This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (December 2010)

Discogs

File:Discogs.Logo.png
URL	Discogs.com
Commercial?	Partially
Type of site	Music
Registration	Optional
Available language(s)	English
Owner	Zink Media, Inc.
Created by	Kevin Lewandowski
Launched	October 2000
Alexa rank	1,952 (June 2012[update])[1]
Revenue	Advertisement, Marketplace Seller Fees
Current status	Active

Discogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are located in Portland, Oregon, USA. Discogs is one of the largest online databases of electronic music releases and of releases on vinyl media.

History[link]

The discogs.com domain name was registered in August 2000, and Discogs itself was launched in November 2000 by programmer, DJ, and music fan Kevin Lewandowski originally as a database of electronic music.^[2]

He was inspired by the success of community-built sites such as Slashdot, eBay, and Open Directory Project, and decided to use this model for a music discography database.

The site's original goal was to build the most comprehensive database of electronic music, organized around the artists, labels, and releases available in that genre. In 2003 the Discogs system was completely rewritten,^[3] and in January 2004 it began to support other genres, starting with hip hop. Since then, it has expanded to include rock and jazz in January 2005 and funk/soul, Latin, and reggae in October of the same year. In January 2006 blues and non-music (e.g. comedy records, field recordings, interviews) were added. Classical music started being supported in June 2007, and in October 2007 the "final genres were turned on" - now adding support for the Stage & Screen, Brass & Military, Children's, and Folk, World, & Country music genres and indeed allowing capture of virtually every single kind of audio recording that has ever been released.

On 30 June 2004, Discogs published its last report, which included information about the number of its contributors. This report claims that Discogs has 15,788 contributors and 260,789 releases.^[4] On the Discogs homepage there is information indicating the number of releases, labels, and artists presently in the database. In 2006 the number of releases in the database passed the 500,000 mark. On 25 July 2010 the database contained 2,006,878 releases, 1,603,161 artists and 169,923 labels.

On 20 July 2007 a new system for sellers was introduced on the site called Market Price History. It made information available to users who paid for a subscription —though 60 days information was free— access to the past price items were sold for up to 12 months ago by previous sellers who had sold exactly the same release. At the same time, the US$12 per year charge for advanced subscriptions was abolished, as it was felt that the extra features should be made available to all subscribers now that a better, some may say fairer, revenue stream had been found from sellers and purchasers. However, at the beginning of 2008, the Market Price History was also made free of charge for all users, still giving up to a 12 month view of historical sales data for any release.

API[link]

In mid-August 2007, Discogs data became publicly accessible via a RESTful, XML-based API and a license that allowed specially attributed use, but did not allow anyone to "alter, transform, or build upon" the data.^[5][6][7] The license has since been changed to a public domain one. Prior to the advent of this license and API, Discogs data was only accessible via the Discogs web site's HTML interface and was intended to be viewed only using web browsers.^[8] The HTML interface remains the only authorized way to modify Discogs data.^[6]

On June 7, 2011 version 2 of the API was released.^[9] Notable in this release was that a license key was no longer required, the default response was changed from Xml to Json, and the 5000 queries per day limit was removed (although a limit of 2000 image lookups per days was introduced)

On November 1, 2011 a major update to version 2 of the API was released.^[10] This new release dropped support for Xml, data is always returned in Json format, however the monthly data dumps of new data are only provided in Xml format.

Contribution system[link]

The data in Discogs comes from submissions contributed by users who have registered accounts on the web site. The system has gone through 4 major revisions.

Version One (V1)[link]

All incoming submissions were checked for formal and factual correctness by privileged users called "moderators", or "mods" for short, who had been selected by site management. Submissions and edits wouldn't become visible or searchable until they received a single positive vote from a "mod". An even smaller pool of super-moderators called "editors" had the power to vote on proposed edits to artist & label data.

Version Two (V2)[link]

This version introduced the concept of "submission limits" which prevented new users from submitting more than 2-3 releases for moderation. The number of possible submissions by a user increased on a logarithmic scale. The purpose of this was two-fold: 1) it helped keep the submission queue fairly small and manageable for moderators, and 2) it allowed the new user to acclimatise themselves slowly with the many formatting rules and guidelines of submitting to Discogs. Releases required a number of votes to be accepted into the database - initially the number of votes required was from 4 different moderators but in time the amount was decreased to 3 and then 2.

Version Three (V3)[link]

V3 launched in August 2007. Submission limits were eliminated, allowing each user to submit an unlimited number of updates and new entries. New releases added to the database were explicitly marked as "Unmoderated" with a top banner, and updates to existing items, such as releases, artists, or labels, were not shown (or available to search engines or casual visitors) until they were approved by the moderators.^[11]

Version Four (V4)[link]

This system launched on 10 March 2008. New submissions and edits currently take effect immediately. Any time a new release is added or old release edited, that entry becomes flagged as needing "votes" (initially, "review," but this term caused confusion). A flagged entry is marked as a full yellow bar across a release in the list views and, like version three, a banner on the submission itself — although, initially, this banner was omitted.

Any item can be voted on at any time, even if it isn't flagged. Votes consist of a rating of the correctness & completeness of the full set of data for an item (not just the most recent changes), as assessed by users who have been automatically determined, by an undisclosed algorithm, to be experienced & reliable enough to be allowed to cast votes. An item's "average" vote is displayed with the item's data.^[12]

The ranking system has also changed in v4. In v3, rank points were only awarded to submitters when a submission was "Accepted" by moderator votes. While in v4, rank points are now awarded immediately when a submission is made, regardless of the accuracy of the information and what votes it eventually receives, if any.^[13]

Software[link]

Tag editors[link]

• ASMT MP3 Tagger — single release tagger with Discogs support.
• foobar2000 — freeware media player & music management software with a plugin for Discogs support.
• Helium Music Manager — music management software with a plugin for Discogs support.
• Jaikoz - OSX/Windows/Linux spreadsheet-based tag editor with Discogs support
• MP3 Collection Organizer — batch tagger with Discogs support.
• Mp3tag — freeware tag editor with Discogs support (batch and spreadsheet interfaces).
• OrangeCD Catalog - music management software with Discogs support.
• Tagog — Linux audio file tagger with Discogs support.
• TagScanner — freeware tag editor with Discogs, FreeDB, TrackType.org support.
• TigoTago — spreadsheet-based tag editor with Discogs support.
• The GodFather — freeware tag editor with Discogs script support.
• The Tagger — MP3 and AAC formats tag editor for Mac OS X with Discogs support.
• Kid3 — Open-source project, tagger for all common music formats with Discogs support.

Other[link]

• MP3 Filenamer - Online MP3 file name generator, based on Discogs release data.
• Discogs Bar - Discogs navigation and search control toolbar for Firefox.
• Album Art Downloader - Discogs cover art downloads.
• WWW::Discogs - Perl module for interfacing with the Discogs API.

