So I hasten to take note of The Royal Toast (on the Cuneiform label), the 5th and latest album by…
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I’m late in coming to the drummer-composer John Hollenbeck. (These things happen: so many records, so little time…) It wasn’t until a few months ago that I stumbled upon Eternal Interlude (on the Sunnyside label), the latest CD by his 20-piece Large Ensemble, which, had I heard it earlier, would have made it on my 2009 Best 10 list. (Ditto, just to set the record straight, for Infernal Machines by Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, that other wondrous big band that escaped my attention.)
Let’s put the main point up front. The new duet album by Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden, Jasmine (on ECM), is a gorgeous piece of work: all standards, mainly ballads, nothing fancy (not overtly anyway), but such poignance and quiet passion; it’s a glimpse into the intimacy of the act of making art.
That is to say, it’s one of the best piano-bass duet albums since the ones that Haden made in the ‘90s with Kenny Barron (Night and the City) and Hank Jones (Steal Away)—which begs the question: What is it about Charlie Haden’s bass playing that takes pianists to a different level?
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Hey kid, you think that’s oil?
Man, that ain’t oil, that’s blood.
Man, that ain’t oil, that’s blood.
I didn’t make it down the shore this weekend, but I did manage to listen to lots of Bruce. I sat there on the orange couch with the sun coming through the windows, coffee and a newspaper at my side, listening to Greetings From Asbury Park, reading about the Gulf of Mexico and feeling a little helpless.
The hi-fi sounded great and the music made me feel better. But the music couldn’t do a thing about the oil.
The paper says the oil is spewing into our ocean at a rate of one Exxon Valdez…
Geri Allen’s new album, Flying Toward the Sound (Motema Music), is a stunner. She calls it “a solo piano excursion inspired by Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock.” In jazz pianists’ lingo, this is like Babe Ruth pointing to a spot in right-center field. And she slugs the ball out of the park.
Lots of “free” pianists have copied Hancock’s Ravelian tone-clusters, pounded out Tyner’s block chords, or mad-dashed about the keyboard like Taylor. But few (any?) have captured the balletic limber—the acrobatic joy—of this music, much less transmuted it into his or her own voice and…
We were bummed out when we heard that Steve Gritzan was closing down his wonderful and dusty record shop, Iris Records, in downtown Jersey City, but heartened in knowing that he’d continue to sell albums at street fairs and at his outstanding Brooklyn Record Riot conventions.
“Steve,” I had asked him, “why’s it always gotta be in Brooklyn, though? Why not Jersey City?”
Steve had been wondering the same thing. And I’m now happy to report that the first Jersey City Record Riot will take place this Saturday, June 5, from 10am to 5pm at Parlay Studios (161 2nd Street), just a…
Strange thing about cassettes and vinyl records: Every now and then, while listening to them, I find myself wondering what’ll happen to them when I’m dead and gone. These beautiful things will outlive me and someday someone else will “own” them. What will that person think of me? Will that person think of me? What do my records say about me?
These are the things I sometimes wonder while listening to cassettes and vinyl records. This never happens while listening to compact discs; CDs just don’t inspire me in the same way, I guess. Tapes and records remind me of my mortality,…
We’ve been shipping the August issue to pre-press. There, you can see it on my desk. It involves a lot of paper, coffee, oatmeal, procrastination, juggling, John Prine, Pontiak, Bushman’s Revenge, and ass-kicking. A whole lot of ass-kicking.
“What does it mean to love your father?” the therapist asked.
I had no idea. I wondered if it might be better to hate him.
My uncles tell me that my parents had an old-fashioned sort of love. Childhood sweethearts, my mother and father were equally quiet, shy, and sensitive, and were only truly at ease when they were together. So you can imagine the heartache, fear, and pain felt when my father’s parents separated the young couple, moving the family from the housing projects of Newark back to the green hills of Puerto Rico.
My uncles tell me that this is when…
As I’ve mused before (though only twice), what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t indulge in a little self-promotion?
So let me announce that my book, 1959: The Year Everything Changed, is now out in paperback from Wiley & Sons.
As the subtitle suggests, the book covers everything about the era’s transformations—in politics, society, culture, science, and sex. But readers of this space may be especially interested in the chapters on music: the origins of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, the rise of Ornette Coleman, the globalization of Dave Brubeck, the roots of Motown.
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I did not find what I was looking for at the Jersey City Record Riot, but I did find two reasonably priced Tom Waits albums (Blue Valentine and Rain Dogs) and Peter Lang’s debut, The Thing at the Nursery Room Window, on John Fahey’s Takoma label. I had forced myself to be extremely selective, and, though the many kind and interesting vendors were making it difficult for me to hold back from buying more, I did in fact hold back.
But just as we were on our way out, I caught a glimpse of this collection of hits by Conway Twitty. I pulled the record from its bright red sleeve and:…