On the 80th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s birth (11/27/42), memory and legacy of America’s unsurpassed guitar-artist (written 2011): I’m bouncing around in the back seat of a pal’s car with a couple other high school wannabes, cruising through our leafy-green, cushy but staid Chicago suburb, when the most amazing music comes roaring out of the […]
Jazz-beyond-rock: Tony Williams addressing today’s emergency
Spectrum Road — electric guitarist Vernon Reid, bassist Jack Bruce, keyboardist John Medeski and drummer Cindy Blackman — playing high energy, high volume music at the Blue Note (NYC) this weekend inspired by the jazz-rock amalgam the late, great Tony Williams created 40 years ago, seems utterly cutting edge. Or is it just my old ears, getting […]
Prince plays the blues – Chocolate Drops, Wynton, Clapton, too
The blues is big-time pop again — processed to a triumphant apotheosis by Prince at Madison Square Garden as I detail in my new City Arts column — (but did it ever go away? Here’s the Artist with James Brown and Michael Jackson in 1983) — reinvigorated in acoustic revivalist and hybrid form by the […]