In the mad blizzard of news we somehow neglected to mention the passing of jazz flute great Herbie Mann on July 1: Herbie Mann, the versatile jazz flutist who combined a variety of musical styles and deeply influenced trends such as world music and fusion, has died. He was 73. …

I’ll admit it – I have a pretty short musical attention span. My mind still works in vinyl album-side mode: after about 20 minutes of the same artist I tend to drift. It is the rare CD that holds my attention for a full 60 or 70 minutes, and due …

An interesting aspect of the “rerelease everything we can get our paws on” CD era is the opportunity to hear music from the past with fresh ears. Some of it sounds about the same as it did back in the day, some of it has grown, and some has, um, …

On our vacation we watched a fair number of movies at night on actual TV, not something we’d normally do what with commercials, clumsy editing and the like, but doing weird things is what vacations are all about, baby. So anyway, we watched Men in Black and our almost 4-year-old …

I love EP’s, especially from new bands: short, sweet, no filler, no “bonus tracks,” no farts and sniffles in place of songs to fill up CD space – just the best a band can come up with to sell the world on their viability. I am convinced Eyes Like Knives …

Dawn and I were shaken out of white line fever on the Pennsylvania Turnpike when this one came rattling over the speakers, a raucous blend of Americana and garage rock, an unholy marriage of Black Oak Arkansas and Chickasaw Mudpuppies from a band incongruously generated by the Portland music scene, …

Legendary producer-record exec Denny Cordell and Leon Russell had a remarkable run with their Shelter Records in the ’70s. They formed the label after working successfully together with Joe Cocker, in particular on Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmentour, with Russell as the music director. They formed the label on Russell’s …

A self-recorded, self-produced, at times slightly over-the-top gem from NYC “supergroup” Cardia, consisting of Rival Schools’ Ian Love on vocals and guitar, Andy Action of 2 Skinnee J’s on drums, St. John Scott IV of Shudder to Think on guitars, and the Verve Pipe’s Brad Vanderark on bass. The action …

Al Barger wrote a very nice tribute to Joe Jackson for his 48th birthday just today. Coincidentally, Jackson’s most popular album has jsut been re-released in Deluxe Edition form. Night and Day, originally released in ’82, was Jackson’s move into nocturnal Tin Pan Alley pop and piano cocktail jazz, where …

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about The Man in Black’s remarkable career, and the key to his longevity, is his elemental relationship with so many strands of American roots music: country, western, folk, rockabilly, even blues – Johnny Cash is the very definition of Americana. While the point is stretched …