Brass Trax
By
Rick Sawyer
September 16th, 2009
Olhaí, Balândro…É Bufo No Birrolho Grinza! might have been the last shimmer of Wilson Simonal’s brilliance before his artistic decline began to match the decline in his popularity.
Brass Trax
By
Rick Sawyer
September 10th, 2009
It sounds like a musical trainwreck in the making or the set-up for a joke about the excesses of the avant garde. A French chanteuse and a Kabyle musician meet an Afrocentric American free jazz band on a stage in Paris. Chaos ensues? Au contraire.
Brass Trax
By
Rick Sawyer
August 28th, 2009
If jazz needed a Patti Smith, a frank and alluring wordsmith with an abiding love of rock and roll, it found one in Annette Peacock. Throughout the sixties and seventies, Peacock fused free jazz with rock, electronic music and poetry, developing an idiosyncratic artistic language that has rarely garnered the attention it deserved.
Brass Trax
By
Rick Sawyer
August 21st, 2009
Ali will best be remembered as John Coltrane’s drummer during the crucial late phases of his career when he all but abandoned traditional jazz forms for a freer, heavily improvised style that reflected his religious ambitions.
Brass Trax
By
Rick Sawyer
August 17th, 2009
George Russell, the man who freed jazz, died last month at the age of 86. If his obituaries are anything to go by, Russell will be remembered more keenly for his contributions to jazz music theory than his own compositions, which will be a shame. Russell, a pianist, composer, and arranger, came up with the theoretical basis for modal jazz, but he made some fantastic music, too.
Brass Trax
By
Rick Sawyer
August 10th, 2009
It was more than just jazz for Sun Ra. The pianist and band leader created a total, collaborative artwork that comprised his music, his album covers and iconography, his band and its costumes, his record label, and even his public and private persona.
Brass Trax
By
Rick Sawyer
July 24th, 2009
The funk revival has been going on for longer than a decade, rehashing that brief period, say 1966 to 1975, when funk was deep and the drum breaks were sick.
Brass Trax
By
Rick Sawyer
July 22nd, 2009
When it comes to rock and roll, history can be told by the losers. Consider the late New York Dolls bassist, Arthur “Killer” Kane. One of the band’s co-founders, Kane never achieved the fame that would come to singer David Johansen or guitarist Johnny Thunders after the band split up. Johansen and Thunders entered the great pop unconscious; Kane wound up the answer to a trivia question.
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