ANTAKALIPA

My Favorite Things – John Coltrane Cultural & Sonic Analysis There’s something quietly radical about transformation—taking the familiar and reshaping it so completely that it becomes something else entirely. That’s exactly what My Favorite Things represents. Released in 1961, John Coltrane’s interpretation of a Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune isn’t just a cover—it’s a reinvention, a spiritual and sonic reimagining that altered the trajectory of jazz. This is not comfort music. It’s exploration disguised as familiarity. Historical Context: A New Direction Coming off his work with Miles Davis and the modal breakthroughs of Kind of Blue , John Coltrane was searching—restlessly, intensely—for new forms of expression. Bebop’s complexity had already been mastered. Hard bop had been expanded. Now, Coltrane was reaching for something more open, more meditative, more transcendent. Modal jazz offered that pathway. Instead of navigating dense chord changes, Coltrane...

Cheek to Cheek: Jazz Revival and Timeless Duet Craft In 2014, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett released Cheek to Cheek —a collaboration that feels less like a modern pop star crossing into jazz, and more like a meeting across time itself. This is not a reinvention. This is a conversation between eras. Context: Two Worlds Meeting At its core, Cheek to Cheek brings together two vastly different artistic histories: Tony Bennett, American jazz vocalist— a classic interpreter of the Great American Songbook, shaped by mid-20th-century jazz tradition Lady Gaga, American singer — a contemporary pop icon known for theatricality, reinvention, and vocal versatility What makes the collaboration compelling is not contrast alone—but mutual respect for form . This is not pop “trying jazz.” This is jazz being carried forward . The Sound: Live, Analog, Human Unlike heavily produced pop records, Cheek to Cheek is built around: live jazz instrumentation horn arrangements that breathe ...

To Pimp A Butterfly — Metamorphosis as Resistance There are albums that arrive as cultural artifacts, and there are albums that arrive as seismic events — rearranging the emotional, political, and philosophical terrain through which they pass. To Pimp A Butterfly belongs emphatically to the latter. It is not content to entertain; it interrogates. It does not merely narrate; it dismantles, reconstructs, and transcends. It is music as discourse, poetry as confrontation, rhythm as theology. Where some works describe reality, this album wrestles with it — body to body, spirit to spirit — until something new emerges from the struggle. Its structure is metamorphic. Spoken-word fragments thread the album together, evolving with each appearance, like scripture rewritten through lived experience. Identity shifts across its duration — ego swelling, collapsing, reflecting, reassembling. It unfolds not linearly but dialectically, staging argument between pride and humility, despair an...

Feel Good I believe Lira's Feel Good is one of the greatest albums of all time. It has such a high energy level. It sounds like heaven and I mean that in a literal sense. It is an enlightened album that covers sophisticated subjects, subjects that calibrate at a high conscious level, subjects like; love, gratitude, self-realization, happiness and freewill. It explores the psychology of a young, bright woman who is optimistic about the world. She sees the world through the eyes of a child and sees novelty in everything. A woman who is so intelligent and knows her worth. She has such a strong, confident personality that it is contagious. It spreads through the listeners ears, hearts and finally life through melodious choruses and striking chords. It is the ultimate feel good album. On "Typical" she is dismissive of girls trying to get to her man, stating that "he's not into the the typical". This of course communicates that she is not "typical...

Sipho Hotstix Mabuse  Party on the square, I was at the opening of the Sipho Hotstix Mabuse concert. Memorable show, high octane energy, we were dancing all night. The show also commemorated music from legends like Hugh Masekela, Brenda Fassie and Stimela. The band were Jazzing, having fun, trying out new material, like the music they played that was inspired by the forceful removals in Sophiatown. It was Jazzy and evoked a feeling of nostalgia. I enjoyed that we had different horns in the ensemble. Horns show different textures, feelings and emotions, they have the ability to be reflective and evoke feelings of sorrow and rue like Miles Davis and John Coltrane on "Kind of blues". Horns can make you reminisce about simpler times or strife in difficult times, to be optimistic like "Move on up" by Curtis Mayfield. Another song I loved by Sipho and the band was "Welcome", a song dedicated to then ANC President Oliver Tambo. Speaking of Presidents,...

Kyle Shepherd trio I was at the Wits Theatre for the launch of The Kyle Shepherd trio album. Unbelievable launch, musical intelligence, no wasted touch on the instrument. Every touch has a purpose. How you touch, how you grab, the duration, what you don't do, all that has a purpose, it emits pitch and frequency. Don't rush, play to your hearts content. Feel, communicate, speak your mind with music. Jazz music, feel the tempo, listen to the pulse, improvise, embody the glorious music. Music made for the Gods.Thank you for the invite Bridget. Always wanted to come to Wits so my first love, Performance arts led the way. The Wits Theatre is beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. One of my favorite movies titled "Soul" by Pixar explores Jazz music, purpose and the flow state. The movie describes life as something you improvise, making up things along the way, breaking rules to rewrite your own - Jazzing. Joe Gardner is a substitute music teacher of a high school when ...