Track Reviews: Medeski Martin and Wood, John Ellis, JFJO, and more

OK, well besides having a nice long title, this post will be some reviews of seperate tracks I recently purchased.

First off will be John Ellis and Double Wide's "Dream Mosh" from Dance Like There's No Tomorrow

This track has some great haunting melody and harmonies that for some reason remind me a bit of Weather Report. Right at the beginning there's a evil riff over a heavy beat, then when Ellis comes in on sax, the whole thing reverts to the main groove, the drummer taking over a quiet but driving and fast beat. Matt Perine's sousaphone takes over the bassline which fits very nicely with the haunting in/out chords on organ played by Gary Versace. Overall, it's great instrumentation and even better playing and writing.

"Uninvisible"- Medeski, Martin, and Wood Echo-y horns and ambient noise are taken over after 5 seconds by a synth bass bassline which soon after leads into the song, where Medeski immediatley takes the "melody" (if you can define one throughout the song). After a minute, we get intervention from some funky horn playing, then back to the organ solo. By the end of the song, all that's left is that ambient noise and the horns.

"I Wanna Ride You"- Medeski, Martin, and Wood After a bluesy keyboard solo (with just a hint of pitch bend at the end), we get into the groove which is unrelentingly funky. The whole song finds it's way back to the chorus every once in a while which is a great riff and the constantly descending bassline makes it all the funkier. In fact, this is like Jazz-Based Sampledelic Groove Funk without the samples.

And finally...

"Fables of Faubus" by Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. This is one of my favorite songs, and one of my favorite versions of the song. Living up to their usual antics, strangeness, and experimentation, JFJO sneaks it's way through the song. Expect half-time, hillbilly cartoon riffs, and what not.


Alritey then. Have a great day, and maybe I'll show up again later!

Everything jazz: September Issue

Welcome to the September 30, 2008 edition of everything jazz.

artists

Audrey Berger presents Bob Brozman Virtuoso Slide Guitarist Cracks In Sidewalks posted at Cracks In Sidewalks.

articles

Workoutebooks presents Joining a band / Is Lead or Solo Playing more fun? posted at Music and Band.

artists

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Night On The Town ? Judy Carmichael, Stride Pianist posted at Mad Kane's Humor Blog.

Audrey Berger presents Daily Tune On - Canadian Guitar Guru Lenny Breau posted at Cracks In Sidewalks.

Lovelyn presents Dexter Gordon “Night in Tunisia” posted at Stop and Hear the Music.

videos

Lovelyn presents The Christian McBride Band “The Wizard of Montara” posted at Stop and Hear the Music.

other

Ryan presents Select A State to find Local Band Links... posted at LocalBand Links, saying, "The simplest way to find the websites of your favorite local bands!... If you are a musical artist or local music band, send an e-mail to localbandlinks@gmail.com. In the e-mail simply state the following: Band or Artist Name, Genre of Music, Hometown City and State, and the MySpace website address or individual web address for your band's homepage. The information will be posted for FREE within 10 days with a clickable link to your site. Enjoy LocalBand Links!"

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Podcast Ep.2: Shaft Funk 1/4!

Guess what?

EPISODE 2 IS HERE! Check it out at http://survivalofthecool.podomatic.com/

Sorry no embed, but I have important things to talk about here.....

OMG MY EQUIPMENT IS BREAKING AND I NEED HELP FOR THE PODCAST TO CONTINUE. Just read:

Now, worst case scenario, I have enough imported material to do another 3 shows or so, if you don't mind hearing stuff from the same albums. And then maybe next spring the show could restart, but I really don't want to wait that long.

Jazz musicians don't have money (lol!) so I don't expect you guys to pay me anything, but here are some easy AND FREE (or almost) ways to help:

Sign up for a free SHOCKWAVE.com UNLIMITED trial:
Shockwave.com™ UNLIMITED - Try it Free for 10 days!

If 4-5 people do this, then we're set, awesome, move on.

If not that, then buy our iTunes SOTC AVJP iMixes! However, this'll take 100 people to download before we earn enough. But if you must, here it is: SOTC AVJP Help Mix!

And if you ARE loaded with cash, then you can donate via PayPal:

Rants: The State of Jazz

Here's a rant about anything and everything.

First of all, this McDonalds ad:



"Now we don't have to listen to jazz anymore!"

Not only is that insulting, but it shows just what kind of a state jazz is in the public mind. I once heard bassist Moppa Elliot talking about what he calls the "Starbucks Effect", which is that when people hear Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, those cats, the first thing that comes to mind is "Oh, that's great background music!" I'd love starbucks to sell A Love Supreme, and people thinking "Hey he's great!" will buy it and say, " WHAT IS THIS???!!!!"

