The rain has played a soggy ostinato to my recent jazz adventuring.  A cold, hard rain fell as I set forth for Baltimore Saturday to catch the Marilyn Crispell/Gerry Hemingway duo performance at An Die Musik.  The Beltway was choked with traffic and fender benders littered the highway shoulders.  “Surely,” my Inner Couch Potato protested, “it would be better to stay home, slumber on the couch, listen to a record.”   But I have learned that regret is a stronger motivator than reluctance, and I would have regretted missing this performance by these two Guggenheim Fellows and alumni of Anthony Braxton’s famed Quartet. Read the rest of this entry »

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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!!!!

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I was flat, under the weather, not inclined to move from the couch.  All week long, co-workers were shuffling about, afflicted with flu, colds, sneezing, coughing- you get the picture.  Some of those flu bugs seemed to have jumped ship and joined me.  On top of that, even the weather was flat: cold, damp, with rain and sleet in the forecast.  Plenty of excuses to stay home.   But the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble was playing at An Die Musik in Baltimore, and I knew I had to go.  It was a night “wondrous strange.” Read the rest of this entry »

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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.

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Literally just back from an enjoyable but tiring road trip to New York City; I-95 seems to still be spooling out in front of me as I write this.  I decided Friday to take an impromptu road trip to visit my daughter in college in Brooklyn (the new hip place in New York), my brother in Joisey (New Jersey to you), buy a few records, and take in the Saturday Art for Art Show at The Living Theater on the Lower East Side.   Left Friday night and was back in DC for lunch on Sunday.  The trip  is a blur of images, sights, sounds, tastes:  delicious pizza at Pompilio’s in Westwood, NJ, traffic jams noon and midnight in NYC; LPs and more LPs; and blasts of passionate free jazz, and the sinuous movement of skilled dancers.  Read the rest of this entry »

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So, are you into Iraqi jazz fusion yet?  Or maybe you never heard of it?  I had a chance to listen to it last night (Saturday, Feb 7) at the Smithsonian’s Freer Museum Meyer Auditorium, in a performance by Amir El Saffar’s Two River Ensemble, with El Saffar on trumpet, santur, and voice, Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto sax, Nasheet Waits, drums, Carlos De Rosa, bass, and Jason Adasiewicz, vibraphone.  The place was packed– and your intrepid blogger was almost shut out. Read the rest of this entry »

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Due to the extreme word count of the recent Todd Rundgren NYE Concert review, the comment section was disabled. Firstly, I’d like to use this unique opportunity to allow those readers who wish to comment on the review to do so at the end of this brief blog. When I started to receive emails at my home account containing comments about the review, I knew I would have to do something, well, like this! Additionally, I would like to extend tremendous thanks to Doug the promoter of the event for contributing fact checking and editing. So if you have a comment about the review I invite you to leave one after this blog. Thanks!

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Quick, name a top female saxophone player.   Quick, name a female tenor sax player in the free jazz, creative improvised music arena.  If nothing immediately leaps to mind, don’t feel too bad; unfortunately, it’s really not a crowded category.  I’m not sure what the reasons are for that state of affairs.  But it did add a bit of an edge to my interest to check out Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker, performing with Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, and Japanese electronics improviser Ikue Mori, the latter two now based in New York, while Anker remains based in her native Copenhagen.  I caught them this past Saturday at An Die Musik in Baltimore, last stop on their U.S. tour behind the release of their new CD, Alien Huddle.  Previous stops included Noo Yawk and Philly, and I had heard good reports on the show.  I was not disaapointed; in fact, the show continues to resonate with me. Read the rest of this entry »

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To paraphrase the sappy, mushy title theme from the equally sappy movie Love Story of the `70’s, “Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a night can be?” No minor exaggeration, this was one of those once-in-a-lifetime events that everyone who attended will not soon forget. The evening had everything every average Todd Rundgren fan would run a Ponzi scheme to get to.

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On a frigid Friday, I set out from Our Nation’s Capital to the City of Brotherly Love to attend the Marshall Allen-Han Bennink concert, part of the Ars Nova Workshop series.  Leaving the DC area took on the trappings of departing from one of those doomed cities one finds in sci-fi movies, like “Escape from New York.”  Massive security procedures for the Inauguration have turned DC into a bunker complex:  bridges and roads closed; transit system overwhelmed and confused; people warned to stay away.  I needed a change of scene.  Read the rest of this entry »

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This is the time of year when we look back, take stock of what was, both the highs and lows, and look forward to what the new year brings. Let’s start with the Top 5 Worst Jazz magazine Cover Stories of the Year, shall we? Read the rest of this entry »