See also[link]

• List of online music databases

References[link]

External links[link]

Main sites[link]

• Discogs – official site
• Discogs Pivotal Tracker – ongoing site issues/bugs and future feature implementation
• Discogs wiki – Discogs own wiki site, for discussions on issues and future feature ideas
• Disbugs – ongoing site issues/bugs and feature requests (archive)

Other sites[link]

• Discogs status blog on Blogger – current site status/maintenance report
• Discogs news blog on Blogger – online diary of news, temporary bugs, feature changes/updates
• Discogs on Facebook – online social networking for users
• Discogs on Twitter – online user chat

Steve Reich in 2006

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich ( /ˈraɪʃ/;^[1] born October 3, 1936) is an American composer who is one of the pioneering composers of minimal music along with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass.^[2][3][4]

His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (examples are his early compositions, "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out"), and the use of simple, audible processes to explore musical concepts (for instance, "Pendulum Music" and "Four Organs"). These compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm and canons, have significantly influenced contemporary music, especially in the US. Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably the Grammy Award-winning Different Trains.

Reich's style of composition influenced many other composers and musical groups. Reich has been described, in The Guardian by music critic Andrew Clements, as one of "a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history",^[5] and the critic Kyle Gann has said Reich "may...be considered, by general acclamation, America's greatest living composer."^[6]

On January 25, 2007, Reich was named the 2007 recipient of the Polar Music Prize, together with jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins. On April 20, 2009, Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Double Sextet.^[7]

Career[link]

Early life[link]

Reich was born in New York City to the Broadway lyricist June Sillman. When he was one year old, his parents divorced, and Reich divided his time between New York and California. He was given piano lessons as a child and describes growing up with the "middle-class favorites", having no exposure to music written before 1750 or after 1900. At the age of 14 he began to study music in earnest, after hearing music from the Baroque period and earlier, as well as music of the 20th century. Reich studied drums with Roland Kohloff in order to play jazz. While attending Cornell University, he took some music courses, but he graduated in 1957 with a B.A. in Philosophy. Reich's B.A. thesis was on Ludwig Wittgenstein; later he would set texts by that philosopher to music in Proverb (1995) and You Are (variations) (2006).

For a year following graduation, Reich studied composition privately with Hall Overton before he enrolled at Juilliard to work with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti (1958–1961). Subsequently he attended Mills College in Oakland, California, where he studied with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud (1961–1963) and earned a master's degree in composition. At Mills, Reich composed Melodica for melodica and tape, which appeared in 1986 on the three-LP release Music from Mills.^[8]

Reich worked with the San Francisco Tape Music Center along with Pauline Oliveros, Ramon Sender, Morton Subotnick, and Terry Riley.^[9] He was involved with the premiere of Riley's In C and suggested the use of the eighth note pulse, which is now standard in performance of the piece.

1960s[link]

Reich's early forays into composition involved experimentation with twelve-tone composition, but he found the rhythmic aspects of the twelve-tone series more interesting than the melodic aspects.^[10] Reich also composed film soundtracks for Plastic Haircut, Oh Dem Watermelons, and Thick Pucker, three films by Robert Nelson. The soundtrack of Plastic Haircut, composed in 1963, was a short tape collage, possibly Reich's first. The Watermelons soundtrack used two old Stephen Foster minstrel tunes as its basis, and used repeated phrasing together in a large five-part canon. The music for Thick Pucker arose from street recordings Reich made walking around San Francisco with Nelson, who filmed in black and white 16mm. This film no longer survives. A fourth film from 1965, about 25 minutes long and tentatively entitled "Thick Pucker II", was assembled by Nelson from outtakes of that shoot and more of the raw audio Reich had recorded. Nelson was not happy with the resulting film and never showed it.

Reich was influenced by fellow minimalist Terry Riley, whose work In C combines simple musical patterns, offset in time, to create a slowly shifting, cohesive whole. Reich adopted this approach to compose his first major work, It's Gonna Rain. Composed in 1965, the piece used a fragment of a sermon about the end of the world given by a black Pentecostal street-preacher known as Brother Walter. Reich built on his early tape work, transferring the last three words of the fragment, "it's gonna rain!", to multiple tape loops which gradually move out of phase with one another.

The 13-minute "Come Out" (1966) uses similarly manipulated recordings of a single spoken line given by Daniel Hamm, one of the falsely accused Harlem Six, who was severely injured by police. The survivor, who had been beaten, punctured a bruise on his own body to convince police about his beating. The spoken line includes the phrase "to let the bruise’s blood come out to show them." Reich rerecorded the fragment "come out to show them" on two channels, which are initially played in unison. They quickly slip out of sync; gradually the discrepancy widens and becomes a reverberation. The two voices then split into four, looped continuously, then eight, and continues splitting until the actual words are unintelligible, leaving the listener with only the speech's rhythmic and tonal patterns.

A similar, lesser known example of process music is "Pendulum Music" (1968), which consists of the sound of several microphones swinging over the loudspeakers to which they are attached, producing feedback as they do so. "Pendulum Music" has never been recorded by Reich himself, but was introduced to rock audiences by Sonic Youth in the late 1990s.

Reich's first attempt at translating this phasing technique from recorded tape to live performance was the 1967 Piano Phase, for two pianos. In Piano Phase the performers repeat a rapid twelve-note melodic figure, initially in unison. As one player keeps tempo with robotic precision, the other speeds up very slightly until the two parts line up again, but one sixteenth note apart. The second player then resumes the previous tempo. This cycle of speeding up and then locking in continues throughout the piece; the cycle comes full circle three times, the second and third cycles using shorter versions of the initial figure. Violin Phase, also written in 1967, is built on these same lines. Piano Phase and Violin Phase both premiered in a series of concerts given in New York art galleries.

Reich also tried to create the phasing effect in a piece "that would need no instrument beyond the human body". He found that the idea of phasing was inappropriate for the simple ways he was experimenting to make sound. Instead, he composed Clapping Music (1972), in which the players do not phase in and out with each other, but instead one performer keeps one line of a 12-quaver-long (12-eighth-note-long) phrase and the other performer shifts by one quaver beat every 12 bars, until both performers are back in unison 144 bars later.

The 1967 prototype piece Slow Motion Sound was not performed although Chris Hughes performed it 27 years later as "Slow Motion Blackbird" on his Reich-influenced 1994 album Shift. It introduced the idea of slowing down a recorded sound until many times its original length without changing pitch or timbre, which Reich applied to Four Organs (1970), which deals specifically with augmentation. The piece has maracas playing a fast eighth note pulse, while the four organs stress certain eighth notes using an 11th chord. This work therefore dealt with repetition and subtle rhythmic change. It is unique in the context of Reich's other pieces in being linear as opposed to cyclic like his earlier works— the superficially similar Phase Patterns, also for four organs but without maracas, is (as the name suggests) a phase piece similar to others composed during the period. Four Organs was performed as part of a Boston Symphony Orchestra program, and was Reich's first composition to be performed in a large traditional setting.

1970s[link]

In 1971, Reich embarked on a five-week trip to study music in Ghana, during which he learned from the master drummer Gideon Alorwoyie. Reich also studied Balinese gamelan in Seattle. From his African experience, as well as A. M. Jones's Studies in African Music about the music of the Ewe people, Reich drew inspiration for his 90-minute piece Drumming, which he composed shortly after his return. Composed for a nine-piece percussion ensemble with female voices and piccolo, Drumming marked the beginning of a new stage in his career, for around this time he formed his ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, and increasingly concentrated on composition and performance with them. Steve Reich and Musicians, which was to be the sole ensemble to interpret his works for many years, still remains active with many of its original members.

