photo: Kyle Ober by Pico It’s catch up time again. In what is becoming a frequent tradition for me on Something Else, I’m taking a batch of CD’s and doing pocket reviews on them, in order to get you all caught up on what’s been getting the spins lately. WhereasRead More

photo: Valerie Trucchia by S. Victor Aaron Since starting up this site about four years ago, we’ve taken a look at a Japanese whack jazzer only once, but the fact of the matter is, the Land of the Rising Sun is a haven for music that’s unconventional, unpredictable and thrivingRead More

The hottest band in the land just might be the Drive-By Truckers by S. Victor Aaron Funny how it seems I have plenty of time to listen to new music and precious little to write about. There’s about 9GBs of albums in my iPod rotation and I’m familiar with aRead More

by S. Victor Aaron This article makes it twenty-three albums covered in the span of eight days, which put a nice dent in my backlog, and there’s just a couple more to go before turning our attention to the year 2009 in music. The batch of records covered here drawsRead More

For this installment of the 2009 roundups, we lasso those stray cd’s of jazz that’s really “out there.” Hmmm, I think there’s a term for that kind of music. Despite hard times—and it’s really hard for those musicians who choose to play music entirely for art’s sake as these guysRead More

by Pico Before diving deeper into the stacks o’ jazz cd’s, I’d like to turn our attention toward a few records of the rock, pop & blues sides that I managed to sample over the last few months. With one exception, these are all by long-established stalwarts, falling right inRead More

by Pico The other day, I explained our lack of year-end lists that all good music review sites do by a still-bountiful stack of unexplored CD’s that deserved some checking out before I can put together a tally that looks somewhat informed. Even after this clearinghouse of an article I’llRead More

by S. Victor Aaron This installment of Quickies takes a glance at three new offerings from HighNote Records. HighNote Reocrds, in case you didn’t know, has been around since 1996, a creation of former Muse Records founder and Prestige Records exec Joe Fields. As a longtime veteran of the wholeRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Last year we spotlighted a trio of CD’s that made up the maiden releases by a new record label, the artist-run collective Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records. A year later last June, there were three more BJU records to examine. And here we are less than sixRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Steve Smith is a man with a common name and an uncommon ability to beat the skins. Looking back at his entire career, that 1978-85 stint with the superstar arena rock group Journey during its classic period looks like an aberration to Smith, who has madeRead More