Here is our segment of the best in recent music news. In other news, dig into the latest concerts, documentaries and rare archive footage on Qwest TV as the summer weeks wind down.
Lauryn Hill & Pusha T.
It has been twenty-one years since the seminal The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The artist’s latest releases were in 2016, where she shared an updated version of a previous track entitled “Rebel / I Find It Hard to Say.” The year before she covered several Nina Simone songs.
Now, the iconic artist has acted as guest vocalist on a track by rapper Pusha T. “Coming Home” was co-produced by Kanye West and was released in the final days of August via G.O.O.D Music / Def Jam Recordings. The piece acts as part of a campaign by Pusha entitled Third Strike Coming Home Campaign, which aims to “free people serving life in prison … under yesterday’s 3 strikes drug law.”
John Batiste
The bandleader and pianist dropped a brand new live album, Anatomy of Angels, on August 2. The Verve / UMe release presents a clutch of tracks that include Batiste originals as well as covers of jazz legends such as Thelonious Monk. “It is a snapshot of live art,” Batiste claimed while commenting on the live and unedited nature of the album. He went on to describe it as representative of: “the intangible nature of playing and the communication of how we create these moments that give us a glimpse of another reality, or another world.”
In the fall of 2018, Batiste underwent a week-long residency at the legendary Village Vanguard in NYC. The new record is the product of the live performances that he gave. Head over to Jon Batiste’s website to hear more. This week, Batiste has been on the Stephen Colbert show where he joined forces with Corrine Bailey Rae for a Nat King Cole number and many more. Watch below:
Four Tet
“Anna and I have known each other almost all our lives. We grew up in London with overlapping social circles and shared early music experiences as teenagers. The collaboration unfolded over several months. We worked in tandem from conversation and correspondence. I made music and Anna responded to it with drawings and paintings, apart from the last track, which I made after having seen her work.”
Four Tet (Kieran Hebden) blends the visual and the audible on this new release, letting the two mediums overlap and influence each other. It is the artist’s latest release since “Teenage Birdsong” and a handful of other singles earlier this year. Look out for more on this particular release soon on Qwest TV. Listen below:
Hot on Qwest
What a historical treat examining the history and development of jazz’s great instrument: the saxophone and its mythic — and real — view as “the devil’s horn.”
Watch now on Qwest TV!He wove triangular connections with his loyal Cuban counterpart, Julio Barreto, and a majestic Ron Carter. The Munich audience was won over, and Gonzalo Rubalcaba became the go-between for other Cuban virtuoso pianists such as Alfredo Rodriguez.
Watch now on Qwest TV!Some festivals can’t be summed up by their names. The Munich Summer Piano Festival — which is indebted to the famous four-handed instrument but doesn’t owe everything to it — is proof of this. This live recording, made in 1994, unveils a major piece from Lionel Hampton’s repertoire, “King David Suite,” which was written for symphony orchestras and jazz musicians alike.
Watch now on Qwest TV!