After Drumming, Reich moved on from the "phase shifting" technique that he had pioneered, and began writing more elaborate pieces. He investigated other musical processes such as augmentation (the temporal lengthening of phrases and melodic fragments). It was during this period that he wrote works such as Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973) and Six Pianos (1973).

In 1974, Reich began writing what many would call his seminal work, Music for 18 Musicians. This piece involved many new ideas, although it also hearkened back to earlier pieces. It is based on a cycle of eleven chords introduced at the beginning (called "Pulses"), followed by a small section of music based on each chord ("Sections I-XI"), and finally a return to the original cycle ("Pulses"). This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger ensembles. The increased number of performers resulted in more scope for psychoacoustic effects, which fascinated Reich, and he noted that he would like to "explore this idea further". Reich remarked that this one work contained more harmonic movement in the first five minutes than any other work he had written. Steve Reich and Musicians made the premier recording of this work on ECM Records.

Reich explored these ideas further in his frequently recorded pieces Music for a Large Ensemble (1978) and Octet (1979). In these two works, Reich experimented with "the human breath as the measure of musical duration … the chords played by the trumpets are written to take one comfortable breath to perform".^[11] Human voices are part of the musical palette in Music for a Large Ensemble but the wordless vocal parts simply form part of the texture (as they do in Drumming). With Octet and his first orchestral piece Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards (also 1979), Reich's music showed the influence of Biblical cantillation, which he had studied in Israel since the summer of 1977. After this, the human voice singing a text would play an increasingly important role in Reich's music.

In 1974 Reich published a book, Writings About Music (ISBN 0814773583), containing essays on his philosophy, aesthetics, and musical projects written between 1963 and 1974. An updated and much more extensive collection, Writings On Music (1965–2000) (ISBN 0195111710), was published in 2002.

1980s[link]

Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage. Tehillim (1981), Hebrew for psalms, is the first of Reich's works to draw explicitly on his Jewish background. The work is in four parts, and is scored for an ensemble of four women's voices (one high soprano, two lyric sopranos and one alto), piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, six percussion (playing small tuned tambourines without jingles, clapping, maracas, marimba, vibraphone and crotales), two electronic organs, two violins, viola, cello and double bass, with amplified voices, strings, and winds. A setting of texts from psalms 19:2–5 (19:1–4 in Christian translations), 34:13–15 (34:12–14), 18:26–27 (18:25–26), and 150:4–6, Tehillim is a departure from Reich's other work in its formal structure; the setting of texts several lines long rather than the fragments used in previous works makes melody a substantive element. Use of formal counterpoint and functional harmony also contrasts with the loosely structured minimalist works written previously.

	Pat Metheny "Electric Counterpoint III Fast" (1989) noicon 25 seconds of "Electric Counterpoint III Fast" performed by Pat Metheny. Composed by Steve Reich. From "Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint" album.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Different Trains (1988), for string quartet and tape, uses recorded speech, as in his earlier works, but this time as a melodic rather than a rhythmic element. In Different Trains Reich compares and contrasts his childhood memories of his train journeys between New York and California in 1939–1941 with the very different trains being used to transport contemporaneous European children to their deaths under Nazi rule. The Kronos Quartet recording of Different Trains was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 1990. The composition was described by Richard Taruskin as "the only adequate musical response—one of the few adequate artistic responses in any medium—to the Holocaust", and he credited the piece with earning Reich a place among the great composers of the 20th century.^[13]

1990s to present[link]

In 1993, Reich collaborated with his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot, on an opera, The Cave, which explores the roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam through the words of Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans, echoed musically by the ensemble. The work, for percussion, voices, and strings, is a musical documentary, named for the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, where a mosque now stands and Abraham is said to have been buried. The two collaborated again on the opera Three Tales, which concerns the Hindenburg disaster, the testing of nuclear weapons on Bikini Atoll, and other more modern concerns, specifically Dolly the sheep, cloning, and the technological singularity.

As well as pieces using sampling techniques, like Three Tales and City Life (1994), Reich also returned to composing purely instrumental works for the concert hall, starting with Triple Quartet (1998) written for the Kronos Quartet that can either be performed by string quartet and tape, three string quartets or 36-piece string orchestra. According to Reich, the piece is influenced by Bartók's and Alfred Schnittke's string quartets, and Michael Gordon's Yo Shakespeare.^[14] This series continued with Dance Patterns (2002), Cello Counterpoint (2003), and sequence of works centered around Variations: You Are (Variations) (2004) (a work which looks back to the vocal writing of works like Tehillim or The Desert Music), Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings (2005, for the London Sinfonietta) and Daniel Variations (2006).

Invited by Walter Fink, he was the 12th composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2002.

In an interview with The Guardian, Reich stated that he continues to follow this direction with his piece Double Sextet (2007) commissioned by eighth blackbird, an American ensemble consisting of the instrumental quintet (flute, clarinet, violin or viola, cello and piano) of Schoenberg's piece Pierrot Lunaire (1912) plus percussion. Reich states that he was thinking about Stravinsky's Agon (1957) as a model for the instrumental writing.

Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music, on April 20, 2009, for Double Sextet.^[15]

December 2010 NoneSuch and Indaba Music held a community remix contest where over 250 submissions were received, and Steve Reich and Christian Carey judged the finals. Reich spoke in a related BBC interview that once he composed a piece he would not alter it again himself; "when it's done, it's done". On the other hand he acknowledged that "remixes" have an old tradition e.g. famous religious music pieces where melodies were further developed into new songs.^[16]

In May 2011, Steve Reich received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music.^[17]

Influence[link]

Reich's style of composition has influenced many other composers and musical groups, including John Adams, the progressive rock band King Crimson, the new-age guitarist Michael Hedges, the art-pop and electronic musician Brian Eno, the experimental art/music group The Residents, the composers associated with the Bang on a Can festival (including David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe), and numerous indie rock musicians including songwriter Sufjan Stevens^[18][19] and instrumental ensembles Tortoise,^[20][21][22] The Mercury Program (themselves influenced by Tortoise),^[23] So Many Dynamos, Do Make Say Think and A Silver Mt. Zion.^{[citation needed]} Godspeed You! Black Emperor composed a song, unreleased, entitled "Steve Reich".^[24]

John Adams commented, "He didn't reinvent the wheel so much as he showed us a new way to ride."^[25] He has also influenced visual artists such as Bruce Nauman, and many notable choreographers have made dances to his music, Eliot Feld, Jiří Kylián, Douglas Lee and Jerome Robbins among others; he has expressed particular admiration of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's work set to his pieces.

