The Blues

Story Stream

Imani Perry’s Blue Notes February 06, 2025

The story goes that the lyrics to “Black and Blue,” the jazz standard popularized by Louis Armstrong, were written at gunpoint. ...

Symptomatic Reading February 05, 2025

YOU CAN HEAR the subway rumbling under the psych ward. I’m not sure which train; the hospital’s around 33rd Street and 1st, so it must be near the water. Smoke curls up from a large vat across the courtyard, luminous in the blue night. The hospital r...