Ever since jazz saxophonist Stan Getz journeyed to Rio de Janeiro in 1963 to record with some then-little-known Brazilian musicians named Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto, the phrase “Brazilian music” has, to most American ears, conjured images of cool, sophisticated guitar strumming and delicately hushed vocals intoning the praises…
Shubha Mudgal may not have been dragged kicking and screaming into Indian pop-music stardom, but she is decidedly reticent about her newfound status as the diva of MTV India. “So far I have sung three albums of popular music, and on each occasion, the initiative to do so was not…
To white-bread America in 1970, the blues was an alien form of music. Ignored by the folks on Main Street, the genre was embraced mainly by record-store-hunting folkies, retro-minded rockers, and weed-smoking academics. That is until B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone” came bleeding through the nation’s quadraphonic speakers and…
“A DJ should do everything — body tricks, beat juggling, all that,” Miami’s own DJ Craze told Urb magazine in 1998. “You’ve gotta show that you’re a DJ in the full essence and have that total package.” Hmmm. Remember that guy in your high school? The one with the underdeveloped…
On paper at least, Onda Sonora — Red Hot + Lisbon, the latest Red Hot release to donate its proceeds to fund AIDS research, is a shaky concept at best. Gathering superstars from various nations who sing in Portuguese (such as Brazilians Caetano Veloso, Marisa Monte, and Carlinhos Brown; the…
Leo Casino is at it again. Nope, he’s not celebrating a new play or movie that he penned, and he didn’t land a big acting role. On Thursday at Satchmo (60 Merrick Way, Coral Gables; 305-774-1883), the saxophonist unveils his latest CD, Better Days, and shows the video premiere for…
Electronic dance music never completely conquered the United States, in part because the electronica revolution could not be televised. Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands, better known as the Chemical Brothers, are a case in point. Their music has plenty of personality and bravado, but the pair are hardly seen in…
Although he claims it has nothing to do with his bitter divorce a few years back, Tom Petty’s Echo is the rock veteran’s masterful chronicle of the hurt, betrayal, and confusion that inevitably follow a nasty split. Battle-scarred and weary, this is a different Petty from the guy who smirked…
At the turn of the millennium, while the regional flavors of the United States get mashed into a transnational strip mall, it’s an especially important time to survey what’s left of the diverse cultures, big and small, that flourished here over the past few hundred years. Everyone knows that food…
The Comedian Harmonists The Comedian Harmonists (Hannibal) Six guys. Five voices. One piano. That’s all the Comedian Harmonists needed to make music that absolutely hits the bull’s-eye on every level. Technically beyond belief, stylistically diverse, perversely hilarious yet deadly serious, all at the same time, The Comedian Harmonists is both…
The Comedian Harmonists The Comedian Harmonists (Hannibal) Six guys. Five voices. One piano. That’s all the Comedian Harmonists needed to make music that absolutely hits the bull’s-eye on every level. Technically beyond belief, stylistically diverse, perversely hilarious yet deadly serious, all at the same time, The Comedian Harmonists is both…
Kandia Kouyate Kita Kan (Sterns) “Oh dear love, please forgive me: Ten cola nuts turn a woman into a slave.” Having a pretty healthy ego, I’m convinced that my dowry in Mali would be worth at least eleven caffeine-stimulating cola nuts. Surely West African ngara (master singer) Kandia Kouyate, who…
The party people at Bash (655 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, 305-538-2274) are busy this week putting on a couple of specials that include catwalks, live Cuban music (yes, Miami, a Cuban band), an Internet simulcast, and a Dolphin. On Thursday Ocean Drive magazine hosts a fashion show featuring Body Map…
I am the creator and this is my house, and in my house there is only house music. But I am not so selfish, because once you enter my house it then becomes our house and our house music…. You may be black, you may be white, you may be…
1. DJ Spen — “Disco Dreams” “I still love Sister Sledge, but I’m not a disco ‘head.’ There are a lot of terrible camp songs from that era to avoid. But I love where disco evolved to in the early ’80s, and this song really captures that feel.” 2. Beaumotplage…
After almost 50 years in the spotlight, Mose Allison remains a pianist, singer, and songwriter with a dilemma. It seems the blues roots of the Tippo, Mississippi, native clash with his current jazz identification, creating something of a categorization crisis. Although Gimcracks and Gewgaws, Allison’s most recent release, beautifully exhibits…
“We are not underground or commercial: We are hip-hop.” So write the Arsonists in the liner notes to their full-length debut LP, As the World Burns. If that statement of purpose isn’t clear enough, this Brooklyn-based, five-man crew breaks down its shtick even more clearly on the track “Underground Vandal,”…
Besides the irresistible dance-floor groove of Haitian compas, another musical style that combined seemingly disparate elements such as vodou rhythms and rock guitar emerged in the ’80s as rasin (roots music). Popularized by groups like Boukman Eksperyans, Samba Yo, and later by Boukan Guinen, rasin’s lyrics addressed a wide range…
Live music may be limping ’round these parts, but at least local musicians look out for their own in times of trouble. At old rock and roll suturer Churchill’s Hideaway (5501 NE 2nd Ave., 305-757-1807) this Saturday, area bands stage the first of two benefit shows (the second is at…
The altrock movement of the early ’90s came as a welcome antidote to the slick sheen of popular music that had dominated the radio airwaves in the previous decade. After a long absence from mainstream exposure, progressive sounds began to receive the recognition and respect they had lacked for so…
In Kool Keith Thornton’s world, the traditional rap skit often takes a turn toward the disturbing, but not via hoochie-mama sex scenes or gangsta violence (to which rap fans, of course, have become accustomed and inured). No, Keith’s raps involve dramatic elements such as a quiet scene in which he…
