by Pico The topic of this review is yet another ESP-Disk release, and I’ve often wondered if ESP is an acronym for “not for the faint of heart” in Esperanto. I’m a lot more certain of this, though: Barnacled is a perfect fit for the label, which seems to relishRead More

Paul Bley’s sixty year career has been primarily one where he’s worked with some of the biggest names in the vanguard of jazz in the quest for experimentation and many times he’s marched to the beat of his own drummer. For a good part of that career, it was alsoRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Trumpeter and arranger Steven Bernstein might be the hardest working man in music these days. Just these last few years he has garnered a Grammy nomination (for Sexotica by his band Sex Mob) and a Annie nomination for scoring a children’s TV series; released an albumRead More

What better way to spend Halloween than with (as it’s lovingly referred to in the liner notes) “this thing“? “The Torture Never Stops” — a 24-song, two-hour blast of almost indescribably brilliant/crazy rock from an Oct. 31, 1981 concert by the equally brilliant/crazy Frank Zappa — affords us a uniqueRead More

I’ve covered a Martin and Medeski album, a Wood Brothers album and even an MMW children’s album on this space, but this is the first go around with a “proper” Medeski, Martin & Wood release. Radiolarians 1, which hit the streets September 30, is the first of a planned trilogyRead More

Bill Moring is someone readers of this space have come to know as the guy jazz pianist extraordinaire Steve Allee relies upon for holding down the bottom in his band. Moring is hardly “just” Allee’s bass player, though. Throughout a three-decade career, Moring has played in ensembles of all sizesRead More

Marc Ribot is near the front of a phalanx of whack jazz axe slingers that includes Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser, and of course, good ol’ Bill Frisell. As way out his anything-goes approach goes on his solo records, he’s plenty versatile enough to play for guys as diverse as JohnRead More

Sometimes you know if a CD is going to be good even before you cue it up and start listening to it. The first thing I that caught my eye when I opened up Michael Bates’ Clockwise CD was the note that it was taped live on a two-track recorder.Read More

Back in, oh, October of last year I got a wild hair and raved on a free form electrified cello performance by that late, lamented demon of the bowed bass, Tom Cora. The name of the stringed stream of conscienceness was called “Halleluhjah Anyway.” Back then, I made mention ofRead More

 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