In featuring a sample of Reich's Electric Counterpoint (1987) the British ambient techno act the Orb exposed a new generation of listeners to the composer's music with its 1990 production “Little Fluffy Clouds.”^[26] Further acknowledgment of Reich's influence on various electronic dance music producers came with the release in 1999 of the Reich Remixed^[27] tribute album which featured reinterpretations by artists such as DJ Spooky, Kurtis Mantronik, Ken Ishii, and Coldcut, among others.^[26]

Reich often cites Pérotin, J.S. Bach, Debussy, Bartók, and Stravinsky as composers he admires, whose tradition he wished as a young composer to become part of.^[28] Jazz is a major part of the formation of Reich's musical style, and two of the earliest influences on his work were vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Alfred Deller, whose emphasis on the artistic capabilities of the voice alone with little vibrato or other alteration was an inspiration to his earliest works. John Coltrane's style, which Reich has described as "playing a lot of notes to very few harmonies", also had an impact; of particular interest was the album Africa/Brass, which "was basically a half-an-hour in F."^[29] Reich's influence from jazz includes its roots, also, from the West African music he studied in his readings and visit to Ghana. Other important influences are Kenny Clarke and Miles Davis, and visual artist friends such as Sol LeWitt and Richard Serra. Reich recently contributed the introduction to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky.

Recent projects[link]

Reich has the world premiere of a piece, WTC 9/11, written for String Quartet and Tape, a similar instrumentation to that of Different Trains. It premiered in March 2011 by the Kronos Quartet, at Duke University, North Carolina, USA.^{[citation needed]}

Quotations[link]

[...] I drove a cab in San Francisco, and in New York I worked as a part-time social worker. Phil Glass and I had a moving company for a short period of time. I did all kinds of odd jobs [...] I started making a living as a performer in my own ensemble. I would never have thought that it was how I was going to survive financially. It was a complete wonder.
—From an interview with Richard Kessler, 1998^[30]

The point is, if you went to Paris and dug up Debussy and said, 'Excusez-moi Monsieur…are you an impressionist?' he'd probably say 'Merde!' and go back to sleep. That is a legitimate concern of musicologists, music historians, and journalists, and it's a convenient way of referring to me, Riley, Glass, La Monte Young [...] it's become the dominant style. But, anybody who's interested in French Impressionism is interested in how different Debussy and Ravel and Satie are—and ditto for what's called minimalism. [...] Basically, those kind of words are taken from painting and sculpture, and applied to musicians who composed at the same period as that painting and sculpture was made [...].
—From an Interview with Rebecca Y. Kim, 2000^[31]

All musicians in the past, starting with the middle ages were interested in popular music. (...) Béla Bartók's music is made entirely of sources from Hungarian folk music. And Igor Stravinsky, although he lied about it, used all kinds of Russian sources for his early ballets. Kurt Weill's great masterpiece Dreigroschenoper is using the cabaret-style of the Weimar Republic and that's why it is such a masterpiece. Only artificial division between popular and classical music happened unfortunately through the blindness of Arnold Schoenberg and his followers to create an artificial wall, which never existed before him. In my generation we tore the wall down and now we are back to the normal situation, for example if Brian Eno or David Bowie come to me, and if popular musicians remix my music like The Orb or DJ Spooky it is a good thing. This is a natural normal regular historical way.
—From an Interview with Jakob Buhre^[32]

Works[link]

• Soundtrack for The Plastic Haircut, tape (1963)
• Music for two or more pianos (1964)
• Livelihood (1964)
• It's Gonna Rain, tape (1965)
• Soundtrack for Oh Dem Watermelons, tape (1965)
• Come Out, tape (1966)
• Melodica, for melodica and tape (1966)
• Reed Phase, for soprano saxophone and tape (1966)
• Piano Phase for two pianos, or two marimbas (1967)
• Slow Motion Sound concept piece (1967)
• Violin Phase for violin and tape or four violins (1967)
• My Name Is for three tape recorders and performers (1967)
• Pendulum Music for 3 or 4 microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers (1968) (revised 1973)^[33]
• Four Organs for four electric organs and maracas (1970)
• Phase Patterns for four electric organs (1970)
• Drumming for 4 pairs of tuned bongo drums, 3 marimbas, 3 glockenspiels, 2 female voices, whistling and piccolo (1970/1971)
• Clapping Music for two musicians clapping (1972)
• Music for Pieces of Wood for five pairs of tuned claves (1973)
• Six Pianos (1973) – transcribed as Six Marimbas (1986)
• Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973)
• Music for 18 Musicians (1974–76)
• Music for a Large Ensemble (1978)
• Octet (1979) – withdrawn in favor of the 1983 revision for slightly larger ensemble, Eight Lines
• Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards for orchestra (1979)
• Tehillim for voices and ensemble (1981)
• Vermont Counterpoint for amplified flute and tape (1982)
• The Desert Music for chorus and orchestra or voices and ensemble (1983, text by William Carlos Williams)
• Sextet for percussion and keyboards (1984)
• New York Counterpoint for amplified clarinet and tape, or 11 clarinets and bass clarinet (1985)
• Three Movements for orchestra (1986)
• Electric Counterpoint for electric guitar or amplified acoustic guitar and tape (1987, for Pat Metheny)
• The Four Sections for orchestra (1987)
• Different Trains for string quartet and tape (1988)
• The Cave for four voices, ensemble and video (1993, with Beryl Korot)
• Duet for two violins and string ensemble (1993)
• Nagoya Marimbas for two marimbas (1994)
• City Life for amplified ensemble (1995)
• Proverb for voices and ensemble (1995, text by Ludwig Wittgenstein)
• Triple Quartet for amplified string quartet (with prerecorded tape), or three string quartets, or string orchestra (1998)
• Know What Is Above You for four women’s voices and 2 tamborims (1999)
• Three Tales for video projection, five voices and ensemble (1998–2002, with Beryl Korot)
• Dance Patterns for 2 xylophones, 2 vibraphones and 2 pianos (2002)
• Cello Counterpoint for amplified cello and multichannel tape (2003)
• You Are (Variations) for voices and ensemble (2004)
• For Strings (with Winds and Brass) for orchestra (1987/2004)
• Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings dance piece for three string quartets, four vibraphones, and two pianos (2005)
• Daniel Variations for four voices and ensemble (2006)
• Double Sextet for 2 violins, 2 cellos, 2 pianos, 2 vibraphones, 2 clarinets, 2 flutes or ensemble and pre-recorded tape (2007)
• 2x5 for 2 drum sets, 2 pianos, 4 electric guitars and 2 bass guitars (2008)
• Mallet Quartet for 2 marimbas and 2 vibraphones or 4 marimbas (or solo percussion and tape) (2009)
• WTC 9/11 for String Quartet and Tape (2010)

Selected discography[link]

• Drumming. Steve Reich and Musicians (Two recordings: Deutsche Grammophon and Nonesuch) So Percussion (Cantaloupe)
• Music for 18 Musicians. Steve Reich and Musicians (Two recordings: ECM and Nonesuch), Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble (Innova), Ensemble Modern (RCA).
• Octet/Music for a Large Ensemble/Violin Phase. Steve Reich and Musicians (ECM)
• Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards/Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ/ Six Pianos. San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Edo de Waart, Steve Reich & Musicians (Deutsche Grammophon)
• Tehillim/The Desert Music. Alarm Will Sound and OSSIA, Alan Pierson (Cantaloupe)
• Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint. Kronos Quartet, Pat Metheny (Nonesuch)
• You Are (Variations)/Cello Counterpoint. Los Angeles Master Chorale, Grant Gershon, Maya Beiser (Nonesuch)
• Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995. Various performers (Nonesuch).
• Daniel Variations, with Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings. London Sinfonietta, Grant Gershon, Alan Pierson (Nonesuch)
• Double Sextet/2x5, Eighth Blackbird and Bang on a Can (Nonesuch)
• Piano Phase, transcribed for guitar, Alexandre Gérard (Catapult)
• Phase to Face, a film documentary about Steve Reich by Eric Darmon & Franck Mallet (EuroArts) DVD

Further reading[link]

• D.J. Hoek. Steve Reich: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 2002.
• Steve Reich. Writings about Music. Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1974.
• K. Robert Schwarz. Minimalists. Phaidon Press, 1996.

