Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today April 29
rewound 0 times
1899
Duke Ellington is born, America's greatest composer
Duke Ellington was born in Washington D.C.; for five decades he led jazz's most sophisticated orchestra and composed thousands of pieces, from "Mood Indigo" to his sacred suites. He resisted the jazz label: he made, he said, "American music". Time proved him right: he is his country's great composer.
Duke Ellington
1968
"Hair" reaches Broadway: rock and the counterculture take the theatre
The musical "Hair" opened on Broadway with its hippie tribe, its collective nude scene and its rock score. "Aquarius" and "Let the Sunshine In" leapt from the stage to the world's radios. For the first time, the counterculture was not asking permission to enter commercial theatre: it was occupying it.
One ephemeris a day, one editorial a week. Zero spam, pure archive.