Music Reviews

1957 was a landmark year for Thelonious Monk, possibly the most overtly original pianist in jazz history. He started playing in New York nightclubs again for the first time in six years, owing to the return of his cabaret card (essential for the city’s musicians back then), which had been suspended due to a drug charge. He recruited John Coltrane, who brought a thrilling new timbre to his band. And he recorded Monk’s Music, one of his most splendid albums—a brash... Read More

Thumbing through my parents’ record collection as a kid was the equivalent of an archaeologic excursion. Records were an object of wonder long before I became a bonafide collector, down to how the grooves came across the speakers and the mythology behind the album artwork. When I was five years old, my eyes became fixated on a cartoonish-looking album featuring four men donning a uniform of leather jackets and ripped jeans. My ears were eager to hear what it entailed,... Read More

“I have seen the future in pop music, and it is a band called Queen” - Jac Holzman, Elektra RecordsThe beginnings of Queen came from the remnants of guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor’s former group, Smile. The two bounded together and recruited vocalist Freddie Mercury, who pushed to rechristen the group Queen, and they added bassist John Deacon. The group gigged around England’s college circuit before cutting a demo at De Lane Lea Studios to test the... Read More

What with having to stare down pension plans and reduced bone density, it’d be reasonable to think that the release of a new Cure album might not have flicked across the radar of their original fan base. But anyone who caught one of the sold out gigs on their last live go around knows that’s fairly unlikely. Especially since the band did their part by opening all of those shows with the lead cut from the record everyone knew for some time would be called Songs of a... Read More

Bassist-composer Ben Wolfe is one of those “musicians’ musicians,” little known even among aficionados but a staple on the New York scene, adept at jazz and classical, rarely straying from the straight-ahead, but carving melodic lines and harmonic colors well outside conventional boundaries. His latest album, his 11th as a leader, is called The Understated (on his own Resident Arts Records label), and that’s one fair description of the music. Of its 10 tracks, all... Read More

Spiritual pursuits and work as a sideman in music circles primed guitarist Robert Fripp to form the group he envisioned in 1981 after laying King Crimson to rest in 1975. Along with drummer Bill Bruford, bassist Tony Levin, and guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Adrian Belew, the quartet called themselves Discipline. The influence of new wave and post-punk made the group indicative of the time, bearing no resemblance to Crimson’s Mellotron swells and free improvisation.... Read More

When it comes to classical music, brass instruments have experienced, or, to put it more precisely, endured, a long march towards respectability over the past half century or so. Brass instruments played an increasingly prominent role in orchestral works by Bruckner or Mahler, but they really were not vouchsafed much solo literature until the latter half of the twentieth century. It was the French virtuoso Maurice Andre who first wielded his piccolo trumpet during the... Read More

Albert King teaches a master class in blues guitar soloing on this classic Stax release recorded June,1968 at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, opening with a funked up version of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" that may not immediately be recognizable to Herbie fans but once you catch the groove, oh wow!Next up is a scorched earth take on King's "Blues Power", his defining song. King's playing is hard-etched deliberate,... Read More

Gram Parsons overdosed in the desert shortly after recording these tracks at Wally Heider's Hollywood Studios. A damn shame and a waste of a troubled life. His greatness is more appreciated now than when he lived. That often happens with artists, especially those bridging musical gaps as Parsons did, bringing country to rock first by joining The Byrds and being to a great degree responsible for Sweetheart of the Rodeo—an album originally conceived as more of a... Read More

The advent of the phonograph allowed for the dissemination of a wide variety of "Minority Enthusiasm" genres; and not only Spoken Word and Comedy offerings. Folk music and folk songs that would appeal to new arrivals to America were an important part of the business. Cantor Pierre Pinchik's 1928 cantillation, in Aramaic, of a text from the Kabbalah might not have been a huge success in its original pressing. But, as Pinchik's fame spread, the 1928 78rpm was reissued, in 1938 and 1948. Pinchik's vocal virtuosity and his instincts for dramatic presentation revolutionized the art form.

