I can’t help it, but I cringe when hearing that a musician has had their first child. We know what’s coming. The new album where the happy new parental unit goes all gooey about this new life and how wonderful it all is. Holy crap, that sounds cynical. Ahem …Read More

I am ashamed to admit that I’d never owned a copy of The Ventures’ Christmas Album, until a few years ago when I wandered into Bull Moose Music in Portland, Maine You May Also Like: Metallica’s Remix of “Some Kind of Monster” Finally Fixed What’s Wrong With ‘St. Anger’ TheRead More

There are records that are frankly too loud to be jazz, and swing too much to be rock. This is the slot for those things — a place where you’ll find everyone from Tony Levin and Derek Sherinian from Black Country Communion to Nels Cline and Bill Frisell. Click throughRead More

This, the majestic closing track of Born To Run, is the song that some people think should be retired. I’ll get to that bit of insanity in a little bit. You May Also Like: Reevaluating Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle’

There’s a problem with any list that attempts to rank players as if one is ‘better’ than another.

Here’s the way it usually works. The end of the year draws closer, and all of the music publications and websites release their “best of” lists. This is almost always followed by various rants about how the lists are “too safe,” “predictable,” or “pretentious.” You May Also Like: Of AllRead More

A jazz quartet plus steel guitar as lead instrument. This might sound like a novelty record but instead it’s Emmons playing his heart out on a program of standards and originals (the opening “Bluemmons” is killer). Very cool to hear the steel guitar trading fours with the sax. The unisonRead More

There are many possible ‘correct’ answers to the question “What makes a jazz drummer interesting?” Groove? Yes. Chops? Maybe. For me, it all boils down to musicality. You May Also Like: Jack DeJohnette, with Ravi Coltrane and Matthew Garrison – In Movement (2016) Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, John Medeski, JohnRead More

I’ve only seen Tom Waits in a live setting once. It was surreal. It was exhilarating – just like this record.

Here’s the story of how a holiday music CD came to me by way of a Cheap Trick show I attended during the early 1990s. You May Also Like: Giancarlo Tossani’s Big Monitors, “O’Neal’s Porch” (2021): One Track Mind