What’s It All About, Then? Part One: Jazz, Featuring Eric Dolphy
Sean MurphyQuestion: What's it all about? Answer: I don't know. But I do know a few things. I know some of the things that make me tick. Even though I write…
No One Has Ever Done Anything as Well as John Coltrane Played the Saxophone
The question isn’t, really, about who might be interested in this documentary; it is about who might not be. For fans who already know everything, or those indifferent to jazz…
Sonny Rollins, Still Living The Well-Lived Life
Nice feature on American treasure (and no I don't use that word lightly) Sonny Rollins in today's Boston Globe. The man is going to celebrate his 80th birthday this year…
Erykah Badu Pushing Buttons
Oh no she didn't... Oh yes she did. This one is going to generate some serious discussion, methinks. (Click that link, above, or go directly to Badu's official site: http://www.erykahbadu.com/;…
Get Your Ghana On
You had me at Kyenkyen bi adi m'awu (which means "come back my love"). And the reason I know that is because I read the liner notes to the succinctly…
God Is Not Dead: The Jimi Hendrix Re-Issues
Get excited. There is a new Jimi Hendrix album fully comprised of previously unreleased material. I know I was excited when I first heard the news of Valleys of Neptune,…
Beguiling shoe-gaze ebullience with dark undertones is NOT DEAD!!!
There is an approximately 100% chance that Beach House's third album Teen Dream is going to end up on my best-of-year list. It's kind of neat when an album is…
But first: Are You Experienced?
Ah, if only one could come home to packages like this every evening. Wait, check that. That would be too much of a good thing. Who could handle sensory overload…
Ali Farka Touré’s Finished Business
There are usually two distinctive types of posthumous releases in music. The first and more frequent is the one that makes you cringe, often involving the rapacious pillaging of the…
2000-2009: Let’s Break it Down (Epilogue)
So, the recent discussion of the Top 50 albums of the last decade was supposed to end, as it began, with a sampling of songs. The introductory entry covered 2000-2004;…