The 20th century produced only a handful of musicians who could be called geniuses - people who would have achieved timeless fame no matter when they were born. Miles Davis is one of those individuals. He primarily played the trumpet, though he was an accomplished multi-instrumentalist. His signature style was minimalist and improvisational. Those closest to him described a shy person who used anger and arrogance as a shield to keep others away. Likewise, his addictive personality - he battled drugs and alcohol for virtually his entire adult life - made his creative achievements all the more...

Back in the 1970s on the poverty stricken streets of the Bronx, New York, amongst the African-American community there was a rise in the popularity of the 'block party'. People like the Ghetto Brothers would plug their amps between the lamp posts. These parties would often have a DJ playing soul or funk music, where the percussive 'break' in the songs would be isolated, a common feature of Jamaican dub music and a technique introduced by the Caribbean immigrants in the area, including DJ Kool Herc, often credited as one of the founding fathers of hip hop, as well as Afrika Bambaataa and the...

Eadweard Muybridge pioneered the field of the movie picture--it's because of him that we have movies today. He also got away with murder--literally. In 1874, he shot and killed his wife's lover and got away with it for essentially saying the guy had it coming. But murder was only part of Muybridge story. He was brilliant. Creative. And eccentric. And because he got away with murder, we have Hollywood. This book tells his bizarre, yet fascinating, life story--a story that involves scandal, violence, and...flying horses