The tenor saxophonist Chris Potter plays with such youthful zest, it’s startling to realize he’s been on the New York jazz scene for 35 years. He turned heads from the get-go, in 1989, at age 18, as sideman to trumpeter Red Rodney (who, in his youth 40 years earlier, had been sideman to Charlie Parker). Through the subsequent decades, Potter has played in bands led by (among many others) Paul Motian, Dave Holland, Dave Douglas, Pat Metheny, and, for a spell, Steely... Read More

On April 5, 1923, in Richmond, Indiana, in the studio of Gennett Records, King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band made the first of thirty-seven recordings mixing African instrumental techniques and concepts of improvisation and rhythm with European notions of harmony, melody, and the virtuoso soloist, to create the template for the music we’ve been listening to for the last century. The Creole Jazz Band’s six recording sessions, all between April and December in 1923, made... Read More

Jerome Sabbagh's latest offering opens with a simmering, slow cooker of a cover of Duke Ellington's groundbreaking "Prelude To A Kiss". Sabbagh takes the ballad at a halting, note by note pace that explores the unique melodic line's contours, while veteran drummer Al Foster does likewise, leaving gaping spaces in between minimalist cymbal and skin hits. Paced so slowly, it startles, then you realize it's actually strongly swinging on Joe... Read More

Though not a descendant from grunge’s Seattle headquarters, San Diego’s Stone Temple Pilots was a force to reckon with. Its take on the genre by emphasizing 70s-based hard rock with hints of psychedelia and jazz allowed it to protrude and distinguish itself from masses of flannel. The debut album, 1992’s Core, wove into grunge lore with four hit singles and sales in America alone of over 8 million copies. After its first worldwide tour and a hyped appearance on MTV’s... Read More

Michael Fremer has misplaced his 1974 pressing of Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe (’), so he got a friend to hook him up with a loaner. When we pulled out the dust sleeve: Great googly moogly!“Rick, I’m tierd [sic] of you putting me down all the time. You do’nt [sic] know how much you hurt me,” begins a ballpointed breakup screed, from one Nancy. Reader, it’s a rough one: “All I ever here [sic] from you is that I’m fat, and ugly … I’m sick of you calling me a slut … You have... Read More

While this is admittedly a simplification, Tone Poet Blue Note releases come in a few basic musical flavors: the "must have" ones that even non-jazz fans know by name, the great ones that when originally released couldn't find an audience but now are more popular and well-appreciated than ever, the head scratcher delayed release ones that have fans wondering how and why the label didn't issue them when originally recorded, and finally the delayed... Read More

There’s a certain romance about audio and vinyl from Japan. For equipment there is a well-deserved reverence for the build quality and commitment to excellence from the engineers, and for vinyl records we’ve long been fascinated by boutique audiophile pressings from the island nation, particularly I’ve long held a steadfast love for King Records’ “Super Analogue Series” of Decca classical reissues.Classical vinyl reissues from Japan have unfortunately dried up over... Read More

Amongst contemporaries like King Crimson and Genesis, Yes had more than enough going for it to stand out from the crowd. The combination of Jon Anderson’s angelic falsetto and abstract lyrics, Chris Squire’s lead-like bass runs, Steve Howe’s experimental guitar explorations, Rick Wakeman’s classically-inspired keyboard flourishes, and Bill Bruford’s percussive jazz fills encompassed the trappings of progressive rock at its most potent. Yes spent first half of the... Read More

Elliott Smith’s 1998 major label debut, XO, isn’t as vibey as its predecessor, 1997’s Either/Or. Nor is it as laser-focused as its follow-up, 2000’s Figure 8 — the Sgt. Pepper... to XO’s Revolver.Still, XO is special. It captured a crucial creative flowering for the late Smith, where an artist known for lo-fi hyper-intimacy strolled into a succession of L.A. studios with a head full of new sounds, and the confidence to let them loose. And a large handful of its songs... Read More