As you’ve probably read, the streaming service we used for Friday Mix Tape – Lala – will close on May 31 after the company was purchased by Apple. Current Lala
If you’ve caught Tea Leaf Green over the last six months, you’ve probably heard a number of the tracks that will make up the group’s new album, Looking West, which
Wayne Shorter Quartet – Philadelphia Museum of Art – April 23, 2010
Going to see the Wayne Shorter Quartet premiere a new commissioned piece penned by the legendary saxophonist is an odd occurrence. Certainly he is recognized as the greatest living jazz composer, but in fact his band, now celebrating its tenth year (a tenure largely unheard of in the jazz world) has long since moved beyond the concept of songs per se, addressing most performances instead with an organic, suite based approached that has more to do with spontaneous composition than written music, with the closest listening than the defined roles of piano, drums, bass and sax.
As an ensemble, Shorter, Danilo Perez, Brian Blade and John Patitucci are the world’s premier improvisers, delicate and dynamic, ethereal and explosive all at once. Two years ago Shorter wrote a piece for the Imani Winds, and their performances featuring the sax player held tightly to the written form; but to see the Quartet handle a new composition on their own more than piqued my curiosity and sent me running to the Philadelphia Museum of Art three hours before show time.
The commission for the Philadelphia Music Project, entitled Lotus, was a response to the museum’s varied collection and was to be unveiled as part of the free Live at 5 series, a bit surprising considering the world class talent involved and the small space that is used for these events, nestled at the foot of the museum’s main staircase. An hour and a half before the show began, the stairs and gallery above were packed with people, and by gig time, it was a hectic scene with a few thousand people crowded into the institutions first floor.
READ ON for more from Dan on the Wayne Shorter Quartet…
Tickets for psych-pop act MGMT’s Radio City Music Hall debut – set for August 17 – went onsale this morning and although tickets for that show are still available, a
Earlier this week the world’s greatest bar band The Hold Steady released their fifth studio album, Heaven Is Whenever, their first without long time keyboardist and mustache enthusiast Franz Nicolay.
The Sundance original series Iconoclasts shows what happens when you bring two celebrities from completely different disciplines together to pick each other’s brain and sometimes, just hang. One of the
Just waiting to absorb Corinne Bailey Rae’s presence in the moments leading up to her sold out show in Philly felt magnificently eternal. Once Corinne, dressed in a hip black jumpsuit wearing ballerina slippers, accompanied her awesome five-piece band on stage, the audience erupted in excitement. It was great to see her smiling ear to ear as she slung her electric guitar around her neck, pushing back her hair and diving into the opening chords to her ever moving song “Are You Here.” Beginning without the accompaniment of her band, you could feel the emotion in the opening lyrics to the song, “He’s a real live wire/ He’s the best of his kind/ Wait till you see those eyes.”
This record, on its surface, may sound like another '80s throwback, synthesizer-spiced space jam, but Minus the Bear's equation comes off more measured than, say, the last great album from Seattle peersModest Mouse. While OMNI's title might imply MtB's desire to be everything to everyone, there's no posturing, no faking it from these composers
Back on April 24th, Umphrey’s McGee brought the worlds of music and sports closer together at the inaugural UMBowl at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. The Chicago-based sextet treated the crowd at the intimate venue to four separate “quarters” each with a different theme. I was in attendance and want to share 10 memorable moments from UMBowl for this week’s B List…
10. Dub Wife Soup
Q3 was all request. Well, all request, but the options were limited to a drop-down list of selections chosen by the band. But the options were quite good and the picks that got the most votes were for the most part the most deserving. Wife Soup has been in the repertoire since 2003 and has gone through a number of changes over the past couple of years. Most of the time the band has been ditching the tune’s originally jazzy intro and instead starting with the opening guitar licks. The song is often left unfinished in recent plays leading to free-form improvisation at the tail end where the second chorus would normally go. Another variation is at times they sing the a capella “album ending.”
At UMBowl not only did they perform a brand new “dub” version, but it was also nicely jammed out AND included the album ending. The casual UM fan maybe wouldn’t realize that the album ending was played, but those that would notice something like that were surely in attendance or at least paid to watch along on iClips.
[All photos by Tammy Wetzel except where noted]
READ ON for nine more memorable UMBowl moments…
“Behold the turtle; he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.”
In releasing their latest full length, Palomino, Duluth’s Trampled By Turtles have not only progressed as a band – complementing their breakneck dexterity with heeding subtlety – but they’ve become integral in the redefinition of the modern string band. Together with peers like the Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show and Split Lip Rayfield, TxT have joined the seminal ranks of acoustic musicians currently leading the seismic (ok, maybe “bookshelf rattling”) shift in bluegrass music.
While the purists may well prefer singing from a hymnal, focusing intently on technique, and dressing like Abe Frohman, Trampled By Turtles infuse elements of indie rock, punk and folk music while maneuvering their heartfelt, earnest songs without losing sight of the most important thing; picking like wild banshees. In effect, they feel like a bluegrass band, yet with an uncanny ability to maintain the average attention span far beyond an opening banjo run.
Back to chat for the second time in the about six months, frontman Dave Simonett took the time to share his thoughts on the new album and sticking their turtle necks out.
Hidden Track: Let’s get rolling with a question about Palomino. So, most reviews I’ve read so far seem to really dig the album, but I found it a bit odd that most focus on the blazing speed and being shredders and all that. I actually thought right away that Palomino was heavier on the folksy side and almost a departure from the speed. I mean there are certainly some burners in there like Wait So Long, Help You and so on, but did you make a conscious effort to make this one focus a bit more on the lyrics and the melodies by including more delicate material?
Dave Simonett: There wasn’t really a conscious focus on faster or slower songs. I always focus on lyrics and melody in either fast or slow, actually. This group of songs put together is what made the album; the speed of each was just coincidental. Sometimes what I try to express needs a little more energy and aggressiveness and sometimes I try for a mellower approach, depending on the mood I’m trying to convey.
READ ON for more of Ryan’s chat with Dave Simonett…
