Arts Mar 21 50 years on, a Monday night tradition keeps the Village Vanguard swinging At the world famous Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City, Monday nights have meant big band music for 50 years, stretching back to the days of Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. For the jazz impresarios there today, playing…
Arts Feb 17 How composer Carter Burwell helped craft the love story of ‘Carol’ A movie score usually goes unnoticed, unless it’s very bad -- or very good. Composer Carter Burwell has written music for more than 80 films over a 30-year career, but his soundtrack for “Carol” is his first to be nominated…
Arts Feb 16 Lianne La Havas defies easy labels in Grammy-nominated ‘Blood’ Lianne La Havas' Grammy-nominated album "Blood" was inspired by a 2014 trip to Jamaica.
Arts Jan 11 Poetry helps youth at a juvenile detention center find peace Free Write Jail Arts and Literacy aims to help troubled youths in Chicago’s Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center address their personal issues by writing poetry about their circumstances and upbringing. Jeffrey Brown talks with poet Reginald Dwayne Betts, who…
Poetry Jan 11 Poet Reginald Dwayne Betts returns to the city that nearly broke him Betts' new book touches on the way he believes institutions -- schools, the police, the judicial system -- helped create a lost generation of young black men.
Arts Jan 05 MacArthur fellow LaToya Ruby Frazier captures the town that survived Braddock, Pennsylvania, was once a thriving steel town before the town’s industry collapsed. It's where LaToya Ruby Frazier grew up, like her mother and grandmother before her, and it's where the visual artist and 2015 MacArthur fellow has returned to…
World Dec 14 Italian olive trees are withering from this deadly bacteria The Salento region in southern Italy is synonymous with its renowned olive groves, some of which are thousands of years old. But a deadly bacteria, which causes trees to wither, is threatening a critical part of Salento's livelihood and very…
Arts Oct 27 The crumbling, picture-perfect Italian town that’s making a comeback There are just seven year-round residents -- and who knows how many cats -- in the Medieval Italian town of Civita di Bagnoregio, also known as the dying city. The picturesque hilltop town, visited by droves of tourists, is built…
Arts Oct 27 Photos: Visit a crumbling medieval town that’s slowly falling off a cliff There is something attractive about a place slated to disappear. At first glance, Civita di Bagnoregio is just that.
Arts Oct 26 Decades after Florence’s great flood, an art hospital renews still-damaged treasures It's part museum, part workshop, part hospital for threatened treasures. At the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, Italy, conservators work to restore cultural and artistic masterpieces, some of which still bear the damage of a devastating flood nearly 50…