In 1966, attorney Bernard Stollman founded the ESP-Disk label in New York City. Less than three years later, with orders dried up from established record labels bootlegging their better-selling records, the label was driven out of business. This is a familiar story followed in some variation by thousands of start-upRead More

Last year we touched on a solid release by Steve Allee, Colours, where the seasoned Indianapolis-based pianist found delight in turning from crossover jazz to honest-to-goodness straight trio jazz. Allee must have really enjoyed making that record, because here we are less than a year later discussing another new SteveRead More

Extended improv sections of songs oftentimes turn into what Umphrey’s McGee calls a “Jimmy Stewart.” So what exactly is a “Jimmy Stewart?”

Ten years ago, Hanson caused a stir in the pop world by delivering catchy tunes that were self-performed and largely self-penned, by siblings who were still just kids. Today, the blues has its own version of Hanson, and the name of this family affair is The Homemade Jamz Blues Band.Read More

For more than forty years, Charles Lloyd has been the small combo leader making distinctively impressionistic and soulful kind of small combo jazz. His tenor’s delicate, almost alto-like timbre is instantly recognizable from just a single note. His prolific periods of the late sixties and since the late eighties haveRead More

I’ve got that itch again. It’s an itch that manifests itself whenever I listen to music with form, predictability and harmony for too long. Yes, folks, it’s time to cleanse the soul with some good, gut punching whack jazz, and Solar Forge by Totem> is the elixir. Totem> (yes, theRead More

The music of Norah Jones is the elephant in the living room here at Something Else! that we probably can’t ignore forever. Her brand of country-flavored jazz had given millions of people in our age demographic a reason to buy their first CD in years. Still, we’ve resisted chatting herRead More

The story of Art Pepper’s remarkable emergence from the abyss of drug addiction and incarceration is one of the most uplifting stories among jazz greats, amongst stories that have more often ended tragically. His comeback was not only complete, but had even exceeded his earlier peak. For the last fiveRead More

Scrapomatic’s third album ‘Sidewalk Caesars’ once again brought the spirit to mid-20th century folk blues to the early 21st century.

For this episode of Quickies, we stick mainly with the jazz genre with a couple of diversions to other styles found here and there. These new releases all start with traditional jazz, but our protagonists each put their own little twist on it. Our first entrant is a well-known quantityRead More