As a young musician, Marshall Allen (b.1924) performed with pianist Art Simmons, Don Byas and James Moody before enrolling in the Paris Conservatory of Music. After relocating to Chicago, Allen became a pupil of Sun Ra, subsequently joining the his Arkestra in 1958 and leading Sun Ra’s formidable reed section for next 40 years (a role akin to the position Johnny Hodges held in the Duke Ellington Orchestra). Marshall, along with John Gilmore, June Tyson and James Jacson, lived, rehearsed, toured and recorded with Sun Ra almost exclusively for much of Ra’s musical career. As a member of the Arkestra, […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Al Gore, who galvanized public opinion with his advocacy on global warming, sees danger in another poisoned environment, this one metaphorical: In his book The Assault on Reason [CLICK TO READ EXCERPT], just published in paperback, he argues that what used to be called civil discourse is threatened by a combination of public apathy and political cynicism. In our infotainment-mad culture, Gore writes, the public attention span is short, the media are easily distracted, and a politics driven by fear and uninterested in facts has undermined the essential functions of democracy. “When evidence that any reasonable person can […]
NRA: Assault Rifles Don’t Kill Cops, Criminals Do
DAILY NEWS: Even with one of Liczbinski’s three alleged assailants still on the lam and the police sergeant – who would have turned 40 today – not yet laid to rest, a political war of words erupted yesterday over the gun that killed him. Mayor Nutter, facing his first real crisis since taking office in January, lashed out at the National Rifle Association for its effort to block a city law that would have outlawed many assault weapons. That included the SKS semiautomatic [pictured, left] allegedly fired by alleged killer Howard Cain, who was slain by police shortly after. “There’s […]
FOURTH OF JULY: The Legend Of John
PHILLY.COM: The city announced at 11 this morning that Grammy-winner John Legend and Philadelphia’s own Boyz II Men will be the major marquee names during July’s Welcome America festivities. Legend will fulfill the title of his latest album — Live From Philadelphia — at the July Fourth concert on the Parkway. Fireworks will follow, of course — weather permitting. The soul singer used his real name, John Stephens, when he was a student at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1990s. Boyz II Men will perform the following night, Saturday, July 5, before the pyrotechnics at Penn’s Landing. The […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sober
DRUNKEN SPELLING BEE: B&B, South Street, Last Night [Photos by TIFFANY YOON]
BURMA: 22,000 Dead, 41,000 Missing After Cyclone
THE AGE: About 30,000 people are missing in Burma after this weekend’s devastating cyclone, in addition to a death toll of 15,000, Thai Foreign Minister Noppadol Pattama said after a meeting with Burma’s ambassador to Bangkok. Countries worldwide have promised help to the impoverished nation after the weekend cyclone killed 10,000 people in just one town. “This is much more awful and its scale much greater than what we first understood,” he said. Reports on Myanmar television reported the death toll in the town of Bogalay was at least 10,000 with 3000 listed as missing. The World Vision team have […]
RIP: Mr. Peabody & Sherman Creator Dead At 90
INQUIRER: Cartoonist Ted Key, 95, whose characters included a bossy maid and a time-traveling dog scientist, died at his Tredyffrin home on Saturday. Hazel made Mr. Key famous: The maid became a weekly feature in The Saturday Evening Post soon after he sold his first cartoon to the publication in 1943. He drew Hazel for 50 years. But younger readers may best remember Mr. Key’s animated characters – Mr. Peabody, the genius dog, and his boy, Sherman – that he drew for Rocky and His Friends. Mr. Key was born Aug. 25, 1912, in Fresno, Calif. He moved to Tredyffrin […]
HOT DOCUMENT: All Aboard The Love Train!
[From CRAIGSLIST via FLICKR] Please discuss…
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Edgar Award-winning author Charles Ardai is founder of Hard Case Crime, a pulp-fiction publishing group that reprints classic crime stories as well as publishing new pulp. All Hard Case novels are published in mass-market paperback editions, much like the classic crime novels from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, with cover art inspired by images from the genre’s heyday. Under the pseudonym Richard Aleas — an anagram of his own name — Ardai writes crime fiction, too: His novels Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence detail the exploits of private investigator John Blake. Blake is no hard-boiled, flint-eyed […]
LISTEN LIKE THIEVES: NIN Gives Away New Album
NIN.COM: As a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com. The music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options – all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits. For those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in July. details coming […]
Q&A: It’s Too Late To Fall In Love With Sharon Tate
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Meet Roza Frykowska, 26, a recent emigre from Lodz, Poland. She is a barista at Cafe Ole in Old City. She is also an up and coming photographer, and recently started shooting for Suicide Girls. All of that would make her interview-worthy in and of itself in our book, but wait, it gets better, or worse, actually. Roza’s grandfather, the filmmaker Wojtech Frykowski, came to America in the late ’60s to establish a career in Hollywood, at the behest of his dear friend, Roman Polanski. Wojtech and his then-girlfriend, Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune, […]
KILLADELPHIA: 2 More Dead Since U Went To Bed
INQUIRER: Investigators this morning are probing a double shooting in West Philadelphia that left two dead and riddled with bullets, police said. Officers were called at 12:38 a.m. to the 300 block of N. 62nd St. They found a 19-year-old woman shot twice in the chest and a 19-year-old man shot in the head and buttocks, police said. The woman was rushed to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where she was pronounced at 1:20 a.m.; the man was taken to HUP where doctors declared him dead at 1:05 a.m. Police have no suspects or motive.