Archive for the 'Opinion Posts' Category
Ms. Delmhorst and Her Little-Winged Bird
Author: HJ Mills
“I just want to be part of all this beauty, want to be part of all this flight on little wings”, sings the lovely Kris Delmhorst in her song, “Little Wings” I see her as one of the most remarkable musicians I have ever come across. Her lyrics are as beautiful as the leftover drops on bushes after a sweet summer rain. In her song, “The Drop and Dream”, Kris wistfully sings “It’s both our curse and our grace, here in this place to reach for heights that we’ll never climb”. She sculptures her pieces with light, philosophy, self-reflection, cracked bits of robins’ eggs, and broken guitar strings tied in a bow. Yet, her name is only whispered, and according to “Little Wings”, Ms. Delmhorst does not mind that a bit. She confidently professes, “Now I don’t want to be a jet airliner, I just want to be a little bird, I don’t want to rip the skies wide open, I just want my song to be heard” . I heard her exquisite melodies long after one of my favorite music writers unveiled her . Read the rest of this entry »
read comments (1)Going Dutch in Baltimore
Author: Anthony Medici
In Defense of Digging
Author: Doctor B
Online shopping has its uses. With it, I have built and repaired computers for myself and others. I’ve located a new tweeter for a friend’s 1970’s-vintage loudspeaker. And at long last, I’ve finally found a source for sneakers which fit my feet properly.
But in my humble opinion, for finding music, online shopping misses the point. Read the rest of this entry »
More Other Stuff
Author: Anthony Medici
My order from Clean Feed came in yesterday. In case you’ve been misled by those pop-jazz magazine polls into thinking the usual suspects (Blue Note, Verve, ECM) are actually issuing jazz recordings of real artistic interest, let me fill you in: Clean Feed, a label based, perhaps rather improbably, out of Portugal, is among the new leaders in creative improvised music. The label, started in 2001, has performed brilliantly, and features some superb artists: Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, Tony Malaby, Steve Lehman, Charles Gayle, Paul Dunmall, and many other artists who are continuing to advance the art of creative improvised music. Where the industry “giants” look for the next Norah Jones clone, or pop star in need of a jazz “makeover,” Clean Feed is still about the “sound of surprise.” Blue Note used to be like this, but it has lost its way, depending upon a stream of reissues and pop crossovers to fill its roster and beholden to a corporate titan to adhere to the bottom line. Blue Note is now part of the “industrial-musical complex.” Anyway, the first two Clean Feeds out of the shipping box and into the CD player were Tony Malaby’s TAMARINDO, and Evan Parker’s A GLANCING BLOW. Read the rest of this entry »
The Appropriate Category for Amadou & Mariam’s Music is “Great”
Author: John Moses
I’ve been telling my friends about how much I like Amadou & Mariam’s music. Since they’re not well-known in the U.S. yet, the question that inevitably comes up is, “What sort of music is it? Who do they sound like?” After trying several weakly descriptive, “it’s-sort-of-like-this-and-sort-of-like-that” responses, I’ve settled on, “It’s just great, fun music. You should give it a listen.” Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this week, I started giving guitar lessons to a young boy. On the first day, I taught him how to tune the instrument and showed him some chords, then we started writing down some ideas for songs he can learn. During this process, I asked him what he thought of the Beatles, and what happened next still scares me a little.
