Jazz in a concert hall? It’s a trend and can appear contrived and devoid of the spontaneity that’s the essence of jazz music. This was Redman’s challenge as he and his quartet performed at the Maison Symphonique de Montreal, an acoustically rewarding venue that on most dates is the home of Montreal’s acclaimed Symphony Orchestra. Backed with strings and performing from his latest release, Walking Shadows, Redman’s quartet made use of the acoustics by playing compositions that employed an orchestral landscape. 

More people wrote about him than about any other person in history – with the exception of Jesus, Luther, Napoleon and Marx — they say. In 2013 the world is celebrating Richard Wagner’s birthday for the 200th time — his obit for the 130^th. Wagner’s work continues to cause great emotions, ranging from sheer enthusiasm to utmost rejection, and his recitals attract people to opera houses all over the world. The poet, director, conductor, writer and first and foremost composer, remains a mystery for many, and doesn’t cease to polarize even 130 years after his death. 

Bob Marley today is a product of pop culture bastardization. The impact of his music has been reduced to the two-dimensional, an image printed on T-shirts or plastered on dorm room walls. I may be generalizing. But anyone who has visited the campus of a California university is right to doubt whether those in the hacky-sack circle are true believers, genuine Rastafarians. “Imposter-farians” seems to be a more appropriate description. 

Grammy Award winner Big Daddy Kane is an inventive New York “Hip Hop” legend who emerged in the mid-1980s. Big Daddy Kane was the catalyst behind Jay Z’s career. He is known to have gotten his start as Kane's hypeman. As an actor, he debuted in Mario Van Peebles' Posse.  Kane’s song "Ain't No Half Steppin' was named #25 on the list of the 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone Magazine, which also called Kane "a master wordsmith of rap's late golden age and a huge influence on a generation of MCs."

Because of the gang violence and drug addiction that is synonymous with the inner city and especially Los Angeles, there is sense that these type of measures are warranted for a people who commit such acts intra-communally. And police brutality stands as another repressive constant within the inner city. Something NWA summed up with their classic single F*ck Tha Police. Although some may cringe at the title and lyrics of the song, the sentiment is shared across the predominantly African-American inner cities in this country. 

Bonnaroo. Lollapalooza. Coachella. Firefly? That’s the goal for the second-year festival: Get mentioned in the same breath as the largest and most famous in the country. And with the success it’s had in its first year-plus of existence, Firefly might be well on its way. The Atlantic Coast has always lacked a signature festival. While the West is rife with multiday music events, Easterners have had to travel as far as Chicago or Manchester, Tenn., to get their fix. 

For many of us-- and this includes those who haven’t dedicated the better part of our careers to Manchester’s mightiest quartet-- that feeling was first generated in 1983 with The Smiths’ debut performance on Top of the Pops. Still, this iconic appearance is one of the most discussed and dissected moments in televised music history. For Britain, it was a fittingly bold introduction to the band that would forever mold popular music. 

The Pharcyde is a soulful hip-hop group from the early 1990s. After a breakup, four of the original members have reunited. Fatlip, SlimKid3.  along with Pharcyde producers J-Sw!ft & L.A. Jay are now performing as Bizarre Ride Live. The animated and enthusiastic group is best known for the hit singles "Drop", "Passin' Me By" and "Runnin,'" as well as their first album, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde. Highbrow Magazine recently met with and interviewed the band.  

Tago Mago rages schizophrenically from song to song, from the two-bricks-shy of a pop song “Mushroom” to the sprawling “Halleluhwah” and everything in between. This confusion, this constant search for how best to communicate, is part of the album’s appeal. West Germany and its people had to find new ways to be heard in the world—a nation dismembered, no longer quite German, not yet fully Westernized, and always idling in the Cold War shadows of the Iron Curtain.

A new independent group, Death Grips, merges punk and hip-hop, amongst a kaleidoscope of other genres, creating tracks filled with boldness, impatience, licentiousness and jolts of unfettered creativity. But the group’s chaotic sound isn’t exactly hedonistic or apathetic; it is, at its core, a call to the audience to create themselves. If Sir Philip Sidney was resurrected, he would probably approve: for not only do they delight the audience, but they move the audience to action.