Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Album Review: Eddie Palmieri- Full Circle


I blew my travel budget on an Eddie Palmieri show in New York last year.  By Kansas City standards, I spent crazy money to catch the salsa legend at the Blue Note.  As a snippet of footage I posted to Instagram suggests, he was worth every penny.   The octogenarian and his expansive band revise salsa classics on the joyous new album Full Circle.   Not only does the project substantiate my enthusiasm for the Blue Note show, its life-affirming jubilance provides precisely the sort of consolatory tonic I need this summer.


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I reviewed Shania Twain’s return to the Sprint Center for The Kansas City Star.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I take note of the fine new album by Chris Hazelton’s Boogaloo 7 at Plastic Sax.

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The title of the Internet’s Hive Mind is unintentionally ironic.  Me-tooers have heaped praise on the return of Syd the Kid’s stylish soul group.  Telling the truth is unfashionable, but I don’t mind being the bad guy.  Here goes: Hive Mind is a terrible disappointment.  Aside from the sublime bass lines, there’s little to admire about the dreary project.

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Decade, a collaboration between 90-year-old Lee Konitz and 36-year-old pianist Dan Tepfer, is a mystical mind-meld.  RIYL: chess, Sam Rivers, astrophysics.

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Protoje’s A Matter of Time is a solid roots-rock-reggae album.  RIYL: Chronixx, getting past Legend, Burning Spear.  Here’s “Bout Noon”.

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I’d long ignored friends as they've touted footwork.  What a mistake!  Since R.P. Boo’s new I’ll Tell You What! turned my head, I’ve been astounded by almost every track on footwork playlists including Spotify’s Footwork Fever.  Better late than never.

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As a grown man, I’m disinterested in rap beefs and internecine heavy metal skirmishes.  I don’t particularly care why the metal community is divided by Skeletonwitch’s Devouring Radiant LightI just know that I’m down.  RIYL: Deafheaven, sore throats, Revocation.  Here’s “Fen of Shadows”.

(Original image of Eddie Palmieri at the Blue Note by There Stands the Glass.)

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