by S. Victor Aaron A marimba, a vibraphone, a stand-up bass, percussion and a little kora. A little bit of American jazz, a dash of Caribbean and a side of African folk music, but not quite like any of the three. How sweet the sound. That’s the kind of soundRead More

photo from philadelphiaweekly.com by S. Victor Aaron One of Frank Zappa’s latter day live documents is called Make A Jazz Noise Here. Anyone who’s followed Zappa knows that while Zappa rarely really played jazz as we tend to think of jazz, a lot of his music adopted the exacting, open-endedRead More

photo: Natascha Rockwin by S. Victor Aaron According to Wikipedia, a gutbucket is “a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator.” There is even a “gutbucket blues” style of music that was played by those jug bands of long ago. And soRead More

Photo from NME.com by Tom Johnson Just a week ago, we were expecting nothing more than the usual – just distant wondering of when there might be a new Radiohead. It had to be coming soon, right? It’s been more than three years since they surprised us with In RainbowsRead More

Photo by Myles Boisen by S. Victor Aaron Imagine a conversation with three other people where topic…a theme if you will…is selected and all four of you are to converse on that topic at certain points in time. And then at other times, a random topic is chosen, but everyoneRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Eva Cassidy had only one record released in her lifetime, a live document at a local club in her native area of Washington, D.C. She only sang covers, most of them overly familiar, finding them within the realms of jazz, Tin Pan Alley, folk, pop, gospelRead More

Photo of Ingrid Jensen from http://www.ingridjensen.com by S. Victor Aaron Nordic Connect is a grouping of musicians from Canada (Ingrid Jensen, trumpet; Ingrid’s sister Christine Jensen, alto and soprano saxes), U.S.A. (Ingrid’s husband Jon Wikan, drums), and Sweden (Maggie Olin (piano, Fender Rhodes; Mattias Welin, acoustic bass). The name pointsRead More

We already knew how well they can rock it, with searing lyrics and memorable melodies. ‘Go-Go Boots’ showed the Drive-By Truckers had soul.

Photo from www.Jonathan-Parker.com by S. Victor Aaron Many up and coming jazz artists we’ve covered here typically come from just about every corner of the U.S.A., attend a prestigious music school and, perhaps after some intermediate stop at a regional jazz hub, eventually end up in the intensely competitive butRead More

“Naw man, don’t buy that record, the rest of the album is no good,” said the long-haired, moustached guy at the record store. I had just heard Billy Thorpe’s “Children of the Sun” on the local album-rock radio station and I just knew that the long player of the sameRead More