What Rabbath Wrought

I've long viewed my enthusiasm for European improvised music with suspicion.  François Rabbath's astounding performance at Park College earlier this week helped me realize that my love of projects like Dan Nicholls' new album Ruins is more than a pretentious affectation.

Through both his innate brilliance and his willingness to disregard established conventions, the Syrian-born and Paris-based Rabbath creates music without boundaries.  (Here's my review.)

Why then, I asked a colleague last night, don't more area musicians follow his lead by ignoring the formal mandates of the classical, folk and jazz worlds?  My friend brought me back to earth by suggesting that most professional musicians in Kansas City are forced to make their livings by playing music that conforms to established forms.  He's right.  I suppose that playing "Someone To Watch Over Me" in a cocktail lounge night after night might extinguish the creative spark.

In addition to being free from the American cultural mandate to swing, many experimental European musicians are also immersed in international folk and classical traditions.  And that's how a restless music obsessive ends up listening to At Home, the new album by Polish trumpeter Maciej Fortuna, as he folds laundry in Kansas.


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I reviewed Friday's concert by Matchbox Twenty, the Goo Goo Dolls and Kate Earl.

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I reviewed Dave Alvin's debut at Knuckleheads.

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Toshi Seeger has died.

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KCPT chats with Kerwin Young.

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Here's footage of Radkey performing at the Bottleneck this week.  ("Maybe the Misfits...")

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An Olathe man was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer outside a Chief Keef concert in Oklahoma City.

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I hadn't clued in to Lake Street Dive until a dude at last month's Los Lobos concert raved about the band. 

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Confession time- I actually bought Ellen Foley's Spirit of St. Louis album in 1981.  Here's the video for the cringeworthy lead track.

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A person I don't know intended the following Facebook comment as a compliment to both bands: "Jethro Tull was the Radiohead of the '70s."  I concur (for entirely different reasons).

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)