by S. Victor Aaron That Keith Jarrett, he’s one amazing individual. Consider: · In the middle of the domination of jazz by wanking electric guitarists and keyboardists in 1975, KJ sits down in front of an audience in West Germany armed with only a piano, starts playing whatever came outRead More

Ahhhh, Friday night. As R.L. Burnside would say, “I know godd—ed well it’s party time.” But the blues isn’t the only place you’ll find the Good Lord’s name uttered in vain. Thanks to Les McCann, you can also find that commandment broken in a soul-jazz ditty that he made aRead More

This week’s single song review shines a light on avant-jazz composer/flautist/altoist Henry Threadgill. A part of the seventies whack jazz movement that brought us such lunimaries as Julius Hemphill, David Murray and the Art Ensemble of Chicaco, Threadgill was one third of the modern creative ensemble Air with bassist FredRead More

by S. Victor Aaron The critics all declare Exile On Main Street to be The Rolling Stones’ magnum opus. Yeah, it’s a great album alright but for my money, I’ll take the one right before it, Sticky Fingers, anyday. From the sass of “Brown Sugar” to the gentle country ofRead More

by Nick DeRiso Almost certainly written by Paul McCartney in an attempt to mirror some of the heavier, more intellectually raw pieces that John Lennon had begun to craft. Lennon was not outwardly impressed — famously sniffing that it was “the best song Paul ever wrote” — but there areRead More

by Nick DeRiso “Sitting on a suitcase, in the Memphis depot – wishing to God I could fly,” sings Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown on my old record. “Catching this train is my way of telling Memphis and Mildred goodbye.” People have actually asked me to bring it to parties. The albumRead More