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The time Twyla Tharp pushed David Byrne to his limits
Show title:
American Masters
Video title:
The time Twyla Tharp pushed David Byrne to his limits
Video duration:
2m 58s
Video description:
In 1981, Twyla Tharp commissioned David Byrne of the Talking Heads to write music for a Broadway show featuring Tharp's modern choreography. Not only did Tharp push the well-trained dancers to their limits, she pushed David Byrne, he says, more than anyone had before.
Reed was always at the forefront of American avant-garde music, beginning with creation of the Velvet Underground in 1965. Gritty and realistic, the brutal honesty in Reed’s lyrics and sound made him a cultural icon of the disenfranchised throughout the ’60s and ’70s. From punk rock to grunge, he has had an unparalleled influence on the American music scene.
Bebop, a style of jazz developed in the 1940's, changed American music but wasn't taken seriously for much of Charlie Parker's life. This mid-century popcorn television commercial shows how the public's perception of bebop was riddled with stereotypes.
Charlie Parker's nickname "Yardbird" came to be while he was on the way to a gig with some fellow musicians and involved a bird in a yard that had an unfortunate fate.