Echoes 18 We don’t celebrate our anniversaries well on Echoes. We did a decent job of our tenth, but didn’t really milk it for all it’s worth. And the 18th doesn’t quite have the import of the 10th or 20th. Going back into our past never seems quite as important as moving forward into the…
Category: Reviews & Commentary
Reviews & Commentary
Prince-Space Guitar God in Waiting
I’ve never been a big fan of Prince, although I’ve always respected his obvious genius, distinctive vision and even enjoyed a lot of his songs, especially in the 1999-Purple Rain zone. I realize that I probably miss the point of Prince entirely. For me, he was always a bit too much about image over music.…
Reviews & Commentary
Joe Zawinul Leaves the Planet: Weather Report founder dies.
Joe Zawinul has passed. The Viennese keyboard player wrote “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” for Cannonball Adderley, (later a hit for The Buckinghams) and was part of Miles Davis’s early fusion efforts including writing the title track to In a Silent Way and “Pharaoh’s Dance” on Bitches Brew. He’s best known, however, for founding Weather Report,…
Reviews & Commentary
Sheila Chandra Returns
It’s been a long time since Sheila Chandra graced us with new music. Her last proper album was This Sentence Is True (The Previous Sentence Is False) in 2001. Since then Chandra has been retiring in southwest England, singing only in an amateur choir, still nursing her voice after years of nagging throat problems. But…
Reviews & Commentary
Lone Rider: Shadowfax & G.E. Stinson’s Glitched Trajectory
Ever wonder what happened to Shadowfax? This instrumental band, named for Gandalf’s horse in the Lord of the Rings, started as a progressive rock group with leanings toward the acoustic chamber sound of Oregon in the 1970s. After Will Ackerman resurrected their careers on Windham Hill they became leading exponents for an evocative, melodic and…
Reviews & Commentary
A Beat Drops: Max Roach Passes
Max Roach: January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007 A true Titan of 20th century music, one of the principal architects of Be-Bop and a voice of liberation in the black community, Max Roach has passed. Roach wasn’t just a drummer, but a musical conceptualist. Whether orchestrating polyrhythmic equations behind Charlie Parker or tuning the…
Reviews & Commentary
NEARfest 2007-Lights Out: Magenta, Bob Drake
Even at a concert as well programmed as NEARfest, a few things aren’t going to work. LIGHTS OUT: MAGENTA, BOB DRAKE As much as I liked Izz, (see earlier NEARfest Blog) I truly disliked Magenta. Even though they are superficially similar – both playing a symphonic brand of prog – their approaches to presentation…
Reviews & Commentary
NEARfest 2007-The Midlights: Izz, Pure Reason Revolution, La Maschera di Cera, Hawkwind, Alan Holdsworth
NEARfest ended this past weekend. Here’s some more impressions from this Progressive Rock conclave. I talked about my over-the-top faves yesterday, but here’s some other bands that made an impression. They also provided some of the best variety and most tantalizing directions of the festival. But there was also the specter of bands who are…
Reviews & Commentary
NEARFEST 2007 Highlights: Magma, Indukti, NeBeLNeST and Secret Oyster
My hotel couldn’t get their internet happening so I couldn’t produce the daily NEARfest Blog I’ve done in the past, so here’s a quick overview take of the North East Art Rock Festival which just took place in Bethlehem, PA this weekend, June 23-24 and its cousin, Progressive Arts Fusion Friday that preceded. I’ll blast…
Reviews & Commentary
Radio Heroes and Acolytes: Dick Summer, Star’s End and Beyond
Dick Summer’s Subway MemoriesEvery Christmas, without fail, I watch Frank Capra’s iconic and cautionary tale, It’s a Wonderful Life. I watch it for its humor, nostalgia but also its central theme, that we all affect the lives we touch in ways you could never expect. I was reminded about this at the Star’s End 30th…