It’s almost ten o’clock on a Saturday night, and 77-year-old Emilio Mario Valdez is planted firmly in front of the stage at Churchill’s Hideaway, waiting for the set by I Don’t Know to begin at the rough-and-tumble, turn-it-up-full-blast rock dive in Little Haiti. Watching intently as the first band of…
Compile a list of the best Latin jazz piano players and the obvious will appear: Eddie Palmieri, Papo Luca, Hilton Ruiz, Oscar Hernandez, Michel Camilo, Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Not as obvious, but right up there: Paquito Hechavarria. Any musician or jazz fan who has lived in or passed through Miami during…
They induced the best national acts to play in a small barroom, and now they’re shutting down. Blame the owners. Blame South Beach. Blame yourself.
Kirsty MacColl Galore (I.R.S.) Kirsty MacColl’s clear, breathy voice; knack for effortless hooks; and (occasional) biting wordplay have made her a star in her English homeland since the early Eighties, when she recorded her bouncy, rollicking “There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis.” Here, however, she…
Skip James was a liar. He was also a thief, a drunkard, a pimp, a womanizer, a misanthrope, and a murderer. Oh, and one thing more: a brilliant blues artist. That pretty much sums up Stephen Calt’s I’d Rather Be the Devil A Skip James and the Blues, an insightful…
The spectral presence of a seemingly ordinary piano emitting music without the aid of human fingers has become, if not common, not especially alarming. Barely an eyebrow is raised when they’re sighted boisterously playing show tunes in hotel bars, or providing promenade music from a platform in the center of…
About seven and a half minutes into the ten-minute “Mother,” the final piece on the Balanescu Quartet’s 1994 CD Luminitza, violinist Alexander Balanescu almost inaudibly murmurs the word mother several times under the sound of the quartet’s gently cradling strings. His voice provides a peaceful catharsis, both child and man…
Marianne Flemming III Chords & a Bridge (Mermaid Records) Despite the album’s title, Marianne Flemming’s acoustic-guitar driven music, at its best, surpasses the usual rock and roll formula. At the deep end it can touch and chill you, as on the beautiful “Out to Sea”; at the other side of…
Funny, they don’t look like brothers. Self-described “South Carolina redneck” guitarist-vocalist Sean “Birdman” Gould stands a smidgen under six-foot-five in green Chuck Taylor hightops with red and yellow laces and the words Right and Left scrawled across their respective toes. A profusion of freckles dots his face and limbs. The…
Twelve years ago, during the all-star ARMS Concert (Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, et al.), a benefit for Faces bassist Ronnie Lane and others stricken with multiple sclerosis, a lone figure marched solemnly through the aisles of Madison Square Garden holding aloft a handmade sign. It read: “Plant and…
In the 1960s, Brazilian musician Tom Ze took part in founding the polemical popular culture movement tropicalismo, with a group of like-minded compatriots that included Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Gal Costa. But while his collaborators emerged from a period of political strife to achieve international fame, Ze, the story…
James Cotton’s voice has always been cottony. Whether pouring out his soul on a Jimmy Reed heartbreaker or wailing Wolflike, the bluesman sounds as if he has a mouthful of grits, a lungful of smoke, and a jones for some whiskey to wash it all down. Unfortunately, the years haven’t…
Little Axe The Wolf That House Built (Okeh/Epic) Shimmering synths…blues masters mumbling…annoyingly Steve Millerish riffs. Depending on the quality of your chiba, this curious little record is either an intriguing fusion of traditional blues and industrial ambiance, or a nauseating corruption of Howlin’ Wolf and his ilk. (Warning: Please don’t…
“The Bee Gees were possibly the greatest pop songwriters of all time.” If Dennis Davison intends ironic effect, he doesn’t betray it in his voice. Speaking over the phone from Los Angeles, the singer-songwriter-guitarist for that city’s pop-psychedelic band the Jigsaw Seen sounds serious. No, earnest. “I obviously prefer their…
Our intrepid solo act leaves Mr. Microphone for the major leagues By Jim Murphy A couple of months ago I wrote a piece for these pages about my then-soon-to-be budding career as a singer-songwriter. Predictions of musical greatness and visions of grandeur were based upon a highly successful debut appearance…
The Goods Mint (independent CD) One more time I’ll offer my humble and honest impression of a band I’ve raved about for years. The title is a chewy triple-entendre: as in to make, or mint, an album; as in this thing should make a mint for the lucky record label…
Apart from the obvious tools of the trade — cables, guitar picks, a really good head of hair — musicians often require something more likely associated with downtown businessmen. An organizer, the kind that lets you keep track of your schedule and store important notes, can be critical to the…
This is a story about Jolynn Daniel. I repeat: Jolynn Daniel. It is not about Mary Karlzen. I repeat: not about Mary Karlzen. Some confusion is inevitable. Daniel has been more or less operating in Karlzen’s shadow ever since Daniel fled Des Moines, Iowa, less than a year ago with…
“Whoever is famous at the moment is who I’m compared to,” says Ani DiFranco, clearing her throat early one morning after spending most of the previous night driving from Toronto to New York City. “I’d like to compile these articles where they say I have a style like Joni Mitchell,…
Johnny Cash came to town the other night and killed a myth, perhaps just to watch it die. Johnny Cash is not seven feet tall. His music (not to mention the Man in Black image) always has made him seem so imposing, the way he takes simple rhythms and melodies…
Duke Robillard Temptation (Virgin/Pointblank) If you rushed out some years ago to pick up Robbie Robertson’s first solo album expecting it to sound somewhat like the Band, you were probably mighty disappointed. That is, until you listened to it a few more times, shrugged off your preconceptions, and dug it…
Like a neon sign flickering FREE BEER-LOOSE WOMEN, there’s something about the sound of the baritone sax that announces a party in progress. Conjuring up images of Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner, and other kings of good-time swing, the bari sax provides the bottom for the soaring brass section, squonking…