He gave me a confused look and said “I don’t know who they are.” Read the rest of this entry »
Some Other Stuff
Author: Anthony Medici
It arrived on the scene inconspicuously, without fanfare. It had been on my want list for ages. I only came across it online while I was looking for something else. I found out it was released on February 24, 2009 in its current incarnation. A welcome arrival, indeed. What am I talking about (you may well ask)? I am referring to the Rudy Van Gelder series release on Blue Note of trombonist Grachan Moncur III’s laconically titled Some Other Stuff, recorded July 6, 1964 at RVG’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, and released initially in 1965 on Blue Note. It is one of the great “inside -outside” albums produced by Blue Note. For some reason, previous issues of this album on both LP and CD had proved hard to come by. Even repeated trips to our dearly beloved PREX failed to turn up a copy. I mulled purchasing the Moncur 3-CD box set on Mosaic just to get it, but I had all the other albums contained on the set and was loathe to pay the asking price just to complete my Moncur collection. Now the Moncur set is out of print (and already commanding high asking prices), but here was the individual album that I sought, complete with Reid Miles original and enigmatic cover art, and with an added annotation by Bob Blumenthal. It did not take long to hit “Buy,” and pop it into the CD player on arrival. Read the rest of this entry »
LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS FROM OUTER SPACE
Author: Jeff Boule
I am coming up on my first year anniversary of scribing for PREX. I tend to get introspective around such events. It has been a most eventful year, both personally and here on the blog. Some pretty outrageous things have happened behind the scenes and on the pages of this blog over the past year. I am going to use this blog entry to review, examine the possibilities of an open future, some short-term goals, long term goals, and more. Time to delve…
Pazz and Jop with The Bad Plus
Author: Anthony Medici
The title of the new The Bad Plus (hereafter TBP) CD on Heads Up, “For All I Care,” is as ambiguous, ambivalent, and inscrutable as the rest of the album. Perhaps the band is telling us that it cares for all types of music and things and people, that its approach is determinedly egalitarian and universal. Or maybe it is telling us, defensively, in advance, and in anticipation of the usual TBP criticism, that it doesn’t much care what we think of the album, that they are going to do what they want, not what we want them to do. I suppose that it is both of these things. They want us to hear them; they’re not terribly interested in hearing us. For example, their blog, DO THE MATH, demonstrates their wide interests in things musical and cultural; however, they long since stopped accepting comments from readers on their posts. It’s a High Modernist conception of the artist as creative and aloof, and perhaps more, creative because they are aloof. No matter, for in “For All I Care,” they have created an album that challenges and connects. Read the rest of this entry »
Lady Sovereign and Damien Rice as survival tools
Author: Eliza Varner
This past week was finals for Winter Term. After 9 weeks of pretending I could understand inorganic chemistry (i don’t), it was time to lock myself in a study room, not sleep for 30 hours at a time, and drink 97 cokereward points worth of coke zero. To survive this nightmare of a time, I relied very heavily on a playlist which was a combination of breezy folk and femme fatale, Lady Sovereign and Damien Rice, among other artists. Read the rest of this entry »
ROGER POWELL, EATIN’ AN APPLE, SITTIN’ ON BLUE NOTE RIDGE
Author: Jeff Boule
Blue Note Ridge is Roger Powell’s fourth solo album. The largest difference between this album and the three preceding ones is that these previous albums were significantly synthesizer-based. As his former band–mate, Todd Rundgren used to say, “you were born, to synthesize”, and this new CD on Fossil Poets Records is largely based on piano. Plain old acoustic piano with maybe a synth note here and there.
B.B. King’s Latest–Do Yourself a Favor
Author: John Moses
There must be something about the blues that keeps its disciples young. B.B. King turned 83 last September (16th). I saw him last June at the Chicago Blues Festival, when he headlined the festival on a rainy Sunday night. We were getting soaked, but the crowd kept growing, right up until show time. He walked onto stage very slowly and he performed sitting, as he has for a few years. Old age might make walking difficult, but it hasn’t silenced his booming blues growl and it sure hasn’t weakened his guitar skills. Read the rest of this entry »
Right Place, Wrong Time: A Jazz Messenger Comes to D.C.
Author: Anthony Medici
The liner notes to his recent CD, “Sketch,” put it bluntly: “David Schnitter is the jazz world’s forgotten messenger, a marvelous musician who just happened to be in the right place before the right time.” Except I would amend that statement to read: “…in the right place after the right time.” For Schnitter was not just a “jazz messenger,” but a “Jazz Messenger,” one of the members of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, a graduate of Blakey’s famed College of Hard Bop, that saw such other alumni as Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Jymie Merritt, Cedar Walton, Curtis Fuller, and Bobbie Timmons. I went to Twins Jazz last night to hear Schnitter and to see if the jazz message was still being delivered. Read the rest of this entry »
A LIVING TRAGEDY… THE WORLD’S GREATEST DRUMMER RETIRES FROM PLAYING LIVE
Author: Jeff Boule
With each day, more and more disparaging news comes across our collective desk. This could have been titled The Death Of Progressive Part Two. The world’s premiere drummer, Bill Bruford, announced on his website his retirement from public performance effective the first of this year. Before you all get bent out of shape about who the best drummer in the world is, remember, at the top of this post it SHOULD say “opinion” or “editorial”. Remember, you don’t have to agree with my opinion. But let’s examine what, in my opinion, makes Bruford the best.
