Furthermore, black women put these experiences in the service of racial critique, spirituality, advocacy, sexual politics, racial uplift, and survival. This book is inspiring and necessary.

—Monica Hairston

In addition to owning a copy of this and other books on black women musicians, the CBMR Library and Archives also houses the collection of Melba Liston, jazz composer, arranger, and trombonist.

Louis "Sabu" Martínez and Arsenio Rodríguez. Palo Congo (Blue Note 22665 )
Click here to purchase.

This peculiar but remarkable Blue Note release first caught my attention because of the title (referring to Kongo-related spiritual practices in Cuba) and the presence of the renowned Cuban musician and composer Arsenio Rodríguez ("El Ciego Maravilloso"). Given the label that issued it, I expected a Latin-inflected jazz outing of the kind that had become common in New York by the 1950s. Instead, I was surprised by a largely Afrocuban excursion. Although nominally Sabu Martínez's project, the album owes at least as much to Rodríguez. Martínez, a Harlem-born conguero and percussionist, was closely associated with jazz in his younger years, having played and recorded with some of the most important figures of his time, such as Art Blakey; but he was equally active in Latin popular music. This album shows how comfortable he was in both Afrocuban and broader Latin musical settings. It includes a version of Rafael Hernández's famous "El cumbanchero," a Puerto Rican-style plena, a number of pieces credited to Sabu Martínez himself, and an extended jam starting with a quote of Moisés Simons's iconic "El manisero" ("Peanut Vendor")-all of which allow Rodríguez to stretch out with impressive solos on the guitar-like Cuban tres, an instrument he helped make famous. Particularly noteworthy are "Billumba-Palo Congo," in which Arsenio plays the part of a palero (ritual specialist), engaging in a call-and-response exchange and oration partly in Cuban KiKongo (Congolese language); and "Aggo Elegua," a sacred chant in the Yoruba-related Lucumí (Santería) tradition. These suggest the depth of Arsenio Rodríguez's knowledge of the Afrocuban spiritual traditions that were an important part of his cultural heritage and strongly influenced his musical production. To me, this album speaks of the vitality and prominence of the Afrocuban cultural presence that intersected in interesting ways with the jazz scene in New York during the 1940s and 1950s. Although the session was recorded in stereo, the album was originally released on LP only in mono. This CD release makes it available in stereo for the first time, and the sound quality is unusually crisp and vivid for a recording made a half century ago.

—Kenneth Bilby
"Tribilin Cantore"

In addition to owning a copy of this and other recordings featuring Arsenio Rodríguez, the CBMR Library and Archives also owns a copy of David F. García's M.A. thesis, "Arsenio Rodríguez and the Reevaluation of Afrocuban-influenced Popular Music: Linguistic and Musical Codeswitching in the Afro-son" (University of California-Santa Barbara, 1997) and his recently published book, Arsenio Rodríguez and the Transnational Flows of Latin Popular Music (Temple University Press, 2006). Both of these studies pay close attention to the strongly African-influenced cultural milieu from which Rodríguez emerged and are highly recommended.

Dena J. Epstein. Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003 )
Click here to purchase.

Dena Epstein's Sinful Tunes and Spirituals was first published in 1977; in 2003 the University of Illinois Press issued a new paperback edition with an updated preface by the author. No further editing was required: Sinful Tunes is the product of exhaustive scholarship, and it has never been superseded. It appeared at a time when new attention was being paid to black music studies, and with her thorough and unassailable scholarship, Epstein was able to lay to rest, once and for all, the misconception that no African elements had been retained in black American culture.
Two things about Sinful Tunes make the book especially appealing: extensive quotes and Epstein's description of the earliest attempts to preserve the heritage of black music through publication of transcriptions. Epstein quotes extensively from her sources. She uses early published letters and diaries, reports, and descriptions, along with archival materials, to present slave music as it was perceived by contemporaries, even when the music is described unsympathetically or incompletely by people who had no idea what they were hearing. There is enough evidence presented to draw conclusions opposite from theirs, and the numerous quoted passages bring the times and the music to life.
The final chapters of Sinful Tunes are devoted to the collection and publication of slave music just after the Civil War, culminating in Slave Songs of the United States edited by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison and published in New York in 1867. Slave Songs presents a collection of spirituals and a few secular songs from the time before popularization by the Jubilee Singers and other performers solidified the repertoire.
Sinful Tunes is a scholarly book but by no means a dry or boring one; in fact it's just the opposite. Epstein brings the music and its context vividly to life through lively writing and quotation of original sources.

—Suzanne Flandreau

Related resources in the CBMR Library and Archives include the papers of Dena J. Epstein, which reflect her painstaking research in a time before e-mail, when everything was accomplished on-site or by letter. The Epstein collection also reflects the repercussions of Sinful Tunes in Epstein's own career (she became an authority on the banjo, among other things) and on her subsequent research publications. Also in the CBMR Library is an original 1867 edition of Slave Songs of the United States, from the estate of Robin Hough, as well as several reprint editions of this seminal book.

Roberta Flack. Killing Me Softly (Atlantic 82793-2 )
Click here to purchase.

