Judging by past entries on this blog, one might assume that I’m no fan of Wynton Marsalis. Au contraire! I’ll be the first to rant against one of his many tenants with which I disagree, and his “fetishization of jazz icons”* coupled with a narrow view and ear of what constitutes jazz is bothersome, to [...]

I briefly discussed my frustration with social media here about eighteen months ago. I can’t remember what specifically moved me to write that, but I clearly recall being annoyed while I typed. (The heat didn’t help; I was living in Houston at the time.) Regardless of what was happening then, one things remains true: the [...]

This past Saturday I finally got to see Charles Lloyd (with his New Quartet) live at Ann Arbor’s Michigan Theater. These last five years or so I’ve become quite taken with Lloyd, and he’s perhaps my favorite living jazz saxophonist after Dave Liebman. (At least according to my wallet and library.) I blindly purchased 2001′s Hyperion [...]

I know I’ve mentioned Joni a number of times on this blog. And much like my personal arrival to her music, I was exposed to her via a variety of secondary sources before diving deep into her own catalogue. Be it a couple friends who are devotees, Miles Electric: Another Kind of Blue, James Taylor, Tom [...]

This is a real nice trip down memory lane for yours truly. I intended to post some Charles Lloyd this time week, but for whatever reason decided to a (more than) slight detour and opt for Zwan. Zwan was the first big post-Smashing Pumpkins musical foray for Billy Corgan, and arguably his most successful. 2005′s [...]