See also[link]

• Minimalist music
• Steve Reich and Musicians

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Potter, Keith (2000). Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass. Music in the Twentieth Century series. Cambridge, UK; New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Reich, Steve; Hillier, Paul (Editor) (April 1, 2002). Writings on Music, 1965–2000. USA: Oxford University Press. p. 272. ISBN 0-19-511171-0. 
• Reich, Steve (1974). Writings About Music. Halifax: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. p. 78. ISBN 0-919616-02-X. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steve Reich

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steve Reich

Interviews

Listening

Others

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2009)

DJ Jazzy Jeff
Background information
Birth name	Jeffrey Allen Townes
Born	(1965-01-22) January 22, 1965 (age 47)
Origin	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Genres	Hip hop, R&B
Occupations	Record producer, DJ
Years active	1985–Present
Associated acts	DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
Website	www.djjazzyjeff.com

Jeffrey Allen Townes^[1] (born January 22, 1965, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania),^[2] also known as DJ Jazzy Jeff or simply Jazz, is an American hip hop, R&B record producer, turntablist and actor. He is best known for his early career with Will Smith as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. DJ Jazzy Jeff attended John Bartram High School in Philadelphia, where he is enshrined in the school's "Wall of Fame."^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

Once he grew up, he developed a reputation and a following as a school and block party DJ. Jazzy Jeff was the feature of the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. He also won the world DJ championship in the 1986 New Music Seminar DJ Battle.

Acting[link]

When Smith branched out into television with the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Jazzy Jeff played a recurring character named Jazz, Smith's best friend on the show. In the early season the two characters always greeted each other with their signature handshake (swinging mid-five, point-back/snap with both characters saying "Pssh!"). His trademarks included being physically ejected from the house by Uncle Phil (James Avery).

Music[link]

As a duo, they had several gold and platinum-selling albums and singles in the late 1980s and early 1990s, earning them the first rap Grammy Award ever presented in 1989 for Parents Just Don't Understand. One of the first records Jazzy Jeff ever appeared on was with The Korner Boyz (Street Artz Records) "Bust The Move and The Soga of Roxanne) Which featured legendary Philly Rapper / MC Parry P and Grand Tone. The Instrumental was called "Jazzy Jeff Scratch" (1985)

After DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince broke up, Townes went on to become a prominent R&B, soul, and neo soul record producer, establishing the A Touch of Jazz production company in his native Philadelphia. Among the artists that Jazzy Jeff has helped develop are Jill Scott and Musiq. Even though he separated from Will Smith as a music partner, they are still friends,^{[citation needed]} and still occasionally work together. Some songs by Smith were produced by Townes (including "Here He Comes"), and he has performed on some songs by Smith such as "So Fresh" and "Potnas." In addition, he appeared in several of Smith's music videos such as "Will2K" and "Freakin' It". On some occasions, he made an appearances with Smith at live concerts, producing DJ scratches.

He, along with DJ Cash Money, is credited with making the transform scratch famous.^{[citation needed]}

On July 2, 2005, DJ Jazzy Jeff performed with Smith at the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia. Moreover, Smith acknowledges him in his music such as "Comin' To The Stage" from the album Lost & Found and "Potnas" in his album Willennium.

His 2007 release The Return of the Magnificent featured numerous collaborations with old school and new school artists including CL Smooth, Big Daddy Kane, Pos from De La Soul, Method Man, Peedi Peedi (a remake of Brand New Funk), Rhymefest, and Raheem DeVaughn.

In 2007, he appeared with Rhymefest in a video DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Fest directed by Konee Rok, in which he makes music in his home recording studio with Rhymefest.

In 2008, he performed with Smith at the premier of the latter's 2008 film Hancock.

In 2009, he made a mixtape titled He's the King...I'm the DJ in honor of the late entertainer Michael Jackson.

He was featured in the video game, DJ Hero, as a playable character. He also has some original mixes in the game.

He is currently making a mixtape with young rapper Mac Miller and is hosting it, titled "92 Til Infinity".

Discography[link]

Solo work as DJ Jazzy Jeff[link]

• Unreleased album from Sony Records (1998)
• One cut in Battle of DJs
• The Magnificent (2002)
• Soulheaven Presents Jazzy Jeff in the House (2004)
• The Soul Mixtape Groovin' Records USA (2005)
• Hip-Hop Forever II Rapster Records (2004)
• Hip-Hop Forever III BBE Records (2006)
• The Return of The Magnificent EP (2007)
• The Return of the Magnificent (2007) #55 US (Gold)
• The Return of Hip Hop EP (2007)

As DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince[link]

• Rock the House (1986) #83 US (Gold); #97 UK
• He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper (1988) #4 US (3x Platinum); #68 UK
• And in This Corner… (1989) #39 US (Gold)
• Homebase (1991) #12 US (Platinum); #69 UK
• Code Red (1993) #64 US (Gold); #50 UK
• Greatest Hits (1998) #144 US, #20 UK
• Before The Willennium (1999)
• The Very Best of D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (2006)^[1]

Miscellaneous[link]

• 1991 - Deep, Deep, Trouble with Bart Simpson; and the remixes from The Simpsons Sing the Blues
• 1997 - Jazzy Jeff's Theme; from the album Nuyorican Soul
• 1998 - "When To Stand Up" featuring Eminem
• 1998 - I Don't Know by Slum Village (scratches); from the album Fantastic, Vol. 2
• 1999 - The Next Movement by The Roots (scratches); from the album Things Fall Apart
• 2004 - Mirrorball (DJ Jazzy Jeff Full Sole Remix) by Everything But The Girl; from Adapt or Die: 10 Years of Remixes
• 2005 - Papa Was A Rollin' Stone (DJ Jazzy Jeff & Pete Kuzma Solefull Mix) by the Temptations; from Motown Remixed.
• 2005 - Lost & Found by Will Smith; produced intro song Here He Comes and several DJ scratches on several tracks
• 2005 - Watch Me by Little Brother (scratches); from the album The Minstrel Show
• 2006 - Feel It (Jazzy Jeff Soulful Remix) by the Black Eyed Peas; from Renegotiations: The Remixes
• 2006 - Night in Tunisia (DJ Jazzy Jeff Remix) by Duke Jordan
• 2007 - NY Weather Report by Talib Kweli (scratches); from the album Eardrum
• 2007-Made a cameo appearance in Jill Scott's music video "A Long Walk"
• 2008 - Get Busy by The Roots (scratches); from the album Rising Down
• 2008 - Bring It Back by Rhymefest (producer); from the album El Che
• 2009 - Prince in Training by MaC Renegade Hosted by DJ Jazzy Jeff
• 2009 - Stay This Way (Jazzy Jeff Remix) by Peter Bjorn and John featuring Big Pooh, Chaundon, and Phil Nash from the mixtape Re-Living Thing with Mick Boogie

