GEROFFREY NUNBERG: “Infobesity,” “lumbersexual,” “phablet.” As usual, the items that stand out as candidates for word of the year are like its biggest pop songs, catchy but ephemeral. But even a fleeting expression can sometimes encapsulate the zeitgeist. That’s why I’m nominating “God view” for the honor. It’s the term that the car service company Uber uses for a map view that shows them the locations of all the Uber cars in an area and silhouettes of the people who ordered them. The media seized on the term this fall when it came out that the company had been […]
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NPR FOR THE DEF: Fresh Air Host Terry Gross Implicated In Shocking New Yorker Sex Comic
From this week’s issue of the New Yorker.
PSYCHO BABBLE: How Fresh Air Music Critic Ken Tucker Wound Up On The Wrong Side Of History
Hard to remember now but there was a time when the Jesus & Mary Chain, who play Union Transfer on September 8th, divided the population of planet Earth into two camps: Those who were sure they were the Second Coming and those who thought they were the end of Western Civilization. Fresh Air/Entertainment Weekly music critic Ken Tucker used to write for the Inquirer back in the day and we recently happened upon his two-thumbs-down review of the JAMC’s 1986 show at the Trocadero in support of their polarizing debut Psychocandy, which has since been judged a seminal and […]
Jon Stewart Uses Fresh Air‘s Dave Davies To Clarify Difference Between NPR & Conservative Talk Radio
WHYY’s Dave Davies made an unwitting cameo on The Daily Show last night in a don’t-know-whether-to-laugh-or-cry segment wherein Stewart explained that the difference between National Public Radio and conservative talk radio isn’t some bogus right wing/left wing divide. One is legit news for the mild at heart. The other is a toxic distortion of reality for people with hate in their hearts. Fact. PREVIOUSLY: EXIT INTERVIEW: Dave Davies, A Reporter’s Reporter
Q&A With Fresh Air Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead
Kevin Whitehead has been writing professionally about jazz and its discontents since 1979. His work has appeared in the pages of the Chicago Sun-Times, Downbeat and the Village Voice. He is the author of 1996’s New Dutch Swing and his essays have been anthologized in the Da Capo Best Music Writing 2006, Jazz: The First Century and The Cartoon Music Book. He currently serves as jazz critic for Fresh Air, where he habitually champions way-off-the-beaten-path but worthy fare while dispensing deadpan insights delivered with the bone-dry elegance of an Eric Dolphy solo. He’s just published his second book, Why Jazz? […]
PAYBACK IS A BITCH:Fresh Air-Censoring Executive Director Of Mississippi Public Radio Resigns Her Post
CLARION LEDGER: Judith Lewis has resigned as executive director of Mississippi Public Broadcasting. In a statement released by Mississippi Authority for Educational Television, Chairman Bob Sawyer said the board is disappointed and wishes Lewis the best, saying the board will now thoroughly review candidates to fill the position. Lewis could not be reached for comment. Lewis had not been seen at MPB offices in recent weeks. When asked about her absence, MPB officials denied she was on administrative leave. Her decision on July 8 to pull the popular national Fresh Air radio program drew criticism and national attention. It sparked […]
Mississippi NPR Chief Pulls Fresh Air From State Airwaves, Citing No Redeeming Educational Value
THE ATLANTIC: The state of Mississippi’s public radio has banned nationally syndicated interview show Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The afternoon program, in which Gross holds relaxed chats with artists, academics, and celebrities, claims 4.5 million listeners across 450 public radio stations. Mississippi Public Broadcasting cited “recurring inappropriate content” in announcing that they will no longer allow the show. What was the offending content? Mississippi was mum, but MSNBC’s Laura Conaway thinks she’s found the answer… MSNBC: Mississippi Public Broadcasting shares a campus with offices for the state’s colleges and universities, and we have learned that some of those offices […]
LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD: Jazz Critic (And Hubbo Of Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross) Francis Davis Wins Grammy
CREATIVE LOAFING: The tunes essentially start with short, riffy (and catchy) melodies that give way to a round of extended solos by Miles, Cannonball, Trane and Evans (or Kelly); the band then restates the theme and the song ends. That’s pretty much a pro forma jazz approach. Each of those soloists, though, makes a profound impression in each and every song. Jazz critic Francis Davis, one of the annotators on the new box, makes an intriguing point that I had never considered. Because improvising over scales, or modes, was effectively new to these players, and because they entered the studio […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: In a new book, two New York Times journalists report that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg often doesn’t see the downside of the social media platform he created. In their new book, An Ugly Truth, Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang write that Zuckerberg tends to believe that free speech will drown out bad speech. “[Zuckerberg’s] view was that even if there were lies [on Facebook] — lies from a politician such as Donald Trump — that the public would respond with their own fact checks of the president and that the fact checks would rise to the top,” […]
FROM THE VAULT: A Man Called Francis, Part 2
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview first published on October 19th, 2006. BY JONATHAN VALANIA Welcome to part two of our bazillion-word interview with esteemed jazz critic Francis Davis, wherein our man Fran will be talking non-smack about Coltrane in Philly, Sun Ra on Uranus and the pre-historic beginnings of Fresh Air. If you are just finding us for the first time, you can find Part One here, along with his illustrious CV. When we last left our hero, he was beaten, bloodied and long haired, handcuffed in the back of Philadelphia Police Department paddy wagon charged with aggravated assault and battery […]
FROM THE VAULT: A Man Called Francis, Part 1
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published back in 2006. It’s still a fascinating read. Welcome to the second installment of our Grumpy Old Men series, wherein we learn from our elders and soak up their salty yarns like Bounty Quicker Picker-Upper. Yesterday we had Robert Christgau, today Francis Davis. Tomorrow? The Pope. What’s that you say? You never heard of Francis Davis. Oh buddy, it’s good thing you found us! Check out his CV: He has written about music, film, and other aspects of popular culture for The Atlantic since 1984 and was appointed lead jazz critic for the Voice […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: From the March on Washington in 1963 up until his assassination in 1968, the FBI engaged in an intense campaign to discredit Martin Luther King Jr. and his work. Film director Sam Pollard chronicles those efforts in the new documentary, MLK/FBI. “The first fear that [FBI director J. Edgar Hoover] had was that King was going to align himself with the Communist Party, which … J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with destroying,” Pollard says. Pollard’s documentary is based on newly declassified files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, along with restored archival footage. It shows the […]
BOOKS: America Agonistes
NEW YORK TIMES: Once upon a time, there was a nation that saw itself as a beacon to the world. It would lead, as John Quincy Adams put it, by the gentle power of its example. If it all sounds a bit grandiose to us now, it did, too, to Graham Greene, the English author of the 1955 spy novel “The Quiet American.” Greene liked to complain that Yankees were “plump, smug, sentimental, ready for the easy tear and the hearty laugh and the fraternity yell.” He was particularly galled by American pretensions to purity in foreign affairs. “Innocence,” […]