East, West

East, West (ISBN 0-394-28150-0) is a 1994 anthology of short stories by Salman Rushdie. The book is divided into three main sections, entitled "East", "West", and "East, West", each section containing stories from their respective geographical areas (in the "East, West" section both worlds are influenced by each other). Though Rushdie himself never divulged the exact inspirations for his stories in East, West, it is commonly thought that the central themes of each of his stories are drawn from his personal experiences as an immigrant in England during the time of the fatwas issued against his life. Rushdie weaves in lots of pop cultural references into his stories, just as television and Western media such as MTV and movies like Rambo have become popular throughout the world and on the Indian subcontinent. The influence and travels of Indians and Indian culture is also shown in the West.

Rushdie's collection of short stories East, West is loaded with references to Bollywood, beginning by the tragic character Ramani in "The Free Radio." He is compared to great Bollywood actors because he has a beautiful face, blessed with the good looks of none other than Krishna himself : "Such a handsome chap, you should go to Bombay and be put in the motion pictures" (p. 22). He does realise this ambition but only at the cost of being deprived of his virility by the cruel hand of the "Widow". At the end of the story the narrator informs us that "he spent his days at the Sun-n-Sand Hotel, Juhu in the company of top lady artistes.

East West

East West (or East and West) may refer to:

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East-West (The Butterfield Blues Band album)

East-West is the second album by The Butterfield Blues Band, released in 1966 on Elektra Records, EKS 7315 in stereo, EKL 315 in mono. It was recorded at the famed Chess Studios on 2120 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It peaked at #65 on the Billboard pop albums chart, but is regarded as highly influential by rock and blues music historians.

Content

Like the band's record debut, this album features traditional blues covers and the guitar work of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. Unlike the band's debut album, Bishop also contributed guitar solos; drummer Sam Lay had left the band due to illness to be replaced by the more jazz-oriented Billy Davenport. The social complexion of the band changed as well; ruled by Butterfield in the beginning, it evolved into more of a democracy both in terms of financial reward and input into repertoire.

One result was the inclusion of two all-instrumental extended jams at the instigation of Bloomfield following the group's successful appearance at The Fillmore in San Francisco during March alongside Jefferson Airplane. Both reflected his love of jazz, as "Work Song" had become a hard bop standard, and the title track "East-West" used elements of modal jazz as introduced by Miles Davis on his ground-breaking Kind of Blue album. Bloomfield had become enamored of work by John Coltrane in that area, especially his incorporation of ideas from Indian raga music. The album also included Michael Nesmith's song "Mary, Mary," which Nesmith would soon record with his band The Monkees - although original pressings of East-West did not include a songwriter's credit for this track.

Song X

Song X is a collaborative studio album by American jazz recording artists Pat Metheny and Ornette Coleman. It was released in June 1986 by Geffen Records.Song X is a free jazz album that was produced in a three-day recording session in 1985.

Background

The album features mutual Metheny/Coleman collaborator Charlie Haden on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and Coleman's son Denardo on various percussion instruments. It was recorded at The Power Station in New York City between December 12 and December 14, 1985.

A remixed and remastered version was issued on CD in August 2005, titled Song X: Twentieth Anniversary. Six unreleased tracks were added prior to the original eight songs.

Critical reception

In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau felt Metheny's mild mannered style of jazz kept the music uncluttered, calling Song X Coleman's best album of unadulterated jazz since the early 1970s: "No rock moves, and no funk, harmolodic or otherwise—it's all sweet lyricism, sonic comedy, and headlong invention."Down Beat magazine deemed it "a remarkable union of the true and the new, a fusion of the bedrock human sound of Ornette's alto with the sometimes jarring, mostly bracing electronic capabilities of Pat's guitar-synth".Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times that the experiment succeeded because both artists were masterful melodists, finding the record "less tangled and more directly songful than Mr. Coleman's recent albums with Prime Time".Song X was voted the nineteenth best album of 1986 in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll.