There probably was no musician more beloved than Louis Armstrong. Pops’s broadly smiling mug, trademark forehead-hanky-swipe, and most of all, inimitable honeyed grits and gravel vocals and higher- than-high-C cornet blasts were known anywhere in the world a phonograph could be cranked or a movie reel unfurled. Satchmo’s legacy is…
Well, well, well — it’s finally happening! Is that a huge conga I see in the horizon? The murmur of a Latin jazz scene? Perhaps it’s too soon to celebrate, but Miami is off to an auspicious beginning. In the past two months some of Latin jazz’s most gifted children…
Sometimes the years of practice and perseverance, the putting up with crap from club owners and slacker sidemen, all come down to one defining moment: being in the right place at the right time. And baby, when that time comes, you better have the goods. Guitarslinger Sue Foley did. In…
The economy, the environment, the guitar. Leaders are called to summit meetings to exchange ideas on the highest level. Of course the economy still sucks and the planet’s still dying rapidly. The Guitar Summit is the only one free from political flabberjabber, the only one that actually provides something worth…
Curve Cuckoo (Charisma/EMI) By J.C. Herz From the first howl of guitars screaming for mercy, this album is nothing less than industrial orgy music. Techno-guru/Nine Inch Nails producer Flood has whipped Curve’s lethal melodic hooks into a cavernous production and filled it with Toni Halliday’s murderously sexy ice-pick of a…
After graduating Killian High School in Southwest Dade, Marc Gay, like most college freshmen, was a bit nervous about what his future might hold. Four years later, the jitters have been replaced by a feeling captured in a rock song from a few years back A his future’s so bright…
Glee. Pure glee. That’s what shone in the eyes of legendary vibe man Lionel Hampton the other night at Sunrise Musical Theatre. Hamp played when he was supposed to. Hamp played when he wasn’t supposed to (notably, when host Thelonious Monk, Jr., was bullshitting between songs, and later when he…
The Top Ten By Greg Baker Not a sound is heard from the music industry that isn’t calculated. Artists are not signed, records are not released, videos are not made — unless the suits are certain a promising marketing strategy is in place and that much money can be made…
The Beat Poets Neon Fire (Beat Poets, Inc.) William Burroughs would be proud of Dennis Britt and company’s latest effort. The songs on Neon Fire are a crazy salad of eerie, apocalyptic visions, psychedelic dreams, and jaundiced commentary. Britt probably emerged from the cradle looking dissipated and sounding world-weary. Neon…
By now it’s hard to imagine that there are any American men, women, or children who don’t know what an orgasm sounds like. Long a staple of rock and roll (think Plant’s string of carnal diphthongs in “Whole Lotta Love”), the injection of sex into popular music climaxed in the…
For some bands, it’s just not enough any more to play the local scene in an effort to draw the attention of the record industry. A strategy for success often includes a road trip or two in order to gain exposure beyond the state line. Before Marilyn Manson got signed,…
The flyers were saying “Potato,” while we, of course, were saying “Patato” and wondering if there was more to this mistake than a typo. Do these people know who Patato is? Those who have had a dose of Latin jazz in the last 30 years know there is only one…
Roy Rogers Slide of Hand (Liberty) By Bob Weinberg When am I gonna learn? Roy Rogers puts out a new album and I get all excited. Maybe it’s because I remember how Roy scorched the earth at the Riverwalk Blues Fest, or parched the pavement on Flagler during Sunfest, slinging…
Kenny Millions is wailing. Rather, his tenor sax is wailing. Legs akimbo, rocking slightly as if on an invisible canoe, the straw-haired, bespectacled saxman blows some furious riffs, weaving in and out of the basslines Dave Wertman pulls from his upright acoustic. Abbey Rader’s hands blur over his drum kit…
When I left the dry comfort of my happy home and ventured into the rain for a special midnight sale of Prince’s The Hits, my intention was simple enough — to find, buy, and review the 56-track retrospective of pop’s premier chameleon. But fate has a funny way of kicking…
One of my most vivid and fondest Washington Square memories is a Genitorturers show, Halloween 1992. I witnessed most of the piercing, poking, and stroking with a mixture of curiosity and revulsion, which peaked during the segment where the bisexual dominatrixes groped each other while urinating on the young male…
There aren’t too many things that have not happened within the hallowed walls of Washington Square. Here’s one: lobster parties. This past Wednesday night South Beach was invaded by zombies. Everybody who rocks was walking around in a daze, stunned as if they’d just run full-speed into a brick wall…
There’s nothing in the fridge but beers so you wipe the sleep away and go to get some breakfast at two o’clock on a stormy Miami afternoon. You order a hamburger minus pickles at the Burger King drive-thru, park over by the Winn-Dixie. You unwrap the burger to discover the…
It’s the last Saturday in August and certifiable legend and trumpet virtuoso Ira Sullivan is on stage, all flying fingers and lubed up lips. Outside of this club, you hear it over and over: There’s no great jazz room in Miami. On 71st Street, across from the fountain in Normandy…
“You would cry, too/If it happened to you” — from “It’s My Party,” by Lesley Gore I felt like apologizing for what I said before I finished the sentence: “What these rock bands are doing here in Miami,” I was saying on the phone, “isn’t it just a drop in…
One must always temper one’s hunger for knowledge with respect for the risk involved. To learn one must risk getting burned. The trouble began three years ago when mail that was strange even for newspaper post-office boxes began piling up: letters plastered with cryptic misspellings, patches of print-media clippings, colorful…
The story behind this sound begins in late sixteenth-century Cuba, way back when the air was thick and wet and the verdant green reached for sky. Spaniards had arrived years before, establishing a colonial system, decimating the Siboney and Taino Indian populations. That left the invaders short on the labor…
