”Hmmm, someone’s cruising for a bruising.” That was my first thought a couple of months ago when I opened an envelope from a record company containing some advance music and saw a photo of three young African-American adults dressed in what looked like a thrift-shop-chic version of juke-joint clothes. The title of their recording: Genuine…

Earlier this week, the NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved Michael Jordan’s bid to become the owner. Jordan said in a statement that the sale culminates a dream of his to become majority owner of an NBA franchise. This purchase completes a homecoming for Jordan, a native of Wilmington, N.C.; it began when he bought…

When Ornette Coleman was 29, he turned the jazz world on its head. Now that he’s turned 80 this week, the legendary jazz man has an opportunity to make another important and lasting impact on jazz. Coleman’s life and career are worthy of a biopic, except for one simple thing—he’s clearly not finished. By the…

Garrett Oliver wasn’t looking to start a revolution; he just wanted a good beer. Oliver’s interest is not so unusual by today’s standards, when high–caliber, micro-brewed beer can be found at convenience markets, and nearly every major city can tout a craft brewery as a local icon. But Oliver’s quest began in the mid-‘80s, when…

Although beer is omnipresent in contemporary marketing, it has a most illustrious history. Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, theorizes that the first-known beer was made in Africa nearly 10,000 years ago. The first-known recipe of any kind is for a beer, and the ancient Sumerians worshipped Ninkasi, a goddess of beer. There is an…

During the last two decades, the NBA has become an international affair with waves of players arriving from Europe and South America. Is Africa next? The play of Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng, who is from Sudan, Milwaukee Bucks forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, who is from Cameroon, and Oklahoma City Thunder forward Serge…

Stew chuckled last week when I started our interview with the old war horse question, “What motivated the new work?” It’s not an original question. Every journalist from a cub reporter at a high school paper to a Pulitzer Prize winner has it in their arsenal, but for Stew it seems entirely appropriate, maybe too…

The NBA All-Star Game this Sunday night at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, will almost certainly attract a record number of attendees, but that turnout can’t obscure the fact that the game is in dire need of revision. Despite the tens of thousands who will turn out in Texas for the game, the TV ratings…

It has been an extraordinarily good season for jazz books. Terry Teachout’s Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong and Robin Kelley’s Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original provide insightful biography; Jazz by Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux is an authoritative primer. Adding to the canon are three other, equally necessary books,…