Features

We love birds for their beauty, their feathers, and their flesh, but what do we really know about these light creatures that seemingly float so effortlessly above us?

Throughout her career thus far (it is hard to remember that she is just 33 years old), Esperanza Spalding has proven that hers is a unique voice in the music industry, easily crossing genre boundaries, yet continuously lauded by jazz musicians and audiences.

Netflix’s megapopular Narcos series romanticizes Pablo Escobar’s Colombian cartel by effectively distancing the international drug trade in time and place. Bu like the narcoticizing effect of the drug Escobar traded in, gripping television should not lure us from the drug problems of our here and now.

What happens to the body in technologically-mediated live performances, particularly those that continue to be defined as jazz by many audiences? The music of Herbie Hancock, in many ways, answers that question.

In some ways, the current wave of African-American football players kneeling during the national anthem replicates the Bebop revolution that changed the public persona of the black male jazz musician. Now it is black players demanding that audiences recognize that their attitude is not the same as their white peers.

In every decade since the Sheol, the films that resulted reveal wider, prevailing attitudes toward Jewishness, history, memory, and psychological trauma.

In his early work Bernard Malamud used Yiddish constructions and words reminiscent of the Jewish folk tradition of Eastern Europe. But with his first novel, The Natural, he embraced a Midwestern hero, the American pastoral, and a pastime he loved: baseball.

When recognition is embodied, it is nearly impossible to ignore.

Identifying racism is an important step in stemming its tide, but we (and I speak specifically to white people) must be willing and able to consider that racism might look and sound like ourselves.

Diacritical marks might seem like a tiny blip in the larger picture of tumultuous politics and proposed policies that actively harm our minority populations, yet they serve as a reminder of our important presence and contribution to this nation.