Matthew Kassel

In a 17th-century stone farmhouse, holiday shopping, done differently:

Among the eight or so tables set up throughout the second floor of the building—which is part community function-house, part information center about Brooklyn's role in the history of the Revolutionary War—there was a lot to be engrossed by: art tomes, pocket-sized poetry books, aged reference guides, religious tracts, cheesy paperbacks.

Bio: Matthew Kassel is a freelance writer. His work has been published by The Wall Street Journal, NPR Music, The Forward, and The New York City Jazz Record, among other publications.

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In a 17th-century stone farmhouse, holiday shopping, done differently

17th-century-stone-farmhouse-holiday-shopping-done-differently

Among the eight or so tables set up throughout the second floor of the building—which is part community function-house, part information center about Brooklyn's role in the history of the Revolutionary War—there was a lot to be engrossed by: art tomes, pocket-sized poetry books, aged reference guides, religious tracts, cheesy paperbacks. More

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By Matthew Kassel

on December 3rd, 2012 4:55pm

 
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In the Garment district, a milliners' parade declares that hats still matter

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About 20 milliners, all of them women, were gathered in front of the Millinery Center Synagogue on Sixth Avenue near 39th St., the celebration's starting point, at around 6:30 last night. A boisterous bunch, they wore elegant, hand-crafted hats and looked ready to go to church in their Sunday best. Instead, the synagogue's cantor led them inside, where they were blessed. "Millinery tonight represents how a mighty God wanted women to look," said the cantor, who for his part wore a wool flat cap and spoke with what sounded like an Eastern European accent. "You look, all of you tonight, rich, beautiful and rich. Everyone walking the street tonight should think, 'Wow, maybe I should dress like this.’" More

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By Matthew Kassel

on November 16th, 2012 3:02pm

 
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A tour of Central Park with jazz around every corner

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That's to the festival's credit, though: It didn't draw too much attention to itself. In that way it felt natural entering the park from Sixth Avenue at noon to find the Kimberly Thompson Quartet amid a throng of tourists—some watching, most passing by—as carriage horses trotted obliviously along and hot dog vendors peddled their wares. Street performers, after all, are a common sight in New York City. Early on in the day I followed the sound of a saxophonist soloing under an arch near the Wollman Rink. I soon realized he was busking. This happened a couple of times. More

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By Matthew Kassel

on November 12th, 2012 11:13am

 
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'Rats with wings': The uneasy deal between New Yorkers and our pigeons

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Despite their bad reputation, though, Jerolmack noted that our urban encounters with pigeons "are profoundly social." "The impulse to feed pigeons is not so different from wanting to chat with strangers," Jerolmack said, speaking about one of the subjects for his book, Anna, the elderly pigeon lady who regularly feeds the birds at Father Demo Square, the tiny enclave in the West Village where Jerolmack's research began. More

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By Matthew Kassel

on October 18th, 2012 12:14pm

 
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Saxophonist Roy Nathanson melds jazz and poetry this month at The Stone

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Wednesday night, Nathanson played music in a sextet over which the poetry critic David Orr recited a series of centos—poems composed entirely of lines from other texts. Orr wrote the poems himself, basing them entirely on pop songs. "For hundreds of years, poetry has been without a song," Orr said by way of introduction, couching a lecture in performance as the sextet riffed behind him. He went on to explain that the ancient Greeks used the same word for poetry as they did for music, but that today, the relationship between poetry and music is like a "lover's quarrel between siamese twins." He added, however, that at base, poetry and music have form as their common ground. More

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By Matthew Kassel

on September 21st, 2012 2:03pm

 
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Jazz legend Lou Donaldson moves a little slower, but plays as hard and fast as ever

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Some might look down on the direction Donaldson went next, when, in the late '60s and much of the '70s, he followed the success of Alligator Boogaloo with a series of mainstream-inflected recordings. For about ten albums he dabbled in funk and disco, covering songs by James Brown, the Isley Brothers and Curtis Mayfield. The music didn't always sound like jazz, but in Donaldson's soloing, you heard a musician who had spent his career invested in the blues and the jazz ethic of improvisation. You still hear that. Donaldson has always been, at his core, a solid hard-bop musician. More

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By Matthew Kassel

on August 3rd, 2012 2:29pm