I've been back from Austin for about 48 hours, but my body is only just now starting to adjust to things like normal sleep patterns, being stationary for long periods of time, and not drinking beer every day. Soon, I will stop having dreams that I am being chased by a giant, furious side of brisket. I look forward to those days in breathless anticipation. Until they arrive, here's this week's New Arrivals:
The Shins, Port… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
No jazz musician inspires flattering imitators and devoted listeners like saxophonist John Coltrane. One reason is because there's a Coltrane for every taste: the yearning balladeer; the hard bop jackrabbit, scaling intricate improvised lines over the chords to standard tunes; the ambitious conceptualist, constructing ever-more elaborate steeplechases to challenge himself; the exponent of spiritual, roiling high-energy free jazz.
Coming up in the 1950s, the tenor saxophonist apprenticed with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, leaders who loved… more »
In May 1956, when Sonny Rollins and guest John Coltrane locked horns on the friendly throwdown "Tenor Madness," Coltrane was 29, and Rollins four years his junior. But at this point in their careers, Sonny had the jackrabbit head start. He'd been recording under his own name since 1951, and was much admired; Coltrane hadn't yet made a record of his own.
It's easy to forget, sometimes, Coltrane wasn't always lionized; some reviewers of his early… more »
A few years ago, Italian saxophonist Daniele D'Agaro was visiting Chicago, and a critic friend put on a fairly obscure record to stump him. D'Agaro listened for about three seconds, said: "Lucky."
Good ears. He knows the distinctive sound of Lucky Thompson after he started hanging out in Paris and playing sumptuous tenor saxophone ballads recalling old idol Don Byas's Parisian sides. On "Solitude" and "We'll Be Together Again," from Lucky in Paris 1959, his tenor's… more »
![Jazz At Massey Hall (with Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus & Max Roach) [Bonus Track Version] album cover](http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/130/498/13049887/300x300.jpg)