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: DJ Jazzy Jeff

• Official website
• DJ Jazzy Jeff at the Internet Movie Database
• DJ Jazzy Jeff Beatbuggy Profile
• YourSingapore - ZoukOut

John Roberts
17th Chief Justice of the United States
Incumbent
Assumed office September 29, 2005
Appointed by	George W. Bush
Preceded by	William Rehnquist
Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
In office June 2, 2003 – September 29, 2005
Appointed by	George W. Bush
Preceded by	James Buckley
Succeeded by	Vacant
Personal details
Born	John Glover Roberts, Jr. (1955-01-27) January 27, 1955 (age 57) Buffalo, New York, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Jane Sullivan
Alma mater	Harvard University

John Glover Roberts, Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is the 17th Chief Justice of the United States. He has served since 2005, having been nominated by President George W. Bush after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He has been described as having a conservative judicial philosophy in his jurisprudence.

Roberts grew up in northern Indiana and was educated in a private school before attending Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. After being admitted to the bar, he served as a law clerk for William Rehnquist before taking a position in the Attorney General's office during the Reagan Administration. He went on to serve the Reagan Administration and the George H. W. Bush administration in the Department of Justice and the Office of the White House Counsel, before spending fourteen years in private law practice. During this time, he argued thirty-nine cases before the Supreme Court.

In 2003, he was appointed as a judge of the D.C. Circuit by President George W. Bush, where he served until his nomination to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. When Chief Justice Rehnquist died before Roberts's confirmation hearings, Bush renominated Roberts to fill the newly vacant center seat.

Early years[link]

Roberts was born in Buffalo, New York, on January 27, 1955, the son of Rosemary (née Podrasky) and John Glover "Jack" Roberts, Sr. (1928–2008). His father was a plant manager with Bethlehem Steel.^[1] When Roberts was in fourth grade, his family moved to the beachside town of Long Beach, Indiana. He grew up with three sisters: Kathy, Peggy, and Barbara.

Roberts attended Notre Dame Elementary School, a Roman Catholic grade school in Long Beach, and then La Lumiere School, a Roman Catholic boarding school in LaPorte, Indiana, where he was an excellent student and athlete.^[2] He studied five years of Latin (in four years),^[1] some French, and was known generally for his devotion to his studies. He was captain of the football team (he later described himself as a "slow-footed linebacker"), and was a regional champion in wrestling. He participated in choir and drama, co-edited the school newspaper, and served on the athletic council and the executive committee of the student council.^[1]

He attended Harvard College, graduating with an A.B. summa cum laude in history in three years. He then attended Harvard Law School where he was the managing editor of the Harvard Law Review.^[1] He graduated from law school with a J.D. magna cum laude in 1979.^[3]

Early legal career[link]

After graduating from law school, Roberts served as a law clerk for Judge Henry Friendly on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for one year.^[1] Roberts frequently cites Judge Friendly in his opinions. From 1980 to 1981, he clerked for then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist on the United States Supreme Court. From 1981 to 1982, he served in the Reagan administration as a Special Assistant to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith.^[1] From 1982 to 1986, Roberts served as Associate Counsel to the President under White House Counsel Fred Fielding.

Roberts entered private law practice in 1986 as an associate at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Hogan & Hartson.^[4]

Roberts left Hogan & Hartson to serve in the George H. W. Bush administration as Principal Deputy Solicitor General from 1989 to 1993^[1] and as Acting Solicitor General for the purposes of at least one case when Ken Starr had a conflict.^[5][6]

In 1992, George H. W. Bush nominated Roberts to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but no Senate vote was held, and Roberts's nomination expired when Bush left office after losing the 1992 presidential election.

Roberts returned to Hogan & Hartson as a partner and became the head of the firm's appellate practice, in addition to serving as an adjunct faculty member at the Georgetown University Law Center. During this time, Roberts argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court, prevailing in 25 of them.^{[citation needed]} He represented 18 states in United States v. Microsoft.^{[citation needed]} Those cases include:

During the late 1990s, while working for Hogan & Hartson, Roberts served as a member of the steering committee of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the conservative Federalist Society.^[7]

In 2000, Roberts traveled to Tallahassee, Florida to advise Jeb Bush, then the Governor of Florida, concerning the latter's actions in the Florida election recount during the presidential election.^[8]

On the D.C. Circuit[link]

On May 10, 2001, President George W. Bush nominated Roberts for a different seat on the D.C. Circuit, which had been vacated by James L. Buckley. The Senate at the time, however, was controlled by the Democrats, who were in conflict with Bush over his judicial nominees. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-VT, refused to give Roberts a hearing in the 107th Congress.^[9] The GOP regained control of the Senate on January 7, 2003, and Bush resubmitted Roberts's nomination that day. Roberts was confirmed on May 8, 2003,^[10] and received his commission on June 2, 2003. During his two year tenure on the D.C. Circuit, Roberts authored 49 opinions, eliciting two dissents from other judges, and authoring three dissents of his own.

Notable decisions on the D.C. Circuit include the following:

Fourth and Fifth Amendments[link]

Hedgepeth v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 386 F.3d 1148,^[11] involved a 12-year-old girl who was arrested, searched, handcuffed, driven to police headquarters, booked, and fingerprinted after she violated a publicly advertised zero tolerance "no eating" policy in a Washington Metro station by eating a single french fry. She was released to her mother three hours later. She sued, alleging that an adult would have only received a citation for the same offense, while children must be detained until parents are notified. The D.C. Circuit unanimously affirmed the district court's dismissal of the case, which was predicated on alleged violations of the Fourth Amendment (unreasonable search and seizure) and Fifth Amendment (equal protection).

"No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation," Roberts wrote, and noted that the policies under which the girl was apprehended had since been changed. Because age discrimination is evaluated using a rational basis test, however, only weak state interests were required to justify the policy, and the panel concluded they were present. "Because parents and guardians play an essential role in that rehabilitative process, it is reasonable for the District to seek to ensure their participation, and the method chosen — detention until the parent is notified and retrieves the child — certainly does that, in a way issuing a citation might not." The court concluded that the policy and detention were constitutional, noting that "the question before us... is not whether these policies were a bad idea, but whether they violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution," language reminiscent of Justice Potter Stewart's dissent in Griswold v. Connecticut. "We are not asked in this case to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine," Stewart had written; "[w]e are asked to hold that it violates the United States Constitution. And that, I cannot do."

Military tribunals[link]

In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Roberts was part of a unanimous Circuit panel overturning the district court ruling and upholding military tribunals set up by the Bush administration for trying terrorism suspects known as enemy combatants. Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph, writing for the court, ruled that Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden,^[12] could be tried by a military court because:

1. the military commission had the approval of the United States Congress;
2. the Third Geneva Convention is a treaty between nations and as such it does not confer individual rights and remedies enforceable in U.S. courts;
3. even if the Convention could be enforced in U.S. courts, it would not be of assistance to Hamdan at the time because, for a conflict such as the war against Al-Qaeda (considered by the court as a separate war from that against Afghanistan itself) that is not between two countries, it guarantees only a certain standard of judicial procedure without speaking to the jurisdiction in which the prisoner must be tried.

