News & Updates — classic albums

Minutemen guitarist & vocalist D. Boon died in a van accident at the far too young age of 27, but is still considered a punk rock icon. The band gained respect as one of the best and most inventive, as well as politically aware (evident in D. Boon's lyrical contributions) bands of the '80s underground. They toured heavily and recorded for SST Records, as well as New Alliance (a label started by the band). Musically they brought jazz, punk, funk & country together into short song blasts ("jam econo") and included some covers (parodies?) of classic rock tunes. It all...

Here's a birthday shout-out to Sam "Lightnin" Hopkins, the influential blues great from Texas. He played both electric and acoustic guitars, but his first instrument was a home-made cigar-box "guitar" with chicken wire for strings. He was boogieing from the '20s (although didn't record until '46) until the '80s, mostly in Texas until 1960 when he played at Carnegie Hall for an integrated audience for the first time. (Pete Seeger and Joan Baez were also on the bill). In the period between he worked with his cousin Texas Alexander and even played with Blind Lemon Jefferson on at least one...

This entry into the series may well stand as one of the controversial ones, given not only some of the cheese that Les Baxter was involved with, but also for his role in the 1950's phenomenon of the white man's interpretation of "Jungle Drums", etc...as well as (unsubstantiated, and seemingly likely untrue when looking at it deeply) claims of compositional theft made by his understudies. But since it is my piece to write here, I am not going to flinch on calling myself a fan of Baxter's wacky arrangements, particularly in the field of "exotica" and exploito-film scores. Regardless of...

The Italian-Argentine immigrant Astor Piazzolla rose out of the NYC slums to become the world's most noted avant-tango composer, fusing the traditional with classical, jazz and (later) electronics. He was a standing-up master of the bandoneon, but could also play piano. He heard jazz while growing up in NYC, but still loved tango orchestras and studied classical. One of his heroes, the great tango bandleader Carlos Gardel, was impressed enough with Astor's chops that he asked the 13-yr old to join his orchestra for a tour but Piazzolla's father refused to allow it. Of course, it was that very tour...

Happy birthday to the harmolodic genius Ornette Coleman! His saxophone crying and unique compositional style were as groundbreaking on the avant-garde jazz front as John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor & Sunny Murray, Sun Ra and Albert Ayler were in that new freedom era that started in the late '50s and caused an avalanche of free-jazz in the '60s. In fact, it was Coleman's "double-quartet" album, Free Jazz -from '60, which gave name to a whole genre to follow. The musical revolutionary grew up poor in Fort Worth TX and learned to sight-read and started teaching himself alto sax at 14, right...