Ornette Coleman and The First Day of the Rest of My Life
Sean MurphyTopic: The Album You'd Give Anything To Hear Again for The First Time I still remember everything about it. Fall semester, senior year. The more I learned at college, the…
All Hail Me: The Golden Goddesses of Veruca Salt (Never Say Never Edition!)
So...I just purchased my ticket to see Veruca Salt, in July. And this isn't the fractured version of the band that saw Louise Post-led incarnation that carried on after Nina…
Beauty is a Rare Thing: Celebrating International Jazz Day (Revisited)
All hope is not lost. At least enough people are still making --and listening to-- jazz that we can even attempt to initiate what hopefully becomes an ongoing occasion. In…
The Song Remains The Same or, The Agony of Influence (Revisited)
Two thoughts from T.S. Eliot: April is the cruelest month... Whatever. Good poets borrow; great poets steal. Now we're talking. And here is where it gets interesting: debate rages (well,…
Ladies and Gentlemen: Max Roach & Co.
The ocean is not this deep. Outer space is not this vast. Reality is not this real. Max Roach and M'Boom. This is music. This is life. This is genius.…
Happy Birthday Chazz: Mingus at 92
Today would have been (and, still is) Charles Mingus's 92nd birthday. I've written about him often and I'll continue to write about him, not only because he is one of…
Five Songs for Tax Day
Happy Tax Day! The Beatles: Pink Floyd: Jethro Tull: Jimi Hendrix: Spinal Tap:
Celebrating Herbie Hancock, Again…
First and foremost: Thank you, universe, for giving us the gift of Herbie Hancock 74 years ago, Saturday (4/12). Second, PSA for the uninitiated: everything Herbie did during the '60s…
Giving it up for the Hottest Band in the World…KISS!
A proper tribute to the hottest band in the world has been on my to-do list going back to...1977? So yes, that will happen. For now, in honor of Kiss…
Arthur Smith, R.I.P.
Farewell to the man whose licks launched a thousand imitators. You know you've done your earthly work when you can accurately claim that you influenced multiple generations of followers. In…