Released in 1973 (Atlantic), this recording features the hit single "Killing Me Softly With His Song." That single won the 1974 Grammy award for Record of the Year and set Roberta Flack as the only artist to win this award for two consecutive years. She won the 1973 Grammy with her rendition of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Sonically situated between the small ensemble sound of her first album (First Take) and the more orchestrated arrangements of her second album (Chapter Two), Killing Me Softly features clean horn arrangements and solo cello amidst the rhythm section (piano, bass, guitar, drum) accompaniments. The horn arrangements help propel the soul-pop choruses of "No Tears (In The End)" and "River," both of which suggest a strong kinship to church influences. Eloquence is at the center of "I'm The Girl." This ballad features only Flack's voice, piano, and cello. Shifting from a semi-rubato introduction to the song's first refrain, this track revisits—in its own soulful way—the form of American popular song from the 1930s. The title track is the most popular on this recording, and it inspired the 1996 award-winning cover by the Fugees (on their album The Score). "Killing Me Softly With His Song" displays the depth of Flack's vocal quality and the inventiveness of her vocal and ensemble arrangements. The string and horn arrangements aside and accredited to collaborators, she is credited with the arrangements on this recording.

—Horace J. Maxile Jr.
"Killing Me Softly With His Song"

Sones de México. ¡Que Florezca! (Sones de México SM 1196 )
Click here to purchase.

Sones de México Ensemble Chicago has been a friend of the Center's for many years. In 1995, the ensemble performed twice with the Center's Ensemble Kalinda Chicago, illustrating African influences on popular music in Mexico. Juan Díes and Victor Pichardo, the ensemble's artistic director, prepared a set of music drawn from the son tradition and that incorporates performance styles and forms found in Tabasco, Campeche, Veracruz, Guerrero, and Oaxaca, all coastal regions to which African people were brought. Foot tapping, percussion instruments such as the cajón, bells, shakers, and jawbone were featured, as were mimetic dances ("El Zopilote/La Iguana"). Much of this repertoire is included on the ¡Que Florezca! CD in Part IV-Negritud.
Sones de México is now a full-time and critically acclaimed professional ensemble that performs in Chicago and on tour (http://www.sonesdemexico.com). Their most recent recording, Esta Tierra Es Tuya (This Land Is Your Land), was nominated for a Grammy Award as Best Folk Album in 2007. The ensemble performed at the Center's 2008 National Conference on Black Music Research.

—Morris A. Phibbs
"La Bamba"

In addition to owning a copy of this CD, the CBMR Library and Archives has a large collection of recordings, books, and dissertations that deal with the African presence in Latin America.

Gabriel Banat. The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow ( Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press, 2006 )
Click here to purchase.

Last February, in preparation for writing a paper on Joseph Boulogne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, I read Gabriel Banat's 1990 Black Music Research Journal article "Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Man of Music and Gentleman-at-Arms: The Life and Times of an Eighteenth-Century Prodigy." The following month, I was staffing the registration table at the CBMR/SAM conference in Chicago. As I was talking to conference participants, I noticed a man holding a picture of a person who seemed familiar to me. I walked over to him, took a closer look at the picture and said, "Excuse me, sir, but are you by any chance holding a picture of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges in your hand?" He replied, with a grin, "Why, yes, I am!" I realized immediately that I was finally meeting Gabriel Banat in person.
Shortly thereafter, in the spring of 2006, Banat published his much-anticipated The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and Bow. A retired New York Philharmonic violinist and specialist on classical compositional techniques, Banat is ideally positioned to understand the significance of the Chevalier. To me, Banat's archival research is unparalleled; he includes facsimiles of numerous certificates, contracts, army files, and other documents that he used in order to chronicle the Chevalier's life. Many previous biographers have unknowingly perpetuated the myth that Alexandre Dumas based his The Three Musketeers character, D'Artagnan, on the Chevalier. Banat debunks this and other legends surrounding the famous French prodigy and replaces them with the most thorough account of the Chevalier's musical, athletic, and revolutionary contributions to date. Banat's enthusiasm and dedication are inspirational, and I applaud his truth-seeking attitude.

— Melanie Zeck

Bloc Party. Weekend in the City (Vice Music 94598-2 )
Click here to purchase.

Influenced by such bands as Sonic Youth, the Cure, and Joy Division, and led by singer/guitarist Kele Okereke, the child of Nigerian immigrants, London-based band Bloc Party released its first album in the United States, Silent Alarm, in 2005 to much critical acclaim. The band's second album, Weekend in the City, released in 2007, features introspective dark lyrics about love, death, and urban living, as well as the band's previously displayed energetic dance music.

— Laura Haefner
" Hunting for Witches "

Al Green. Gets Next to You (Right Stuff/Hi Records 72435-42679-2-5 )
(Originally issued on Hi Records in 1971.)
Click here to purchase.

Gets Next To You has always been one of my favorite Al Green albums. With this 1971 record, Green began a run of several classic albums for the Memphis label Hi Records released during the early 1970s. Although it wasn't his first Hi release, it's clear from listening to Gets Next To You that by this time Green had found his unique singing style, and producer Willie Mitchell had fully developed the legendary "Hi Records sound," with its tight rhythm section, funky horn bursts, sultry backing vocals, and innovative but often spare arrangements. Like many of Green's albums that came soon afterward, Gets Next To You showcases his brilliant songwriting (illustrated by the record's biggest hit, "Tired of Being Alone") as well as his astonishing ability to reinterpret (and even reinvent) other people's songs, particularly the Temptations' "I Can't Get Next to You," Freddie Scott's "Are You Lonely for Me Baby," and the Doors' "Light My Fire." Although the record has almost everything you might need (Southern soul, funk, gospel, and even blues and rock) in one place, it contains absolutely no filler, clocking in at less than thirty-four minutes and leaving you wanting more. Although perhaps not quite as celebrated as Green's later masterpieces (namely Let's Stay Together, I'm Still in Love With You, and Call Me), Gets Next To You certainly achieves the excellence of those records and is an indication of great things to come.

— Andrew Leach
" Tired of Being Alone "

In addition to owning a copy of this and other Al Green recordings, the CBMR Library and Archives also owns several recorded interviews, original photographs, and other materials relating to Al Green in its Sue Cassidy Clark Collection.