While I may love jazz when it’s dark and moody, and find that it gets darker and moodier when you have fewer people playing it at the same time, solo piano collections have ironically never really grabbed me. But by adding some sound effects here are there, sometimes to great effect, Jon Balke’s Warp (CD, digital) has, for the most part, caught my attention. It didn’t keep it the whole time, but it certainly caught it.
When I first saw that the Anat Fort Trio’s new album Birdwatching (CD, digital) featured alto clarinetist Gianluigi Trovesi alongside double bassist Gary Wang, drummer Roland Schneider, and Fort on piano, my first thought was that it would probably sound like the wonderfully evocative albums Currents and Post Scriptum by the similarly configured Wolfert Brederode Quartet. And while it does at times, the overall tone of Birdwatching actually sets this album apart.
In my career, I’ve interviewed a lot of interesting musicians and actors. But since many of the magazines and websites that originally published those stories aren’t around anymore, I’ve decided to pull some of the more interesting interviews out of my archive.
The following interview with Marilyn Manson took place in August of 1996 at a house he had rented in New Orleans while recording Antichrist Superstar. Parts of the interview were used in a piece about him I wrote for the music magazine huH.
Ever since I got into music in the late-’70s, I’ve been a big fan of live albums. But I’m also very particular when it comes to them; I only like them if they’re organic, cruelty free, and soundboard-to-stereo. In other words, they have to be from a single show, be the whole show, not be “fixed” in the studio, and be professionally recorded by the band, from the soundboard, or broadcast on the radio or the Internet. If they’re two or three shows mixed together, missing songs, feature overdubbed guitar parts and vocals, or recorded by some guy who snuck a tape recorder in by stuffing it down his pants — a guy I’ve been — then I don’t care.
But while I may be super picky about what live albums I’ll put in my speakers, there are actually quite a few great ones that meet the criteria. They’re just not always the most readily available.
Here’s fifteen great sounding, mostly uncut, single show live albums you might’ve missed.
While he’s considered one of the better jazz piano players around these days, Matthew Shipp is mostly thought of as being one of the best free jazz musicians in New York City’s avant-garde scene. But on The Conduct Of Jazz (CD, digital), he pulls back a bit for a more conventional but still edgy-adjacent collection.
In July of 1962, saxophonist Sonny Rollins was joined by cornetist Don Cherry, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Billy Higgins for a four night stand at New York City’s Village Gate.
But while this quartet performed twenty songs during this engagement, only three were ever released (on Sonny’s album Our Man In Jazz), and even then, one of them was heavily edited.
Thankfully, the complete four night stint has now been released as a six-CD boxed set titled Complete Live At The Village Gate 1962. But while the music is great, the way it’s presented in this collection might irritate some picky purists.
In my career, I’ve interviewed a lot of interesting musicians. But since many of the magazines and websites that originally published those stories aren’t around anymore, I’ve decided to pull some of these lost interviews out of my archive.
The following interview with Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson took place in July of 1996, at his home outside Toronto, when the band were gearing up to release their album Test For Echo. Parts of this interview were used in a piece I did on him for the music magazine Huh.
(You can also read my interview with Rush’s Geddy Lee, which was done for the same article, here.)
In my career, I’ve interviewed a lot of interesting musicians and actors. But since many of the magazines and websites that originally published those stories aren’t around anymore, I’ve decided to pull some of the more interesting interviews out of my archive.
The following interview with Rush bassist, keyboardist, and singer Geddy Lee took place in July of 1996, at the offices of his manager when the band were gearing up to release their album Test For Echo. Parts of this interview were used in a piece I did on him for the music magazine Huh.
(I also did an interview with Rush’s Alex Lifeson for the same story, which you can read here.)
Since launching in 2011’s with Live In Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1, the Miles Davis Bootleg series has presented largely unheard (save for among hardcore collectors) and mostly complete live shows from some of the iconic jazz trumpeter’s best groups.
But now, with Miles Davis At Newport 1955-1975 The Bootleg Series Vol 4 (CD, digital), this series is switches gears, and instead of being dedicated to a single band, this has Miles playing eight shows with seven different groups over eight different years of the titular festival.