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This past Friday, your intrepid blogger set forth to face the challenges of I-95 from DC to Philly in order to attend the Ars Nova Workshop presentation of the Ron Horton Sextet performance of Andrew Hill’s Passing Ships. Since I love the music of Andrew Hill, I was more than willing to face the three hour drive each way (it’s the return trip late at night that’s tough). On my last trip up the same route, I ran over a large metal object in the road, destroying two tires (newly installed) on the driver side of my car as well as the front left wheel. So it was with some trepidation that I set forth. Fortunately, the storm that had deluged the DC area for several days lifted on the very monring that I left, leaving cold, grey but dry weather for the trip. I was looking for great music and great cheesesteaks. I found great music…. Read the rest of this entry »

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For those of you not familiar with the name David Byrne, he was the strange man in the suit and horned-rimmed glasses chopping at his forearm in the Talking Heads “Once In A Lifetime” video. Talking Heads long-time producer, Brian Eno, has been a long-time collaborator of Byrne’s. The show was billed as The Songs Of David Byrne and Brian Eno, right there, you know it’s going to be…

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That Guitar man from Central Park; David Ippolito

Self-described as “Acoustic-storytelling like James Taylor might have written if heavily influenced by the Beatles and Broadway.”

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My pal and I traveled to An Die Musik in Baltimore, Maryland Saturday night to hear two groups: Trio Bramm, from Holland, and All Coda, all from the Baltimore area with the exception of New York-based saxophonist Tim Berne. There was exciting music on offer, all in a small (perhaps 80 seats), comfortable (got to love those stuffed armchairs), and in a welcome departure from much current practice, unamplified format (although the bass players and guitarist did use small amp pickups that did not alter the essentially acoustic nature of the set). The performances were excellent, and the in the case of Trio Braam, particularly interesting and inventive. At the end, though, I was left with a question that has vexed me of late. Read the rest of this entry »

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The story behind the album Arena is simply a tale born out of situational necessity. You die-hard Rundgren fans remember a couple of years ago (around the time the movie CARS came out) Todd had replaced Ric Ocasek in The New Cars (the ‘New’ being added in light of the minority percentage of returning members, only Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes returned). Also joining Easton and Hawkes were Utopia and long-time Rundgren bassist and vocalist Kasim Sulton alongside drummer for The Tubes, Jefferson Starship and also a long-time Rundgren band member Prairie Prince. During the New Cars tour, the tour bus was in an accident and Easton fell from an upper bunk and broke his shoulder/collar bone. The tour was cut short, the cross-promotion with the Pixar movie was cancelled, and Rundgren found himself with nothing to do for a summer. Not wanting to waste a prime touring season, Rundgren spoke with Tony Levin band and long-time Rundgren guitarist Jesse Gress who contacted Levin and recruited him along with Levin Band drummer Jerry Marotta to do a two guitars bass and drums tour. Less expensive than touring with Midi and keyboards, etc.

Seeing as how he was going to be touring with a guitar-oriented band, not only did he have to limit his repertoire to guitar based or guitar-oriented or guitar adaptable songs, he also had to rearrange some keyboard-oriented standards for guitar.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

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Technically, it’s still Sunday, making it my designated blog day here at prex.com. Good start, I know.

A little while ago, I found out that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were playing the Electric Factory on October 7th. While I’m from Bucks County, I go to school in Pittsburgh, and Nick is one of my favorites. Long story short, I flew home for 24 hours to catch this show and then turned around and came back.

Worth it? Yes. Hell yes. Read the rest of this entry »

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I remember going into a local record shop in Cypress, California called Bionic Records. I worked up the street and would stop in there each Friday with my paycheck in my pocket. I needed to pay rent and buy food, but I also needed to buy new music. Read the rest of this entry »

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As William Congreve (not Shakespeare) once famously said, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast” (not beast, although now so often misquoted as to form a standard quote in itself), but it seems rather powerless to cure the sick– at least in my case, as I spent the week suffering from a nasty illness that left me time to listen but not much inclination to do so. I usually suffer, as I suspect most music lovers do, from a perceived lack of time to enjoy their favorite music. It’s one of life’s cruel ironies illnes gives one the time to listen but takes away one’s capacity to enjoy it. I suppose music can often be a power for healing and would love to hear from those who have experienced that power. Read the rest of this entry »

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I love my records and my CDs, and you can find me holed up with them for hours, but whenever I can I get out and listen to live performances, particularly jazz, I do so. Pickings have been somewhat slim this summer here in Our Nation’s Capital (you know, the place politicians love to hate, or pretend to hate), and so, I have had little to blog about. However, last week provided an embarrassment of riches, thanks to the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, presented at various venues around the Capital, with a big outdoor festival on Sunday at the Sylvan Theater on the Mall, near the Washington Monument. The weather was perfect, and the music ran from the very fine to the sublime. Read the rest of this entry »

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