This, the majestic closing track of Born To Run, is the song that some people think should be retired. I’ll get to that bit of insanity in a little bit. You May Also Like: Reevaluating Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle’

There’s a problem with any list that attempts to rank players as if one is ‘better’ than another.

Here’s the way it usually works. The end of the year draws closer, and all of the music publications and websites release their “best of” lists. This is almost always followed by various rants about how the lists are “too safe,” “predictable,” or “pretentious.” You May Also Like: Of AllRead More

A jazz quartet plus steel guitar as lead instrument. This might sound like a novelty record but instead it’s Emmons playing his heart out on a program of standards and originals (the opening “Bluemmons” is killer). Very cool to hear the steel guitar trading fours with the sax. The unisonRead More

There are many possible ‘correct’ answers to the question “What makes a jazz drummer interesting?” Groove? Yes. Chops? Maybe. For me, it all boils down to musicality. You May Also Like: Jack DeJohnette, with Ravi Coltrane and Matthew Garrison – In Movement (2016) Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski, JohnRead More

I’ve only seen Tom Waits in a live setting once. It was surreal. It was exhilarating – just like this record.

Here’s the story of how a holiday music CD came to me by way of a Cheap Trick show I attended during the early 1990s. You May Also Like: Giancarlo Tossani’s Big Monitors, “O’Neal’s Porch” (2021): One Track Mind

Springsteen’s ode to film noir, “Meeting Across The River” is perfectly sequenced as the energy momentarily shifts down from She’s The One and heads toward the album’s close. You May Also Like: Reevaluating Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle’ Alister Spence and Satoko Fujii OrchestraRead More

This was a near-total crapshoot. I’ve never heard of guitarist Pierre Dorge, but the names Billy Hart (drums) and John Tchicai (soprano and alto sax) were familiar. What I ended up with was something that is mostly straight-ahead jazz, with a fair bit of angularity. Dorge’s playing goes from theRead More

If you’ve ever been interested in Ornette’s Free Jazz, but thought that it might be “too much,” then this album might be worth a listen. The first track, “First Take”, is literally a shorter version (17 minutes) of the Coleman classic. The double quartet lineup is impressive, too: Don Cherry,Read More