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 […]
In lieu of JVC Jazz festivals
Did you miss the “festivity” of June jazz concerts in major Manhattan venues — or did you find ways of coping without them? There’s so much fine music — jazz and beyond — in nearby festive settings, many of them out-of-doors, that the absence of a 38-year-old institution doesn’t seem to have made much stir. […]
Live in New York, it’s jazz beyond jazz
Presentations of jazz that break all sorts of bounds, pushing far beyond stale conventions — jazz beyond jazz — are so prevalent in Manhattan that the energy expended just being on the scene can leave me too drained to report on the good stuff. Five shows in the past month –Â Dee Dee Bridgewater’s Mali project […]
New beyond-jazz in NYC clubs
Alto saxophonist Greg Osby debuted a sextet with vocalist, electric guitar and vibes at the Village Vanguard, and pianist Lafayette Gilchrist brought an unusually horn-heavy band from Baltimore into (Le) Poisson Rouge, opening for guitarist Vernon Reid‘s rockin’, scratchin’ Yohimbe Brothers. Is this the shape of jazz to come?