The Wayne Shorter Quartet is widely regarded as the greatest improvisational jazz group on the planet right now, and it’s fair to say that history will bump that status up
Late last month the trifecta of Old Crow Medicine Show, Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros embarked on the six-date Railroad Revival Tour across the American
It’s hard to imagine a more tenacious band than Def Leppard. Whatever the world may throw at them – drummer Rick Allen losing his arm in a 1984 car accident;
The beauty of live performances is you take everything as it comes. If an artist flubs a line, misses a chord or hits the wrong key vocally, there’s no going back. A lot of “live” albums, however, fall short because they use a number of production tricks to cover over mistakes, or to make the audience sound louder than they really are, so they end up sounding disingenuous and in a way are a waste of time. Brandi Carlile’s new live album, thankfully, does not use these tricks and the performances are pretty damn great as a result.
Influenced by artists such as The Black Crowes, Tom Petty, Band of Horses and Arcade Fire, The Northstar Session develops their style based on the musical characteristics of old rock and roll bands and contemporary artists. Although they have plenty of original material, they will sometimes break into a cover song.
If you’ve ever seen and heard Warren Haynes perform Otis Redding and Delbert McClinton covers, you know he has more than a passing interest in both soul and rhythm and blues. But the passion in this man’s singing on “Save Me,” the final cut on Man in Motion, borders on desperation: arguably the most confessional vocal he’s ever done, this single performance alone is enough to redeem the inconsistencies that otherwise afflict the exercise in style that constitute his second solo album.
The classical and Deadhead worlds met head on last night at the Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael, CA where Grateful Dead/Furthur guitarist Bob Weir teamed up with the
While technically Bob Dylan doesn’t turn 70 until May 24, it’s my turn in the Mix Tape rotation, so I thought I’d use this opportunity to do a little early
Max Creek @ Sullivan Hall, April 29
Max Creek’s wearing 40 well. Or, to put it another way: you’re not regularly seeing shows by 40-year-old bands that were as effortlessly enjoyable and musically nourishing as the band’s two set monster at Sullivan Hall – the middle show in a three-night anniversary swing through Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island – and that don’t feel like canned revues coasting on nostalgia.
[All videos by NYCJamGal]
Max Creek is a curious institution. It never hit the big time or got much close to it, but it was a jamband before jambands were jambands: established long before Phish, Panic and the generations of improvisational rock acts since then, and really, a near-contemporary of both the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band, though with the tiniest fraction of the fame. It pulled back on touring just as the late ’80s/early ’90s jam seeds were sewn and the scene mushroomed, morphed and moved into the popular, yet fractured state it’s in now. But Creek still has particular renown, especially in New England, and its tri-state fans were out in force at Sullivan Hall.
Bassist John Rider is technically the lone original member, but guitarist Scott Murawski and keyboardist Mark Mercier have been around almost as long, and the band’s drum chair is now occupied by one- and two-man configurations of its various drummers since the mid ’80s: Scott Allshouse, Greg Vasso and Greg DeGuglielmo. Bands with such long-established chemistry are sometimes hindered by that comfort, and Max Creek, too, can sound workmanlike. But shit, can they still motor when they’re feeling good. It’s a well-stocked repertoire of originals and covers both well-worn and less-remembered, so often opened up with jam segments that are hearty, brilliant and powerfully expressive.
READ ON for more on Max Creek @ Sullivan Hall…
Last weekend I was in Washington D.C. visiting some friends and staying in Dupont Circle area of town. On Sunday morning I did something I hadn’t done in almost 10 years – visit the Dupont Circle Farmer’s Market.
If you love farmer’s markets and happen to be in Washington DC on a Sunday, you owe it to yourself to go. Here is what their website has to say about the market:
The Dupont Circle FRESHFARM Market is located in the heart of one of Washington, DC’s most vibrant and diverse neighborhoods. Washingtonian magazine credits the market with “teaching Washingtonians to love their fruits and vegetables.” The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times of London also named the market one of the top farmers’ markets in the country. During the peak season, there are more than 40 farmers offering fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit pies, breads, fresh pasta, cut flowers, potted plants, soaps and herbal products.
The market is open 8:30AM to 1:00PM April through December. Per their website, the market is located at 20th St. NW between Massachusetts Ave. and Connecticut Ave. Click here for map. I got there early.
READ ON for the pictures I took that day…
