by Pico Samuel Torres’ life journey from a boy with dreams of being a full-time musician, to becoming a full-time musician, to becoming a successful one, takes another turn with the release last week of his second album, Yaoundé. Born and raised by a hard working a supportive single motherRead More

by Pico “The world’s most vicious vibes-led threesome” That was the big impression I was left with from the self-described “post-punk jazz trio with vibraphone,” aka the Wee Trio, back when they released their debut record in the late summer of 2008. Capitol Diner Vol. 1 was hell-bent on bustingRead More

Drumming ace Allison Miller might not be a household name yet but, boy, she sure is linked to a whole host of them.

The hottest band in the land just might be the Drive-By Truckers by S. Victor Aaron Funny how it seems I have plenty of time to listen to new music and precious little to write about. There’s about 9GBs of albums in my iPod rotation and I’m familiar with aRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Not long ago we lauded the old school approach of saxophonist Eric Alexander, but even Alexander sounds rather leading edge compared to another tenorman just two years his senior, Harry Allen. The son of a big band drummer, Allen was exposed to jazz literally from theRead More

Bursting forth as rock teetered between too-big prog pyrotechnics and mawkishly symphonic concept records, it comes as little surprise that Big Star seemed to disappear with barely a ripple. That, and the fact that Alex Chilton, who died yesterday at 59 after a heart attack, always seemed to be disappearing,Read More

by S. Victor Aaron Did Columbia Records just pull a forgotten Miles Davis Second Great Quintet record out of the vault and dropped it unsuspectingly on the public? Because when I listen to Jeremy Pelt’s new CD Men Of Honor (released January 26), it often feels like a set ofRead More

by Nick DeRiso You hear Beatles songs remade by jazz musicians with notable frequency, some more successful (Jaco Pastorius‘ glorious reading of the oft-covered “Blackbird” from “Word of Mouth”; a just-right “All My Loving” on “Basie’s Beatles Bag”; Ramsey Lewis‘ underrated “Hard Day’s Night” from “Finest Hour”) than others (almostRead More

photo: Urve Kuusik by Pico The other day I revisited that beautiful mess by Sly Stone called There’s A Riot Goin’ On (1971), where in the midst of some herion-induced haze were some of the most forward-looking funk and r&b music ever. Even the one radio hit from it “FamilyRead More

by S. Victor Aaron The master tenor sax player Ralph Bowen has been around for quite a while, releasing his first album back in 1992. But plum sideman opportunities and a teaching gig at Rutgers has kept him plenty busy; it only been the last three or so years thatRead More