Hail the King: Muddy Waters rules the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, 1968
In his later years, when Muddy Waters started making the money he was long overdue, he’d call up his friend John Lee Hooker and the…
Jazz
The heroically weird, jazz-damaged art rock of Laddio Bolocko
One of the more interesting untold stories of the ‘90s underground rock explosion was the existence of a midwestern micro-genre so obstinately difficult and obscure…
John Coltrane meets Terry Riley in free jazz minimalist mashup
Yesterday His Name Is Alive honcho Warren Defever posted an intriguing file to his Mixcloud account, a mashup lasting in excess of 35 minutes featuring…
‘The Day of the Dead’: Putting Malcolm Lowry to jazz
The loss of ignorance makes existence worthwhile. Two days ago I’d only vaguely heard of the late English composer and jazz musician Graham Collier (1937-2011)…
‘You can’t handle the drums!’: Percussion whiz turns iconic movie monologue into jazz
Hotshot Brazilian jazz drummer Felipe Continentino maintains a YouTube channel and Facebook page, both of which showcase his sick skills on the skins, but what…
This is Gary McFarland: The Jazz Legend Who Should Have Been A Pop Star
A few months ago, I was on some music geek forum boards and one of the posters mentioned that he’d bought an audiophile download of…
Danna nanna nanna nanna SUN RAAAAAA: The space-jazz guru’s astounding ‘Batman and Robin’ LP
In 1966, an unremarkable-seeming children’s album called Batman and Robin was released, by an insignificant label called Tifton Records, to cash in on the very…
‘You jive white motherf*ckers!’: Jazz legend Freddie Hubbard spectacularly blows his cool onstage
The year is 1966 and legendary jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard is onstage in Graz, Austria as a sideman for Sonny Rollins. Distracted by whistling and…