by S. Victor Aaron As I write this, two very talented bands from Italy specializing in the jazz of the whack variety are traversing the fruited plains looking to collect fans from the USA. The trio Neo and the quartet Tribraco are criss-crossing the country from August 23 to OctoberRead More

I had intended for this essay to start out something like this: OK, I’ll come right out and say it. I used to hate John Mellencamp. Back then he was known as John Cougar. All of my friends had their copies of American Fool, and I had to put upRead More

by Tom Johnson I have two amazing young daughters who constantly remind me of the distance in age between them and me. The youngest is too young to ask much, but is plenty busy with toys and books, and being the family comedian. My older daughter, however, she is fullRead More

By Mark Saleski Many years ago, while stuck in traffic during the evening commute, I heard a radio segment on microtonal composer Easely Blackwood. I had read about things like microtones, 24-note equal tunings, and the like, but somehow none of the music had ever made it’s way into myRead More

Note: This is a slightly abridged version of the inaugural article in the long-running “Whack Jazz” series, first appearing on July 11, 2006 on a forerunner site to the Something Else! webzine. Machine Gun remains to me the gold standard for all thrash-jazz records, one that all other such albumsRead More

by S. Victor Aaron There’s been a quiet trend of the last fifteen or so years that seems to be picking up steam lately. That is, to approach jazz from the dreamy and sometimes rough textures of alt rock and electronics. There’s even a name for this: post-rock. Tortoise wasRead More

by Nick DeRiso Several of Muddy Waters‘ great sidemen — Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and Otis Spann — appear on the loose and funky “Southside Blues Jam,” originally issued by Chicago’s Delmark Records. Funny, for all their marquee value, Wells and Guy — Buddy was born in Lettsworth, Louisiana —Read More

Mother Nature just staged a terrorist act on our ass! — Warren Smith, “Dyes And Lyes” About five years ago, woodwinds and flute specialist Andrew Lamb convened a recording session with his longtime musical partner Warren Smith (drums, percussion) and the bass/cello master Tom Abbs for some free form musicalRead More

by Pico It used to be, all good jazz originated out of New Orleans, then Chicago, then New York. And a lot of it still does these days. Eventually, Western Europe became the place of origin for a lot of great jazz for several generations, now, and even Eastern EuropeRead More

Before there was Sonic Youth, before there was Radiohead, Material, The Flaming Lips or the Animal Collective, there was Curlew. Founded by saxophonist/composer George Cartwright in 1979, Curlew soon became an incubator for just about every important name in the the New York downtown experimental music scene that thrived inRead More