Music Diary

I can hardly believe it has been nearly a year since I reviewed Vijay Iyer’s Historicity. I marked that recording high on my list of ‘best music of 2009’, so I was hotly anticipating his next release. I wasn’t alone in my praise – at his official site, the description calls it “one of the most acclaimed albums of the decade, Vijay Iyer’s debut on ACT Music is a trio album combining his searing originals with a surprising batch of covers.” As a result, the new release ‘Solo’ has gained plenty of attention already – but is it worth buying?…

In every medium, every genre, there are transitions from one period to the next, silent to ‘talkies’ to color films, baroque to classical to romantic in classical music, and so on. But seldom is there a singular musical even that forms such a clear demarcation in a genre as Miles Davis 1970 Bitches Brew does for Jazz music. As stated on the Miles-Beyond blog, everything in Jazz comes down to ‘before’ or ‘after’ Bitches Brew. It is interesting to look back and realize that in spite of being one of the clear stars of jazz from the 1940’s until his…

Over the last few months I have done short reviews on more than 30 CD’s in two articles here and here. As I mentioned before, the response has been amazing! I continue to get emails and more unsolicited (but always welcome) invites to listen to music. But I also have been called out as an elitist. Because I love jazz and modern classical music and tend to prefer rather esoteric styles in those genres, and because I have always had a fondness for highly skilled artists who polish their technical abilities to better serve their craft, I am often seen…

Image Courtesy TheLastMiles.com Recently I wrote a rather large article full of ‘quickie reviews’ for recent Jazz music releases – and the response I have gotten has been amazing! I have heard from musicians, jazz lovers, general music fans and folks who simply wanted to express appreciation that I was supporting the ‘indie’ movement even thought they had no interest in the music. Even as that article was published, I had a couple of new releases I was listening to, a couple new recordings that were about to release … and a couple that should have been in the article…

Herbie Hancock learned a lot from his time with Miles Davis, musically and also about being restlessly creative. After leaving Miles band before the earth-shaking Bitches Brew era, he headed off to release his own series of classics. He had already carved a great space in modal music with his Blue Note recordings Maiden Voyage and Speak Like a Child, but then went on to record Fat Albert Rotunda and the classic Headhunters which solidified him as an all-time great in pretty much every aspect of the music. He was there at the start of MTV with the techno-funk-hip-hop-dance song…

Photo from EyeShotJazz There was a time – before the internet, no less – when I really had my finger on the pulse of the jazz world. Some of it was location – I was less than an hour from Boston, Worcester, Providence RI and the Newport Jazz festival – but some of it was just knowing where to look for new information. As the years have passed by, I found that I have been relying on many of the same sources – radio, magazines, tracing through other artists discographies – but with decreasing success in finding new music outside…

Just over a month ago I wrote about the special launch-day deal Amazon.com was having on the MP3 version of Jeff Beck’s new Emotion & Commotion CD. Over the last six weeks I’ve kept the CD on my iPod in heavy rotation. Needless to say I have found something to like in the first studio release in seven years from the 65-year old legendary guitarist. At the same time, this is also my least favorite Jeff Beck release since his early 90’s rockabilly outing Crazy Legs. Let me give a bit of background and then dig into a song-by-song review….