Kenny Werner talked about it in his book Effortless Mastery (which is an amazing book). He said that at the beach, birds may be squeaking all out of key, and dogs barking out of time along side, and the waves behind this all, and people would say, "Hey! That's beautiful!". Yet when people do the same thing with instruments they call it garbage, because their brain is telling them, "This is supposed to be music!"

And in the midst of all this, good 'ol Alan Kurtz over at jazz.com is talking about whether jazz is more popular then democracy! (read the post here, http://jazz.com/jazz-blog/2008/9/24/is-jazz-more-popular-than-democracy , then comment away!)

Of course, Kurtz bases his results on Amazon.com "communities". I didn't even know such a thing existed. Tomorrow I begin my study on "Is jazz more popular than hip-hop with today's teens?" which will be based on the possible mail-in opinions of McDonalds Mailing List receivers.

My point exactly.

Just a little note, coming up on September 30th at 6:00 AM exactly, our first issue of Everything jazz will be up!

Also, I will get to make a compilation with ARR-ELL records for sale on AmieStreet.com so I'll post and review when it's up!

Stay tuned for randomness!

Bite-Sized Survival: Everything!

Following with the name "everything!" the first ever monthly edtion of Everything jazz. , our very own blog carnival, will be debuting on the 30th! Make sure you come back to see it.

I've been listening to SHAFT on vinyl, which I got at PREX for $10, and upcoming over the next 4 weeks will be a weekly 4-part series entitled Shaft Funk, in which i will play each side of the SHAFT record interspersed with other funky bits, so stay tuned to the SOTC ALL-VINYL JAZZ PODCAST! (check out the tag All-Vinyl Jazz Podcast for the first episode and more!)

Soon i'm going to be doing a little review of the following tracks which i just purchased: "Uninvisible" and "I Wanna Ride You" by Medeski, Martin, and Wood, "Move On Up" by Lettuce, "Dream Mosh" by John Ellis and Double Wide and "Fables of Faubus" by Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey.

Everybody download our toolbar! Go to the right and click on "Jazz Web Tools"!!!! Don't forget to also click on sponsor ads, it keeps me in business!!!!

We got our first spam comment, btw. Check it out at the "17th Princeton JazzFeast" post.

Have fun everybody!

17th Princeton JazzFeast

As always, the JazzFeast was amazing. The weather was great, the food was amazing, and the music was even better.

(and of course I stopped at the PREX table and bought "Right Now"-Charles Mingus and some Dial jam sessions with Charlie Parker and tons of other sax all-stars on vinyl. Then I went to the PREX store and got SHAFT on vinyl! Genius! Album reviews will be following!)

First on was Alan Dale and the New Legacy Jazz Band with Beth MacDonald. Dale added some rack/power toms to his set which I thought was a daring move, especially seeing as 60% of people attending for the jazz were traditionalists. But as always, the band swung like crazy. Today was the release date for a new Peggy Lee tribute CD of theirs so they did Fever and such. Dale was cracking jokes the whole time too.

Skipping down to Harry Allen, he appeared with Bill Easely who is absolutely phenomenal (coincidentally I was just reading about him in DownBeat). The whole set was great and Easely's solos were just insane.

Ed Polcer appeared with a usual gang of bandmates and they played some traditional stuff.

The Princeton University Jazztet was closing the show with usuals Allison Wood and the graduated Julia Brav. (Wood will be included in a sextet traveling to Sweden including Kevin Laskey on drums) They played tunes like In a Sentimental Mood and other standards.

All in all it was a great day, and I had an awesome time. Anybody else attend? Write what you thought in the comments!

Princeton JazzFeast Coverage- STAY TUNED!

Hello jazz-loving internet-users of the blogosphere!

Today I mark *ANOTHER* return to the blog (this is getting rediculous, no?) with coverage of the Princeton JazzFeast in Princeton, NJ. This great show is in Palmer Square and has seen acts like Kenny Werner and regulars Alan Dale and the New Legacy Jazz Band. It's my 4th year going and I always have a ton of fun.

The bands are as follows:

12-1:00pm: Alan Dale & the New Legacy Jazz Band
1:15-2:15pm: Daryl Sherman Group
2:30-3:30pm: Harry Allen Group
3:45-4:45pm: Ed Polcer Group
5:00-6:00pm: Princeton University Jazztet

I'll be there all day, and will post about the whole event afterwards with all sorts of goodies. So stay tuned!