Sometimes, people listen to music with too much of their brain. I’m just suggesting you give your skull some attention. –zingzing As someone who’s guilty of taking more than a few strolls down the cerebral sidewalk of music, even I’d have to admit you have to keep your cranium happyRead More

Since new David Torn releases don’t come around that often–the last one came out in 1998–Christmas arrived last month to lovers of electric improvised music, such as myself. Mark Seleski’s review of Prezens whetted my appetite further as he described the album’s music as “the combination of ambient approach andRead More

Next to Sly and the Family Stone and James Brown there might not be another act as influential to funk music than P-Funk, the shorthand name for George Clinton’s twin ensembles Parliament (horns) and Funkadelic (no horns). In fact, they were cited in my last OTM as an influence toRead More

photo: Genevieve Ruocco Of all the rock or fusion guitarists out there, there’s none out there who possesses the most pleasing tone, amazing technique and exceptional phrasing all wrapped up into one than the Brit Allan Holdsworth. He’s is a guitarist’s guitarist, having influenced everyone from Eddie Van Halen toRead More

Fewer bands in rock have been more unjustly maligned than Chicago. Now, I’m no fan of the David Foster years, but being responsible for some of the shlockiest pop of that era doesn’t diminish the more innovative and ambitious output of the seventies, especially those first five albums. You MayRead More

The lead-off track from Anders Osbourne’s Grammy-nominated ‘Living Room’ is a rootsy jam and a helluva good time.

by Pico In the last three or four years, Georgia native Lizz Wright has created a stir in the same folk-jazz circles that Cassandra Wilson, Nina Simone and Oleta Adams have made their names in, but with her 2005 release Dreaming Wide Awake, she moved further into Sarah McLachlan territory.Read More

by Pico The first time I heard “Barbary Coast” was when I got halfway through the second side of a vinyl copy Weather Report’s Black Market I had just purchased, and I wasn’t terribly impressed with it then. In this rendering, it was a three minute one-chord bass riff decoratedRead More

Let’s circle back to a key moment from Larry Young, the John Coltrane of the jazz organ.

Back when I was a young man in my twenties, I had frequent cravings for testosterone-driven jams—just like any young man does. But while some of my buds got their fix through the likes of Van Halen, AC/DC or Metallica, I often turned to McCoy Tyner. McCoy Tyner? Absolutely, whyRead More