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Explaining Jazz As An Art

The sad truth is that all too often jazz suffers the same kind of casual dismissal that hip-hop, country, and EDM used to get before they took over the mainstream. Granted, this might be something only a jazz lover would notice but since at least the ’70s, jazz has become something of a niche market, to put it mildly. In terms of yearly record sales, jazz usually sells as much as classical music does, one of the many things the two genres have in common. Far too often jazz comes off as dated or quaint; it’s your granddad’s make out music. Worse, there’s an implied snobbishness often projected onto loving jazz — it’s a little like explaining that you prefer to spend your Saturday nights translating Hegel or making artisanal cheese.

Hollywood’s Retirement Home Is, As You Might Expect, Pretty Interesting

One feature that differentiates the Motion Picture Country Home, as residents call it, from your run-of-the-mill retirement community: it has a TV channel. Founded about a dozen years ago, Channel 22 is a closed-circuit station run by and for MPTF residents, with assistance from a dedicated staff and hundreds of volunteers, including film-school students and current members of the industry. Its programming, which runs 24-7, is composed of older movies and TV shows and 12 hours of original content a day, including interviews with the residents about their experiences in entertainment—like a popular series called Behind the Silver Screen, in which folks will recall their work on a specific film or show before it airs on the channel

What Multi-Dimensional Inclusive Complex Theatre Looks Like

There are 14 actors in the enormously complex Off Broadway premiere of this ambitious bilingual play, a multigenerational drama that aims to be equally accessible to deaf and hearing audience members at every moment of every performance. There is one featured cast member and one shadow cast member for each of the seven characters. The shadow cast performs entirely in A.S.L.; the featured cast, in a mix of English and sign.

NEA Study: Arts Participation In America Is Up

The report paints a generally positive picture for the arts in America. Attendance at both visual and performing arts events is up significantly over the past five years, although it has yet to climb back to 2002 levels. In the 2017 survey, 43.4 percent of American adults—nearly 107 million people—reported they attended a live arts performance during the previous 12 months. That’s up significantly from 40.2 percent in 2012.

On What It Means To Matter

“The notion of mattering is intimately linked with the notion of attention. To say that something matters is to assert that attention is due it, the kind of attention that both recognises and reveals its reality. Something that matters has a nature that demands to be known, and the knowledge may yield other attitudes and behaviour due it. If I say that something doesn’t matter, I’m saying that it’s not worth paying attention to.”

Terrence Malick Has Released A New Version Of ‘The Tree Of Life’ – And He May Never Be Entirely Finished With It

“The new [Criterion] release features two versions of the picture — the 139-minute, Oscar-nominated 2011 theatrical cut and a new, 188-minute extended edition. This longer edit, however, is not a ‘director’s cut,’ although Malick himself prepared it.” Bilge Ebiri explains what all this means.