Encyclopedic music aficionados take on a risky gambit when they decide to make music of their own. The knowledge that gives them inspiration and a formidable arsenal of ideas can be a burden, clouding the waters with too much awareness of what’s been done before. SST Records’ Joe Carducci once famously said, “Record collectors shouldn’t [...]
The strains of country music known as honky-tonk and western swing are mostly associated with states like Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee, but there’s a significant tributary in Louisiana (Louisiana Hayride anyone?) and both of these CDs make the case for honky-tonk’s Louisiana Music (add trademark symbol here) legitimacy. But the similarities quickly end there. Where [...]
Now that the legendary ESP-Disk label—home to Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, the Fugs, and a host of other mavericks in the mid-’60s—is back up and running, we’re getting the added treat of previously unreleased material from the artists that defined the label’s aesthetic. One such artist was Frank Wright, a tenor saxophonist following in the [...]
German-born/New Orleans-based saxophonist Martin Krusche currently leads a revolving cast of local players under the Magnetic Ear moniker, but After the Rain documents a trio version of the group in which Krusche is joined by Kevin O’Day (drums) and Matt Perrine (sousaphone). In terms of instrumentation, this Magnetic Ear harkens back to Sam Rivers’ “Tuba [...]
Considering Genius collects jazz writing spanning 27 years from the famed polemicist of jazz’s neo-conservative movement, Stanley Crouch. The 30 pieces collected here constitute not so much a book about jazz as the story of one man’s path through it and how it influenced his changing view of life in America. No matter how enamored [...]
Though not as well known as Alan Lomax or Harry Smith, Fonotone Records founder Joe Bussard did as much as anybody to preserve and promote America’s raw indigenous musics as the era of rugged regionalism drew to a close. Starting out as an obsessive record collector, Bussard canvassed shacks and homes throughout the rural Southeast [...]
Roland Kirk is a tough one to pigeonhole for those who subscribe to the linear-progressive model of jazz history — that style A begat style B, etc. and that each was an advancement over the other. What to do with Kirk, a man whose musical technique was highly sophisticated, yet whose performance style drew from [...]
Hailing from Benin, Africa, the Gangbé Brass Band provides vivid evidence of the mutability and vitality of the brass band ensemble. Over the past 25 years, we’ve seen a reinvention of the brass tradition here in New Orleans at the hands of practitioners like the Dirty Dozen, Rebirth, and Soul Rebels brass bands. In each [...]
