by Mark Saleski After listening to certain Tom Waits songs, I get to thinking about what the man might have stored in his garage. Sure, it’s become sort of a cliché, doing a mental inventory of Waits’ collection of bullhorns and whatnot, but it sure is fun. Even more funRead More

by S. Victor Aaron It could be argued that Houston, Texas is one of the major gestation points for smooth jazz sax stars. Ronnie Laws and Kirk Whalum came from what Laws calls the Bayou City of the Future. Also, let’s not forget that Wilton Felder, Joe Sample and theRead More

by S. Victor Aaron As the sixties turned into the seventies, soul, like rock, got tougher and edgier. In 1971 alone, Sly Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and Gil Scott-Heron‘s Pieces Of A Man raised the stakes in R&B that was serious, far-reaching andRead More

Fusion guitar big dog Allan Holdsworth has been in a number of notable bands: The Soft Machine, Gong, UK, Level 42…but the brief, mid-seventies stint he had in Tony Williams’ reconstituted Lifetime band have made up some of the fondest memories for him. About a decade ago, he honored hisRead More

by Pico One of the most enduring singing piano players isn’t Billy Joel or even Elton John. Mose Allison has been at it since Nat King Cole was dominating the charts and although he’s slowed down a lot lately, the eighty-two year old was recently enticed back into the studioRead More

Like the best Herbie Hancock ballads, “Butterfly” has inner complexity, outer beauty, – and a little mysteriousness.

by S. Victor Aaron You know the story: a band goes in the studio to records tracks for an album and finds they recorded more than what they needed for that record, so they leave one or two tracks off of it. You’ve also seen this play out: a majorRead More

by S. Victor Aaron He looks like a young Keith Jarrett, even hums along to his piano lines a little like Jarrett, but Jacky Terrasson is defying straight comparisons to anybody. This 1993 winner of the Thelonious Monk competition can conjure the big, train-like sound of McCoy Tyner, the cerebralRead More

Rock stars whose dad jammed with Django Reinhardt when said rock star was an infant, and dated Nico not long after after high school deserve my eternal respect and admiration, but as far as I know, only Jackson Browne falls into that category. It was only years later when heRead More

by Pico I find that much of jazz is taking someone else’s tune and make it into something new. The trick is to do so without casting off the thing (or things) that made it such a great tune to cover to begin with. But who can take Joe Henderson’sRead More