What I want to do now is describe the “whatness” of the music of the band Rush.

by Mark Saleski In the past handful of years, I have jettisoned a few distractions: namely, sports and television, which are sort of related. Rounding out the list is politics. I have decided that, because my thoughts on “the right thing to do” are so far outside of the mainstream,Read More

by Mark Saleski In the recent Southern Music issue of the Oxford American, musician John Engle speaks of “The Vastness,” the idea that the world’s store of knowledge is so vast that “if you tried to take it all on at once it would crush you.” It’s true. And thereRead More

by Mark Saleski The music of jazz composer/pianist Matthew Shipp isn’t fairly described as “avant garde,” mostly because to a great many people, that categorization can be read as “I don’t understand this music, can we please leave now?” This wouldn’t be fair to Shipp because over the course ofRead More

Photo by Sandrine Lee by Mark Saleski HA! Made ya look!! Wait, you’re thinking…that’s not Justin Bieber…it’s Esperanza Spalding! Yeah, I just couldn’t resist a little GrammySmugness2011™ … except that I’m really listening to Pizzicato Five! I’ve been thinking about this year’s Grammy awards. Specifically, the “shock” of jazz bassRead More

by Mark Saleski While many “serious” jazz fans will turn up their precious noses at the jazzification of pop tunes, we here at SomethingElse! steadfastly believe that life is too short to be keeping that bow tie so tight. Sure, we love us some Miles and ‘Trane, but that doesn’tRead More

by Mark Saleski One of the markers of high-level instrumental interplay is the perception of intimacy. We see this again & again in review language — that the musicians seemed as though they were “of one mind,” that their communication was “telepathic.” There are plenty of recorded examples that comeRead More

by Mark Saleski The most frightening nightmare I have had involved none of the usual suspects. There were no scary monsters. Nothing came at me from underneath the bed or from the dark recess of my closet. Nobody was chasing me. I was not falling. I was not drowning (ThatRead More

Photo by Autumn De Wilde by Mark Saleski We here at Something Else! were sad to see the report of the official breakup of The White Stripes. However, there are many, many websites out there that appear to be swallowing Meg & Jack’s word on the subject (a fine compendiumRead More

Photo by Pieter M Van Hattem by Mark Saleski I have no doubt that a lot of Bob Dylan fans will be incensed at what I’m about to admit, but here we go: if you don’t count his first Greatest Hits collection (which I inherited from my sister), the firstRead More