David Toop All That Floats and Drifts André 3000’s flute album mines an overlooked tradition of Black ambient and exotica music. June 12, 2024
Ben Ratliff Not Not Jazz When Miles Davis went electric in the late 1960s, he overhauled his thinking about songs, genres, and what it meant to lead a band. January 13, 2024
Adam Shatz Feel-Ins, Know-Ins, Be-Ins A newly reissued recording proves that the late saxophonist Pharoah Sanders could get the grandest of effects from the humblest of riffs. September 19, 2023
J. Hoberman Jammin’ in the Panoram During World War II, proto–music videos called “soundies” blared pop patriotism from visual jukeboxes across American bars. September 2, 2023
Ted Reichman Wind in the Nave Medna Roso documents a revelatory encounter between improvising musicians and Balkan vocalists in a Cologne church. August 23, 2023
Andrew Katzenstein An Ensemble of One The cellist Abdul Wadud had a virtuosic command of many musical languages, from bebop to free jazz, chamber music, and Delta blues. July 23, 2023
Joe Bucciero A Sea of Forms In his exuberantly colored, idiosyncratic paintings, Bob Thompson at once drew on the medium’s past and pushed its vanguard. May 20, 2023
Ted Reichman A Sketchbook in Sound Charles Stepney’s avant-garde production fused Chicago’s blues, soul, and R&B traditions with psychedelic pop. February 21, 2023
Adam Shatz The Stanley Crouch I Knew What Stanley believed in, I think, was calling things as he saw them even if it meant speaking hard truths, which used to be the business of critics. He left a number of bruises. September 24, 2020
J. Hoberman Films to Stream More virtual summer is provided by the Criterion Channel, which is streaming its comprehensive collection of Olympic films from Stockholm 1912 to London 2012. August 11, 2020