"Hopefully what I’m doing is inspiring people and healing some people. You know maybe they are healed by what they hear." A conversation with Amina Claudine Myers and the album that imparted some solace in 2025: open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

A total legend. Got to chat with Toni a few years back when working on a story about Bruce Conner and she had tales for days:

2025 1 open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

Wowowow, the only known footage of The Blue Notes (at Ronnie Scott's) in The Real McGregor, capturing how the exiled Apartheid SA band energized the London jazz scene: youtu.be/TC0CoqSDV8U?...

Beyond that imaginary Lot Radio set, a few more #BandcampFriday recommendations for the fiends...

Due to the holiday, my last set of the year for The Lot Radio didn't happen, so I posted an imaginary iteration of it for the Stack: andybeta.substack.com/p/the-lot-fo... I will now use it as a roadmap for the last Bandcamp Friday of 2025...

Announcing a very long-overdue definitive biography of a music and spiritual visionary… COSMIC MUSIC: The Life, Art and Transcendence of ALICE COLTRANE by @andybeta.bsky.social Coming 19 March 2026: geni.us/CosmicMusic

WFMU's legendary DJ Jeff Sarge has announced that the last episode of his Reggae Schoolroom radio show on WFMU will be this Sunday, November 30th. Join Jeff to show your appreciation for this outstanding 41-year run!

Since I just received an email that "We Are the World” Returns for Its 40th Anniversary," a rough guide to the "real" sound of Africa in the 1980s, full of ancient instruments in dialogue with DX-7s, multi-track studios, and boogieing drum machines: theshfl.com/guide/80s-Af...

A movie that takes place where you are from.

Sway

Revisiting a verrry early interview conducted with Chicago electroacoustic composer Olivia Block back in 2001: andybeta.substack.com/p/in-the-fri...

Fear is a Man's Best Friend: On childhood terrors, homemade masks, cat hair ghosts, losing your kid in public, and things you just do when you're bored: open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

A biography of Alice Coltrane, by Andy Beta? Yes please. (Coming from Hachette in March.) www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/andy-...

"How can this be any good? We didn't pay anything for it." Nice lookback at this outlaw classic: www.dontrocktheinbox.com/james-talley...

Two Chicago jazz albums (over 30 years apart) that make time warp around you: open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

And your apartment listing

"When I would speak of those morbid things/When I would speak of those sordid men/When I would speak of this storm/You didn’t listen/You don’t want to believe/But that’s so normal." In the depths of Brazil's fascist regime, Lô Borges (with Milton) provided some hope. RIP to a master:

In May of 2024, I received an email that Jack DeJohnette would speak with me for the Alice Coltrane book. So thoughtful and direct: "The music wasn't complicated. It wasn't difficult. It was a vibe, you know? Melodies, spiritual feeling, [an] expansive look at being, playing that music."

Most people at Frost Bank Center didn’t realize it, but Gregg Popovich was in the building Sunday, and he’d given his blessing to a banner, raised sans ceremony. How the Spurs planned the perfect Pop tribute: www.expressnews.com/sports/artic...

Fly on, Jack DeJohnette. 💐🕊️🤲🏾 photo (by me) backstage at Jazz @ Lincoln Center, Nov 2, 2019

Jack DeJohnette doubling as DX-7 wizard: youtu.be/OiilVpyKAY0?...

💔

Can verify after last night's set at Brooklyn Steel:

"I hesitate to say that I understood what João was doing with just his voice and guitar; that all really remains an unplumbable mystery." A few more stray thoughts on João and the album I *really* wanted to write about instead of G/G: andybeta.substack.com/p/joao

For @pitchfork.com Sunday Review, I wrote about Getz/ Gilberto, but more importantly, about João Gilberto's gentle genius, the real girl from Ipanema, and the best music genre to ever emerge from a bathroom: pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

"Just as unrequited love might never be quenched, so it was with bossa nova. There was always a dark shadow amid its elegant curves, harmonies that didn’t quite resolve as was expected. Gilberto’s sound shrugged; such was life." pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

David Mancuso

Wild that Miles's name-checked Willie Nelson years before he got out from under the "Nashville Sound": youtu.be/3fI8c-E7zrw?...

Lot Radio show for October (and of course, the baseball reference is cropped out of the thumbnail): andybeta.substack.com/p/the-lot-fo...

RIP Ken Jacobs. His Nervous Lantern collab with Black Dice circa 2004 at @anthologyfilm.bsky.social was one of the loudest, most brutal, and psychically disturbing sound / visual experiences of my life: youtu.be/PCipTFJwYNg?...

"midnight marauders" 0 results

Remembering some interactions with a true gentleman: open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

I wrote the cover story for a big ol' Jeff Parker feature for We Jazz Magazine, available in print only: open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

May you be eternally jamming in the River of Heaven: youtu.be/lZbfNtDCHdM?...

This could be US but u playin: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/w...

The Lot for September: open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

Happy Earth Day to the sublime Marion Brown. Since I've been on a big Mal kick, here's a lovely read by the duo on a McCoy tune: youtu.be/8ABoTCKv_GE?...

"I’ve always admired how Ryuichi Sakamoto explored and questioned the cultural tensions between East and West — especially from within his own country. These ideas felt especially relevant to where I was heading." Jason Kolàr open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

“I live. For now. Wait for my return to [a] state of NOTHING.” pitchfork.com/news/bruce-l...

50 years ago today, Miles performed the final date of his electric era - a late summer festival date at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Despite a sizable audience, extensive photos from David Gahn, and a somewhat clueless recap from the Times, aural evidence of the evening has never surfaced. ...

Saying goodbye to a fried amp, the NYC-brand of silence, and riding shotgun with Phil Collins: open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

Listening in 3 Parts open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

Pals with Montreal/ Quebec City recos (shops, spots, food, live show listings) please lay 'em on me

Mal Waldron is some of my earliest formative jazz listening (with Eric Dolphy at the Five Spot) and my most obsessive recent listening (What It Is and Moods esp), a sound as steady as rocks rolling in the back of a truck: andybeta.substack.com/p/twofer-tue...

Is Godley & Creme's "Cry" an answer song to their own "I'm Not In Love" (as 10cc)? youtu.be/ypMnBuvP5kA?...

The Lot for August: new Mood Hut, Ghosted III, Jonny Nash, Chicago Underground Duo, and a wicked version of "Wicked Game": open.substack.com/pub/andybeta...

"The most compelling thing about Momoko's voice for me is actually the way she builds and shapes her backing vocals. It’s like working with an orchestra rather than a soloist." New Herbert/ Momoko album is choice. open.substack.com/pub/andybeta... @matthewherbert.bsky.social @momokogill.bsky.social

One of those days where just walking around leads you to encounter homemade Leonard Cohen paintings