The court held open the possibility of judicial review of the results of the military commission after the current proceedings have ended.^[13] This decision was overturned on June 29, 2006 by the Supreme Court in a 5-3 decision, with Roberts not participating due to his prior ruling as a circuit judge.

Environmental regulation[link]

Roberts wrote a dissent in Rancho Viejo, LLC v. Norton, 323 F.3d 1062, a case involving the protection of a rare California toad under the Endangered Species Act. When the court denied a rehearing en banc, 334 F.3d 1158 (D.C. Cir. 2003), Roberts dissented, arguing that the panel opinion was inconsistent with United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison in that it incorrectly focused on whether the regulation substantially affects interstate commerce rather than on whether the regulated activity does. In Roberts's view, the Commerce Clause of the Constitution did not permit the government to regulate activity affecting what he called "a hapless toad" that "for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California." He said that reviewing the panel decision would allow the court "alternative grounds for sustaining application of the Act that may be more consistent with Supreme Court precedent."^[14]

Nomination and confirmation to the Supreme Court[link]

On July 19, 2005, President Bush nominated Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill a vacancy that would be created by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Roberts was the first Supreme Court nominee since Stephen Breyer in 1994. Bush announced Roberts's nomination in a live, nationwide television broadcast from the East Room of the White House at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.

John Roberts appears in the background, while President Bush is announcing his nomination for the position of Chief Justice.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died on September 3, 2005, while Roberts's confirmation was still pending before the Senate. Shortly thereafter, on September 5, Bush withdrew Roberts's nomination as O'Connor's successor and announced Roberts's new nomination to the position of Chief Justice.^[15] Bush asked the Senate to expedite Roberts's confirmation hearings to fill the vacancy by the beginning of the Supreme Court's session in early October.

Roberts's testimony on his jurisprudence[link]

During his confirmation hearings, Roberts said that he did not have a comprehensive jurisprudential philosophy, and he did "not think beginning with an all-encompassing approach to constitutional interpretation is the best way to faithfully construe the document".^[16][17] Roberts analogized judges to baseball umpires: "[I]t's my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat."^[18] Roberts demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of Supreme Court precedent, which he discussed without notes. Among the issues he discussed were:

Commerce Clause[link]

"Starting with McCulloch v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall gave a very broad and expansive reading to the powers of the Federal Government and explained generally that if the ends be legitimate, then any means chosen to achieve them are within the power of the Federal Government, and cases interpreting that, throughout the years, have come down. Certainly, by the time Lopez was decided, many of us had learned in law school that it was just sort of a formality to say that interstate commerce was affected and that cases weren't going to be thrown out that way. Lopez certainly breathed new life into the Commerce Clause.

"I think it remains to be seen, in subsequent decisions, how rigorous a showing, and in many cases, it is just a showing. It's not a question of an abstract fact, does this affect interstate commerce or not, but has this body, the Congress, demonstrated the impact on interstate commerce that drove them to legislate? That's a very important factor. It wasn't present in Lopez at all. I think the members of Congress had heard the same thing I had heard in law school, that this is unimportant — and they hadn't gone through the process of establishing a record in that case."^[17]

Federalism[link]

Roberts has shown a pragmatic approach to federalism in the past, stating on the radio in 1999:

"We have gotten to the point these days where we think the only way we can show we’re serious about a problem is if we pass a Federal law, whether it is the Violence Against Women Act or anything else. The fact of the matter is conditions are different in different States, and State laws can be more relevant is I think exactly the right term, more attune to the different situations in New York, as opposed to Minnesota, and that is what the Federal system is based on.’

Here he shows deference for the federal nature of the United States of America. Roberts continues (a defence to his pragmatism) by responding to this 1999 radio show quote given by Feingold, in saying:

"just because you have a problem that needs addressing, it’s not necessarily the case that Federal legislation is the best way to address it."

Reviewing Acts of Congress[link]

"The Supreme Court has, throughout its history, on many occasions described the deference that is due to legislative judgments. Justice Holmes described assessing the constitutionality of an act of Congress as the gravest duty that the Supreme Court is called upon to perform. ... It's a principle that is easily stated and needs to be observed in practice, as well as in theory.

"Now, the Court, of course, has the obligation, and has been recognized since Marbury v. Madison, to assess the constitutionality of acts of Congress, and when those acts are challenged, it is the obligation of the Court to say what the law is. The determination of when deference to legislative policy judgments goes too far and becomes abdication of the judicial responsibility, and when scrutiny of those judgments goes too far on the part of the judges and becomes what I think is properly called judicial activism, that is certainly the central dilemma of having an unelected, as you describe it correctly, undemocratic judiciary in a democratic republic."^{[17][citation needed]}

[edit] Stare decisis

On the subject of stare decisis, referring to Brown v. Board, the decision overturning school segregation, Roberts said that "the Court in that case, of course, overruled a prior decision. I don't think that constitutes judicial activism because obviously if the decision is wrong, it should be overruled. That's not activism. That's applying the law correctly."^[19]

[edit] Roe v. Wade

While working as a lawyer for the Reagan administration, Roberts wrote legal memos defending administration policies on abortion.^[20] At his nomination hearing Roberts testified that the legal memos represented the views of the administration he was representing at the time and not necessarily his own.^[21] "Senator, I was a staff lawyer; I didn't have a position," Roberts said.^[21] As a lawyer in the George H. W. Bush administration, Roberts signed a legal brief urging the court to overturn Roe v. Wade.^[22]

In private meetings with senators before his confirmation, Roberts testified that Roe was settled law, but added that it was subject to the legal principle of stare decisis,^[23] meaning that while the Court must give some weight to the precedent, it was not legally bound to uphold it.

In his Senate testimony, Roberts said that, while sitting on the Appellate Court, he had an obligation to respect precedents established by the Supreme Court, including the controversial decision invalidating many restrictions on the right to an abortion. He stated: "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. ... There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent, as well as Casey." Following the traditional reluctance of nominees to indicate which way they might vote on an issue likely to come before the Supreme Court, he did not explicitly say whether he would vote to overturn either.^[16]

Confirmation[link]

On September 22, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Roberts's nomination by a vote of 13–5, with Senators Ted Kennedy, Richard Durbin, Charles Schumer, Joe Biden and Dianne Feinstein casting the dissenting votes. Roberts was confirmed by the full Senate on September 29 by a margin of 78–22.^[24] All Republicans and the one Independent voted for Roberts; the Democrats split evenly, 22–22. Roberts was confirmed by what was, historically, a narrow margin for a Supreme Court justice. However, all subsequent confirmation votes have been even narrower,^[25][26][27] and the nomination of Harriet Miers was never even voted on.

On the U.S. Supreme Court[link]

Roberts is sworn in as Chief Justice by Justice John Paul Stevens in the East Room of the White House, September 29, 2005.

