Koko Taylor in Memoriam. Also, checkout the dude just hanging out in the chair @ 1:48
The Bad Plus combine twelve-tone with dancing girls!
Do you really listen to all your music? : Billy Cobham - Spectrum
It sucks/It rocks. Every song has a slash title, I don’t know why. The first half of the slash sucks (sl)ash but the second part for all six songs are solid fusion. Very enjoyable…as long as you can fast forward through the first half of every song.
Do you really listen to all your music? : Sly and The Family Stone - Fresh
Still a little groggy after awakening from listening to this drowsy album. I’m quite disappointed as Sly has some true classics. This one is definitely one to avoid — I’m removing it from my catalog
Do you really listen to all your music? : Townes van Zandt - Our Mother The Mountain
It came to my attention that some people might not know of this country’s 2nd best songwriter (2nd to …) . If you don’t, stop right now and go buy his eponymous classic.
This album was a bit of a surprise, I thought I remember it being subpar but upon my recent listen, it delivers. It’s not his best but it is a solid effort with such classics as “Be Here to Love Me Today” and “Our Mother The Mountain” (plus I like the way he says “Tecumseh Valley”).
Do you really listen to all your music? : Andrew Hill - Time Lines
I’m not sure I can even describe this album properly. It is subdued yet intricate, soft yet hard driving, mellow yet intense. The piano and composition provide a great canvas for the real stars — the bass and drum rhythm section. Andrew does one of my favorite techniques where the piano will provide a soft, mellow main rhythm while the drums and bass add their own, often quite intricate, rhythms to create a challenging polyrhythmic piece. 4/5 stars
Do you really listen to all your music? : Thelonius Monk - At The Blackhawk
I have a lot of Monk albums and sometimes each one doesn’t particularly stand out. This is especially true, I think, of his later work. However, this is a nice exception. The pieces are mostly Monk classics but Charlie Rouse on Tenor Sax and, notably, Charlie Higgins on drums make these stand-out performances. The highlights for me are Epistrophy and Evidence but every track is good. The AMG review is underservedly light. This is a 5 star album in my book
Six Musicians With Pasts They Hope You'll Forget | Cracked.com
Pantera, come on!
A Sad Day for Smooth Jazz
(via)
Amid the extensive coverage today of Circuit City and its plan to shut down all of its stores, one side of the story has gone underreported: the deletrious impact of this development on the nation’s smooth jazz artists.
Do you really listen to all your music? Of Montreal - Horse & Elephant Eatery (No Elephants Allowed): The Singles & Songles Album
Is it wrong that I like Of Montreal? I feel like I shouldn’t be listening to them but dammit if they’re not catchy. They have a Beatles-esque Magical Mystery Tour quality that I find appealing.
Do you really listen to all your music? : Emerson, Lake, & Palmer - Trilogy
A pretty good album by ELP. And sometimes they have what I like to call an “ELP button” . Lucky Man is a good example — perfectly good acoustic song and then keyboard effects overwhelm it out of nowhere. But, I digress. There are a few boring songs like Abaddon’s Bolero but some undiscovered gems like The Sheriff not to mention the famous Hoe-down.
Do you really listen to all your music? : Captain Beefheart - Bluejeans and Moonbeams
what the? Only “Party of Special Things to Do” is worth listening to on this one. The whole thing sounds like CB was on some meds that made him “normal”. The rest of the tracks are uninspired and common. I’m not keeping this one
Advice from Thelonius Monk (via). There are a lot of good ones on there — I think I like the one about white people the best
Eric Clapton describing Robert Johnson (via)
Do you really listen to all your music? : Elvis Costello - Imperial Bedroom
This was certainly a sleeper hit. I don’t think there are any commercial hits on here. But it is a hidden gem to be sure. To me it rates less than his 70s classics and some of his newer efforts (e.g., The Delivery Man), but it is his best of the 80s I think. The AMG review does a better job than I could do. Suffice it to say, its a keeper.
