I’ll never forget the day I realized that Professor Glenn Gass’s class on the history of rock in the 1960s (now called History of Rock Music II: Rock’s Classic Era) was going to be one of my favorites at IU. Professor Gass, who recently retired, was making an argument that people should appreciate the early… Read more »
Guest post by Alyssa Brooks, Outreach and Programming Coordinator and Events and Operations Assistant at Indiana University Cinema. On Saturday, January 18, 2020 at 7:00 p.m., IU Cinema will screen the documentary Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound, the first film in our Spring 2020 Science on Screen® series. Making Waves is directed by… Read more »
Guest post by Rebecca Dirksen, Assistant Professor, Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. In New Orleans, there are jazz funerals to dance someone into the next realm after they pass away. Hearty brass bands with trumpets, trombones, and sousaphones accompany mourners as they process from the church down the street alongside the coffin of a deceased… Read more »
Guest post by Marissa J. Moorman. Babylon opens with protagonist “Blue” running through London streets with his friend Ronnie. Bags held tight to their chests, they jump over curbs and dodge cars in snaking traffic. Seeing two young men, one black, one white, running through gray London you might think they are running from. But,… Read more »
Welcome to Score Keeping, a feature where I dive into overlooked and highly praised songs, scores and soundtracks that accompany great films. Near the midpoint of Spike Lee’s 1989 generation-defining classic Do the Right Thing, a strange but welcome moment is presented to the audience. Throughout the film a one-man Greek Chorus in the form… Read more »
Guest post by David Brent Johnson. Sun Ra, the bandleader and cosmic traveler whose earthly name was Herman “Sonny” Blount, graced this planet with his presence for just over 79 years. Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914, he spent his most formative years in Chicago in the 1940s and ’50s, working as an arranger for… Read more »
