The foundations laid down here set up the Pat Metheny Group for commercial success on 1985’s ‘The Falcon and the Snowman’ and 1987’s ‘Still Life (Talking).’

by Pico There’s a good reason why we’re looking at this record on this day. In the wake of the tragic events of September, 11, 2001 and it’s aftermath, L.A. producer Carlos Nino cobbled together a collective of about 20 local area musicians he named Build An Ark with theRead More

Al Jarreau has found a good measure of success from applying his unique weave of octave shifting singing and jazz scatting to a wide array of songs ranging from jazz standards to r&b to straight pop. And like Linda Ronstadt and Robert Palmer, he’s had a knack for finding someoneRead More

If you recall how the Fabulous Thunderbirds sounded early on, before “Tuff Enuff” and all that, they were a throwback to the vintage blues-rock bands. Not of the sixties, mind you, but of the fifties. Back in the day when rock ‘n’ roll had just spun off of the electricRead More

by Pico OK, I’ll say it up front: I’ve never been a fan of The Grateful Dead. Don’t know for sure why; after all, I love extended improvisations and the confluence of different styles. And it’s not that I don’t like jam bands; I can listen to the Allman BrothersRead More

by Pico This selection goes back a ways with me; I’ve saved only a handful of vinyls from my once somewhat-vast collection and this vintage ABC-Blue Thumb double LP was spared from that dreaded garage sale. It’s also one of the few expensive import CD’s I was begrudgingly willing toRead More

Like last week’s OTM, we’re profiling a song played by a pianist whose preferred method of attack is the trio format. Aside than that, there’s nothing that could be more different about today’s flavor, as we go from a twenty-six minute long cerebral jazz track to a three minute popRead More

by Pico Lately it seems every other article I write has some sort of Miles Davis connection to it (and I have yet another piece about a Davis sideman sitting in the pipeline). But as a lover of the early style of fusion as well as just about any formRead More

by Pico Whoa, what’s this? A review on a hot-out-of-the-oven release of a rock record by a well known band…from this site? We’re supposed to stick with old records and/or out of the mainstream stuff, right? Hey, we like our rock ‘n’ roll too, and there’s even a few guysRead More

by S. Victor Aaron That Keith Jarrett, he’s one amazing individual. Consider: · In the middle of the domination of jazz by wanking electric guitarists and keyboardists in 1975, KJ sits down in front of an audience in West Germany armed with only a piano, starts playing whatever came outRead More