News & Updates — prog

The Canadian electronic music pioneer and instrument-builder/inventor Bruce Haack has a birthday today. An inspired creative person, the man participated in a wide array of projects. Early on he played jazz & Ukrainian folk music, participated in authentic pow-wows, hosted a radio show and got into tape & electro-acoustic music in the '50s. He also worked as a pop songwriter for the Dot & Coral labels, as well as composed for dance & theater. He built several musical toys including synths, samplers, a vocoder and music-playing robots that could perform in concert. He made several high-concept children's records, recorded electronic...

Classically-trained keyboardist Bernie Worrell has his place established as a major innovator in the Funk with Parliament-Funkadelic, with whom he played from about 1970 into the early '80s, and contributing to projects of other members of the mob. He brought the Bach to the Funk. He spent the '80s as a member of the Talking Heads and beyond that found an incredible amount of creative work with superproducer Bill Laswell. In his later years he was a staple on the jamband scene with Les Claypool, Govt Mule and others. A musical prodigy from New Jersey, he was playing piano by...

The original hippy, the mystical eden ahbez wrote a tune called "Nature Boy" and by chance was able to hand it to Nat King Cole who turned it into a mega-hit in 1948. He looked like a hippy long before it was a thing and lived outdoors in Los Angeles. He lived under the "L" of the Hollywood sign and held a job as a piano player in a raw foods store. He was a vegetarian, straight edge and an anti-vaxer and wore a white robe. This lifestyle inspired "Nature Boy", and after the hit by Cole, ahbez became an...

In honor of the birthday of the great psych-funk guitarist Eddie Hazel, he of Funkadelic fame, here's a few assorted renditions of his signature emo-metal tune. It's astounding how many versions there are. While they are all pretty faithful, the range of different types of artists covering it is amazing. As such, I have included everyone from blues icon Buddy Guy to new age piano, famous rock stars to underground psych bands, alt-country to P-Funk related projects. You can decide for yourself which ones are worthy. This one, from the often boring French band AIR, possibly my fave cover of...

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...