by Tom Johnson Bill Frisell has become one of the most easily recognizable guitarists in jazz, and it’s not without an effort to incorporate himself into as many styles as one person could in a lifetime. Few guitarists in any genre could pull off the feat of having played inRead More

by Mark Saleski Over the years I have spent many pen scrawls, pencil swipes, and keystrokes trying to describe what it is about ‘out’ music that moves me so much. Sometimes it’s pretty easy You May Also Like: Matthew Shipp – Zero (2018) Matthew Shipp – ‘The Intrinsic Nature ofRead More

A band suspended forever between the formalism of Dennis DeYoung’s Broadway pretensions and the harder-edged banalities of James Young and Tommy Shaw, Styx sounded different every time it came on the radio. Yet, critics insisted, somehow the same: Mediocre. You May Also Like: Inside the classic pre-Tommy Shaw moment thatRead More

by Tom Johnson First impressions . . . you know what they say about that. They’re always right. Unless they’re not. You May Also Like: Tony Malaby’s Sabino – ‘The Cave of Winds’ (2022)

Enough with the ‘Silk Degrees’ already. Let’s explore elsewhere in Boz Scaggs’ lengthy catalog.

by Mark Saleski There are two things that can be counted on when cracking open a new Carla Bley Big Band record: 1. many, many interesting and twisty passages of musical architecture and 2. volume. Oh yes, the horn section is enormous You May Also Like: Riverside [Dave Douglas, ChetRead More

by Tom Johnson Tortoise alum Rob Mazurek had a big concept behind this project. As we all know, sometimes big concepts pay off, sometimes they simply lead to big letdowns. You May Also Like: Rob Mazurek & Exploding Star Orchestra – ‘Lightning Dreamers’ (2023) Rob Mazurek Quintet’s hypnotic, diverse SoundRead More

by Tom Johnson Alien was once the only Alien film I had not seen in the theater. Yes, I actually paid (and dragged my wife along) to see the unfortunate Alien Resurrection. What a stupid concept: Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) having flung herself into flaming, molten metal at the end ofRead More

by Mark Saleski Volume 8 in the Smithsonian Folkways series on the music of Central Asia paired the Kronos Quartent with Afghan rubâb virtuoso Homayun Sakhi and Azerbaijani father-daughter singing duo Alim and Fargana Qasimov. You May Also Like: The Lickerish Quartet, “Snollygoster Goon,” from ‘Threesome Vol. 2’ (2020): SomethingRead More

Emerson Lake and Palmer somehow went from selling 40 million records to becoming one of rock’s more reviled bands – all in the space of a single decade.