Album Review: Ben Goldberg- Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues

Every nine months or so, I visit the back room of a restaurant in a suburb of Kansas City to hear musicians play an oddly stifled but nonetheless appealing version of Dixieland and traditional jazz.  I'd attend more often if the technically masterful musicians attempted to fuse Dixieland's wild polyphony with more progressive concepts.

That's precisely what clarinetist Ben Goldberg and cohorts including saxophonist Joshua Redman and trumpeter Ron Miles do on Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues.  I construe the recording as Dixieland filtered through Oliver Nelson, Thelonious Monk and Henry Threadgill.  A hint of klezmer is thrown into the mix for good measure.

Dig how Goldberg and Redman get tangled up in the duet "Study of the Blues".  The full band offers convoluted funk  on "The Because Of".  Alcide Nunez lives.


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Unfold Ordinary Mind, Goldberg's recently released collaboration with a band including Ellery Eskelin and Nels Cline, doesn't excite me as nearly as much as Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues.

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Producer Phil Ramone has died.

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The Ink magazine that hits newsstands tomorrow contains my descriptions of 25 of the acts featured at this week's Middle of the Map festival.

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Marky Ramone and Andrew W.K. are teaming up for a tour.  Road trip to Chicago in October?

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The video for Kleenex Girl Wonder's "Nubs" is hilariously profane.

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XXL's 2013 Freshman class is documented here.

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I'm going to listen to today's new releases from the Black Angels, Bring Me the Horizon, Killswitch Engage, Sevendust, Tyler, the Creator and Gretchen Wilson as soon as I'm finished absorbing Gerald Clayton's Life Forum.

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Kansas City Click: Adrenaline Mob hit the VooDoo Lounge on Tuesday.

Sallie Ford performs at the RecordBar on Wednesday.

The music portion of the Middle of the Map festival runs Thursday through Saturday.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)