Why the piano became the drug dealer’s instrument of choice
It’s what’s inside that counts.
Piano
Laraaji returns: New Age musical royalty gets back to his roots with ‘Sun Piano’
Portrait of Laraaji by Daniel Oduntan Back in 2018, before he released his elaborate and ornate Rare Birds album, my pal Jonathan Wilson told me…
Lubomyr Melnyk: An interview with the mystic genius of piano
Lubomyr Melnyk portrait by Alex Kozobolis A few years ago a friend of mine emailed me a YouTube link to the Ukrainian-Canadian pianist Lubomyr Melnyk…
‘The Cat Piano,’ narrated by Nick Cave
The Cat Piano is an award-winning short animation directed by Eddie White and Ari Gibson and narrated by Nick Cave. For some odd reason the…
Jazz great Yōsuke Yamashita plays a burning piano
It’s safe to say that if you reach the age of 66 and you find yourself playing a piano that is on fire, either your…
Ray Davies stars in ‘The Long Distance Piano Player,’ 1970
In 1970 Ray Davies took a break from the Kinks to work on the first entry for a new anthology drama show for the BBC…
‘How the Rules of Evidence Handcuff the Piano Man’ and more from the Billy Joel law conference
Billy Joel surveys the damage done by a rock-throwing hoodlum If you’re like me, you can’t hear the Billy Joel song “All for Leyna” without…
Avant garde app visualizes Steve Reich’s ‘Piano Phase’
“Piano Phase” (1967) was Steve Reich’s first composition to use phasing in live performance–he had already tried it with taped music. The concept here is…
Jessica Mitford’s eccentric piano-tuning son is living on a beach in Scotland
Jessica Mitford’s only surviving son, Ben Treuhaft, is currently living in a tent on Portobello Beach, in Edinburgh, Scotland, which, as you can imagine, is…
Catwoman plays Danny Elfman’s ‘Batman’ theme on piano
Cosplay Piano is a new ongoing series where artists dress in character and play theme songs from TV or films on the piano Here…