Records from my shelf – Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express
Author: Doctor B
Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express
Closer To It
Original vinyl: RCA APL1-0140
CD Reissue: Fuel 2000 Records
I pulled this record, which I’d found years ago in a bargain bin, off my shelves just the other day and slapped in onto my garage-sale-bought Harman-Kardon turntable. Damn, but I’d forgotten just how flat-out funky this album is! Read the rest of this entry »
First Impression & First Aid Kit
Author: HJ Mills
Greetings to my fellow admirers of audio rivers. My name’s HJ. I’ve been writing my own music blog semi-frequently since September ‘08. It started as a class assignment, then grew into one of my favorite things. Music is my passion, and I’m here to share and celebrate my passion with you. I always love metaphors, a ripe mango, tea with steam dancing on the top, scarves that are lovely, silver rings, scripture, and the gritty smell of camp fires. Read the rest of this entry »
Well here is your intrepid blogger, deep inside enemy territory. I mean crazy deep; I can count at least three laser-sight dots on my flak vest. Firstly, I am sure I have bad-mouthed this venue, as it likes to jerk its customers around. If I haven’t maybe I should now. For one show they offer you luxurious accommodation at a particular price, and then for a next show, you pay that same price and get a barstool. CRIPES!! That was a shot close to my ear! Next, I MUST address some recent King Crimson issues (Wetton was the bass player in the`70’s incarnation): If you all think I am spewing sour grapes as I won’t be able to see the 40th Anniversary King Crimson shows alleged to be taking place on the west coast, I refer you to the August 2008 archive where my review of the August 16th Nokia Theatre performance in New York City lie in state for all to examine. If my ramblings got the Brain and the Bald One to reconsider their heinous acts, so be it! I would be open to ghost authoring the Bald One’s book. He once referred to himself as dumb-as-a-shovel… BAIL OUT!!! That was a concussion bomb, about thirty feet away. I need to interject that should I not make it out of this review alive, please scour the wooded areas of Mount Juliet, TN for my remains. Lastly, I am inside the stomping ground of the Birdwoman, the pipeline to the Bald One. If I fart, she tells The Bald One. DUCK!!!!
The Number 547: Why I can’t live without Iron & Wine
Author: Eliza Varner
Iron and Wine is the perfect antidote to stress, especially when you’re simultaneously frantically writing a lab report, trying to find your friend a date for her sorority formal, chugging caffeine by the liter, and/or just living the life of an undergrad at a highly competitive college. Sam Beam’s soothing melodies and beautifully crafted lyrics are like a cup of herbal tea and a long bath– a way to forget your troubles. Read the rest of this entry »
March Madness: Jeers, Cheers and Slam Dunks
Author: Anthony Medici
It’s that time of the year, when professional basketball teams, under the aegis of the NCAA, play out the ritual basketball frenzy known as March Madness. Oh sure, they represent various colleges (64 to be exact), but this is Big Business; perhaps, one of the few big businesses still making a go of it in our recession-racked economy. There will be the usual cheers, jeers and slam dunks to enliven one’s viewing. We have a few of our own. Read the rest of this entry »
Kasim Sulton, Live In Atlanta… Or live in your living room!
Author: Jeff Boule
When I first heard about Utopia’s new bass player back in 1977, I wondered if he would last. “Who is this Kaseem Sooltan?” I asked. The answer is extraordinary talent, a level-headed sensibility and a close eye on Todd Rundgren have kept him working with industry names such as Mick Jagger, Joan Jett, Patti Smyth and most notably as musical director for Meatloaf, as well as being part of the foundation of the Bat Out Of Hell original album and a right-hand man to Rundgren since Utopia’s evaporation in 1992.