Three of the larger figures in the downtown New York avant jazz scene – Jim Black, Nels Cline and Tim Berne – join forces.

Walter Becker once called himself as a “B+” guitarist. He’s certainly underrated there but as a bassist, I’d rate him even higher. Nonetheless, Becker had a history of making way for another bassist to play on a Steely Dan tune if he thought if that person was the better manRead More

Listening to Allison Miller’s superb CD from last year Boom Tic Boom, I appreciated how it covered a lot of ground within advanced modern jazz, helped along by such sympathetic supporting players in this piano jazz trio. But that album still left me wondering where this ace drummer, composer andRead More

Last year, the outlaw chamber music cooperative Anti-Social Music did something that was out of the ordinary for a democratic cooperative and presented songs only by of its thirteen members, Pat Muchmore. But there has never been anything ordinary about ASM to begin with. In one sense, you can callRead More

A rock song about Buddhism that you can dance the Charleston to, boasting not one but two bad-ass guitar leads? That’s a party tune, Steely Dan style.