For better or worse, singer-tunesmith Crenshaw has never given a tinker’s damn about conforming to contemporary standards of cool. He is a man out of time, chugging along at a comfortable 45 rpm while the bloodless digital world whizzes past. His quest: to create the penultimate sugar cube, a three-minute packet of perfect pop. When […]
Joe Vanderford
Posted inMusic
Grand piano
I love sharing the piano bench with my daughter. Yesterday she was gleefully draped around her brand new Yamaha synthesizer when I arrived in the den. I couldn’t help but laugh. She was demonstrating a dozen of the cool 248 digital voices the machine can spit out at the touch of a button. With a […]
Posted inGuides
Fall-ternative
Titled “Voices of Mali,” Nov. 2’s unprecedented African road-show at Duke bookends Oumou Sangare and Habib Koite (pictured), world-class troubadours whose vibrant pop veers from jumping virtuosity to the defiant tones of protest music. A singer unlike any other, Madame Sangare is a flamboyant diva. She dresses the part, often sporting cascades of braids, spangled […]
Posted inGuides
Fall-ternative
The penultimate communicative experience that can be shared by two musicians is the duet, when a pair of unblinking sound-shapers stare eyeball-to-eyeball–with ears wide open. The possibilities are unlimited, from hushed conversation framed by heartfelt murmurs of love to a frenzied battle-royal fueled by spitfire Hatfield-McCoy intensity. When Eugene Chadbourne, prankster guitarist, and Dutch percussionist […]
Posted inNews
Voice and Guitar
Tall and tan and young and lovely, “The Girl from Ipanema” meandered along a Rio de Janeiro beachhead and climbed into the collective ear of North America. And there she remains 37 years later, a melancholy beauty riding composer Antonio Carlos Jobim’s seductive samba. Figuratively, that “Girl” hung an unforgettable face on bossa nova, Brazil’s […]
Posted inMusic
Rhythm jugglers
As I’m checking out Nourishment, the brand new CD by Alex Weiss and his tasty world-beat outfit, Different Drum, the myriad rhythms massage my senses. Imagine cracking the lid on an aromatic pot of homemade soup: The first sniff is a rush. I hungrily spoon up the stew of hot congas, bubbling bass and horns […]
Posted inMusic
Force of nature
All saxophonists agree on one thing: “My instrument is heartless to the core,” they’ll admit with a smirk. Yet, God knows why, some crazy cats actually try to make a living by playing the thing, the most unforgiving of musical axes. Originally inspired by the splendor of Coleman Hawkins’ once-in-a-lifetime tenor solo on “Body and […]
Posted inArt
Three Divas
What defines the essence of a jazz singer anyway? Is it the voice of Billie Holiday, sandpapered by time, a human cry dressed up in a song? Or is it the growl of Louis Armstrong, alias Satchmo, with a cornet in one hand and a hankie in the other to soak up the music? Or […]
Posted inNews
Celebrating the Music of Weather Report
A quarter-century ago, Weather Report reigned as king of the fusion combos. Propelled by the squiggly synths of Joe Zawinul and the hide-and-seek saxophonics of Wayne Shorter, WR metamorphosed from a space-jam band for eclectics-only (1970) to a high-voltage unit with rock-star swagger and unlimited commercial appeal. Imagine: an improvising quintet with a smash 45 […]