AFP Celebrity News

Fifty years on, drummer Jimmy Cobb still can't believe what he, Miles Davis and five other jazz musicians achieved over two days in a converted church in New York. "Nobody could have conceived that 50 years later this would be going on," he said of the extraordinary success of "Kind of Blue", the best-selling jazz album ever which still sells in the thousands every week. Many music critics revere it as a masterpiece. Rolling Stone magazine this year listed it at number 12 on its list of the 50 greatest albums of all time -- in any style -- ahead of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" ... Read Full Story

An exhibition on Leon Trotsky, one of the architects of the 1917 Russian Revolution, opened in Saint Petersburg on Friday -- the eve of the uprising's 92nd anniversary. Trotsky was the founder of the Red Army, and along with Vladimir Lenin, one of the prime movers in the Bolshevik revolt that overthrew Tsar Nicholas II. After falling out with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in the 1920s, Trotsky was exiled from the USSR and moved to Mexico, where he was assassinated on Stalin's orders in 1940. One of the exhibits in the "Leon of the Revolution" show is a rough draft of the article reporting ... Read Full Story

In a dark space in a new exhibition at Arles museum in southern France, underwater sounds play over looped video footage of scientists on underwater digs along the Rhone riverbed. An intrepid team of archaeologists have been diving for 20 years, struggling with poor visibility, strong currents and flipper-nibbling bullhead catfish to bring up the 500 or so objects now being displayed. In 2007, just when these Indiana Joneses of the water were ready to hang up their wet suits, they bumped into intriguing column fragments, friezes and chunks of mausoleums. And then they brought up the most extraordinary buried treasure of all: a ... Read Full Story

More than 100 villagers in Malawi demanded Thursday more compensation from the government for land on which US pop star Madonna is building a girls academy. Madonna, who has adopted two children from Malawi, led a groundbreaking ceremony last week for the school being built on the outskirts of the administrative capital Lilongwe. The villagers have since vowed to continue protesting until they receive more funds from the state, which sold the land to the star's charity on a 99-year term. "The government short-changed us on the land. It gave us peanuts. I should have pocketed 200,000 kwacha (1,428 dollars), instead I received 50,000 ... Read Full Story

Superstars U2 announced Wednesday they will perform a free concert at Germany's Brandenburg Gate to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Irish rockers will perform in front of the landmark in the German capital on November 5 as part of the MTV Europe Music Awards, the group announced on their website. The performance will be a prelude to the "fall of the wall" celebrations in Berlin and will be beamed in to the televised broadcast of the awards. "It'll be an exciting spot to be in, 20 years almost to the day since the wall came down." said ... Read Full Story