Roberts took the Constitutional oath of office, administered by senior Associate Justice John Paul Stevens at the White House, on September 29. On October 3, he took the judicial oath provided for by the Judiciary Act of 1789 at the United States Supreme Court building, prior to the first oral arguments of the 2005 term. Ending weeks of speculation, Roberts wore a plain black robe, dispensing with the gold sleeve-bars added to the Chief Justice's robes by his predecessor. Then 50, Roberts became the youngest member of the Court, and the third-youngest person to have ever become Chief Justice (John Jay was appointed at age 44 in 1789 while John Marshall was appointed at age 45 in 1801). However, many Associate Justices, such as Clarence Thomas (appointed at age 43) and William O. Douglas (appointed at age 41 in 1939), have joined the Court at a younger age than Roberts.

Since joining the court, Justice Antonin Scalia has said that Roberts "pretty much run[s] the show the same way" as Rehnquist, albeit "let[ting] people go on a little longer at conference ... but [he'll] get over that."^[28] Roberts has been portrayed as a consistent advocate for conservative principles by analysts such as Jeffrey Toobin.^[29]

Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Sykes, surveying Roberts's first term on the court, concluded that his jurisprudence "appears to be strongly rooted in the discipline of traditional legal method, evincing a fidelity to text, structure, history, and the constitutional hierarchy. He exhibits the restraint that flows from the careful application of established decisional rules and the practice of reasoning from the case law. He appears to place great stock in the process-oriented tools and doctrinal rules that guard against the aggregation of judicial power and keep judicial discretion in check: jurisdictional limits, structural federalism, textualism, and the procedural rules that govern the scope of judicial review."^[30]

Early decisions[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (December 2011)

On January 17, 2006, Roberts dissented along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in Gonzales v. Oregon, which held that the Controlled Substances Act does not allow the United States Attorney General to prohibit physicians from prescribing drugs for the assisted suicide of the terminally ill as permitted by an Oregon law. The point of contention in this case was largely one of statutory interpretation, not federalism.

On March 6, 2006, Roberts wrote the unanimous decision in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights that colleges accepting federal money must allow military recruiters on campus, despite university objections to the Clinton administration-initiated "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Fourth Amendment[link]

Roberts wrote his first dissent in Georgia v. Randolph (2006). The majority's decision prohibited police from searching a home if both occupants are present but one objected and the other consented. Roberts criticized the majority opinion as inconsistent with prior case law and for partly basing its reasoning on its perception of social custom. He said the social expectations test was flawed because the Fourth Amendment protects a legitimate expectation of privacy, not social expectations.^[31]

Notice and opportunity to be heard[link]

Although Roberts has often sided with Scalia and Thomas, Roberts provided a crucial vote against their position in Jones v. Flowers. In Jones, Roberts sided with liberal justices of the court in ruling that, before a home is seized and sold in a tax-forfeiture sale, due diligence must be demonstrated and proper notification needs to be sent to the owners. Dissenting were Anthony Kennedy along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Samuel Alito did not participate, while Roberts's opinion was joined by David Souter, Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Abortion[link]

On the Supreme Court, Roberts has indicated he supports some abortion restrictions. In Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), the only significant abortion case the court has decided since Roberts joined, he voted with the majority to uphold the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a five-justice majority, distinguished Stenberg v. Carhart, and concluded that the court's previous decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey did not prevent Congress from banning the procedure. The decision left the door open for future as-applied challenges, and did not address the broader question of whether Congress had the authority to pass the law.^[32] Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion, contending that the Court's prior decisions in Roe v. Wade and Casey should be reversed; Roberts declined to join that opinion.

Equal protection clause[link]

Roberts opposes the use of race in assigning students to particular schools, including for purposes such as maintaining integrated schools.^[33] He sees such plans as discrimination in violation of the constitution's equal protection clause and Brown v. Board of Education.^[33][34] In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, the court considered two voluntarily adopted school district plans that relied on race to determine which schools certain children may attend. The court had held in Brown that "racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional,"^[35] and later, that "racial classifications, imposed by whatever federal, state, or local governmental actor, ... are constitutional only if they are narrowly tailored measures that further compelling governmental interests,"^[36] and that this "[n]arrow tailoring ... require[s] serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives."^[37] Roberts cited these cases in writing for the Parents Involved majority, concluding that the school districts had "failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals."^[38] In a section of the opinion joined by four other Justices, Roberts added that "[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

Free speech[link]

Roberts authored the 2007 student free speech case Morse v. Frederick, ruling that a student in a public school-sponsored activity does not have the right to advocate drug use on the basis that the right to free speech does not invariably prevent the exercise of school discipline.^[39]

On April 20, 2010, in United States v. Stevens, the Supreme Court struck down an animal cruelty law. Roberts, writing for an 8-1 majority, found that a federal statute criminalizing the commercial production, sale, or possession of depictions of cruelty to animals, was an unconstitutional abridgment of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The Court held that the statute was substantially overbroad; for example, it could allow prosecutions for selling photos of out-of-season hunting.^[40]

Non-judicial duties of the Chief Justice[link]

"Barack Obama taking the Oath of Office" The full audio recording of Barack Obama and John G. Roberts as Obama is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States during his inauguration on January 20, 2009. (Duration: 45 seconds) "President Obama Re-Takes Oath" Obama retakes takes the Oath of office of the President of the United States at 19:35 EST, January 21, 2009 (00:35 UTC, January 22, 2009) (Duration: 54 seconds).

Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Barack Obama being administered the oath of office by Roberts a second time on January 21, 2009.

As Chief Justice, Roberts also serves in a variety of non-judicial roles, including Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution and leading the Judicial Conference of the United States. Perhaps the best known of these is the custom of the Chief Justice administering the oath of office at Presidential inaugurations. Roberts debuted in this capacity at the inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20, 2009. (As a Senator, Obama had voted against Roberts's confirmation to the Supreme Court, making the event doubly a first: the first time a president was sworn in by someone whose confirmation he opposed.^[41]) Things did not go smoothly. According to columnist Jeffrey Toobin:

Through intermediaries, Roberts and Obama had agreed how to divide the thirty-five-word oath for the swearing in. Obama was first supposed to repeat the clause “I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear.” But, when Obama heard Roberts begin to speak, he interrupted Roberts before he said “do solemnly swear.” This apparently flustered the Chief Justice, who then made a mistake in the next line, inserting the word “faithfully” out of order. Obama smiled, apparently recognizing the error, then tried to follow along. Roberts then garbled another word in the next passage, before correctly reciting, “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”^[42]

Part of the difficulty was that Roberts did not have the text of the oath with him but relied on his memory. On later occasions when Roberts has administered an oath, he has taken the text with him.

The Associated Press reported that "[l]ater, as the two men shook hands in the Capitol, Roberts appeared to say the mistake was his fault."^[43] The following evening in the White House Map Room with reporters present, Roberts and Obama repeated the oath correctly. This was, according to the White House, done in "an abundance of caution" to ensure that the constitutional requirement had been met.

Personal life[link]

Roberts is one of thirteen Catholic justices — out of 111 justices total — in the history of the Supreme Court.^[44] Of those thirteen justices, six (Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Sonia Sotomayor) are currently serving. Roberts married Jane Sullivan in Washington in 1996.^[1] She is an attorney, a Catholic, and a trustee (along with Clarence Thomas) at her alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. The couple adopted two children, John (Jack) and Josephine (Josie).^[1]

Health[link]