When Brazilian bossa nova invaded the United States in the Sixties, the legacy was immediate and enduring: Kenny Dorham, Herbie Mann, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, and other American jazzers sunk their choppers into the likes of “Corcovado,” “Desafinado,” “Meditation,” and “One Night Samba” and concocted their own tunes…
In The Dirty South producer and director Wills Felin follows four strippers and a host of hip-hoppers on a musical-sexual romp around three infamous cities: Daytona Beach, Atlanta, and Miami. Against a backdrop of blue sky and blue water, blazing sun and blazing weed, bikini-clad booties jiggle to the boomin’…
When a teenage girl in the remote Chilean town of Antofagasta heard Ricardo Montaner for the first time, she could hardly believe the voice on the radio came from so far away. The lyrics about love that could “submerge her in altitudes” and discover within her “a heart naked to…
Like a bad habit, long-time local promoter Tom Bowker is back on the scene with a show featuring his favorite virus, Antiseen. In true South Florida do-it-yourself fashion, Bowker is flying his own personal “punk-rock gods” down from the Carolinas as a 30th birthday present to himself. It is bad…
If Bob Marley had not left us for Zion on that May day back in 1981, he would have turned 56 years old this month. And as with Elvis, Jim Morrison, and my late hamster Lucky, I sometimes fantasize about what the world would look like if Bob Marley were…
Goodfellas gangster Paulie coined the phrase, but at the MIDEM-Cannes conference, which took place last month, Talal G. Shamoon, senior vice president of media for Intertrust USA, used the movie mobster’s strong words to describe the current state of the music download biz. “2001 will really be the year where…
You can’t miss the royal overtones to Istanbul Oriental Ensemble’s Caravanserai. As unmistakable as a peacock’s tail, this eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music sprang from a repertoire designed to flatter, pamper, and bathe the spoiled personage of the sultan in sensual delight. The luxurious, highly ornamented mixture of hand drums, kanun…
Call it roots rock, altcountry, or simply Americana; applied to a particular breed of today’s singer-songwriters and cutting-edge combos, those labels describe a freewheeling form of American music. In its purest sense, it’s a synthesis of styles, one that retains the exhilaration of rock and roll, combined with the soulful…
A few dollars goes a long way at the parade in Liberty City on Martin Luther King Day. At the intersection of NW 62nd Street and 32nd Avenue, torn-off cardboard signs direct traffic to crisp thirsty lawns where you can park for three to seven dollars. For another couple of…
The most adventurous production out of Cuba of late is a revisionist take on the venerable rumba. At the MIDEM conference in Cannes last month, producer Cary Diez of the Havana label BIS Music previewed La Rumba Soy Yo, a fifteen-track musical thrill. With fresh and often far-reaching arrangements that…
Whew! Florida musicians are pumping out product faster than New Times techs can take ’em for test runs. Blame it on the rock-bottom prices on CD burners — even small pets and stuffed animals can record an album nowadays. Here’s the latest assortment to come through our transom, compiled for…
I’ve worked with the Jordanaires and D.J. Fontana,” says Elvis Presley, naming his long-time back-up vocalists and drummer. Throwing his head back and curling his lip in the lobby of Fort Lauderdale’s Sunrise Musical Theatre on January 21, he adds, “I’ve even worked for Elvis Presley Enterprises.” All this may…
Big Youth may not have been the first of the great Jamaican DJs, but he was the second. U-Roy preceded him, virtually inventing what then was called toasting by improvising rants, brags, and poetry atop the instrumental B-side of reggae 45s at Kingston dance halls where records provided sole entertainment…
“Have I been tarred with the brush of Dylan, Beck, and Harmony Korine, who all used down-home imagery ironically to amuse sophisticated urban audiences? Am I a craven and opportunistic rootless charlatan posturing when it suits me, as a Scot?” These musings come courtesy of Nick Currie, a.k.a. nutty old…
It seemed as if December 10, 2000, would be known as the day the music drowned. Undeterred by the sheets of rain that flooded the streets in Miami-Dade County, Ellen Bukstel Segal was preparing to host a little musical get-together. A graphic designer and the vocalist for the folk band…
Over the electronic din on Washington Avenue after midnight, amid barking club promoters and sprinting valets with lips kissing walkie-talkies, the incongruous sound of live music escapes through heavy curtains hung from an open door. On the other side is Bolero, a 21st -century supper club graced with perfect lighting…
I have too much time on my hands. I daydream of assembling tribute bands for the truly deranged. I’d like to make one for AC/DC comprising octogenarian housewives, because only they could reproduce Brian Johnson’s vocals and Angus’s movements with anything approaching accuracy. I used to want to make folk…
Everclear’s Art Alexakis can’t seem to make up his mind about who he wants to be. He writes lyrics that reveal his desire to be recognized as a moody anti-capitalism type with a big grungy chip on his shoulder. To accompany these wannabe anthems for Generation X (or is it…
University of Miami film student Scott Alboum ventured into Liberty City to look at life through the eyes of former UM cornerback Nathaniel Brooks. In Alboum’s 30-minute documentary, Black with No Excuses, the camera pans the trash-lined streets of the James E. Scott Homes, where the football player grew up…
“Nicole, Nicole! It’s me,” exclaimed a woman outside Level, trying to get the attention of one of the keepers of the door late last New Year’s Day. Clad in a green sweater and a green-and-yellow-stripe knit cap, Nicole surveyed the more than 1500 fans trying to get into the first…
R.L. Burnside Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down Fat Possum Back in the late Sixties, Marshall Chess, the son of Chess Records co-founder Leonard Chess, made some of the most jive-ass albums in the blues lexicon. The young Marshall paired the label’s greatest artists, among them Muddy Waters, Howlin’…
Hi. It’s Keith Sweat. Remember me? Didn’t think so. Well, just to help you out, track number one on my new CD, Didn’t See Me Coming, is a little reminder of all my hits over the past ten years. I know, I know, a little self-indulgent. Okay, maybe a little…
