Year-End Clearance

All bets are off.  I suppose it’d be nice to act my age in 2018, but I don’t think it’s in me.  I walked out of a distinguished jazz concert on Sunday.  Blame Brockhampton.

The urgency of Saturation III, the third album of 2017 from self-professed “best boy band since One Direction” obliterated my patience for bop formalism.  How can I relish the sound of June 1964 when “Boogie” is happening in December 2017?  Saturation III isn’t perfect- the new release contains the best and worst songs of Brockhampton’s crazed career- but its vitality makes almost everything else seem stale.

N.E.R.D’s No One Ever Really Dies is similarly inconsistent.  Even so, the highs are the stuff of codeine dreams.  Had I waited another week to publish my year-end best-of lists, Saturation III and No One Ever Really Dies would have placed prominently.

I wish I also embraced Revival.  While I’m predisposed to like Eminem, his new album induces involuntary eyerolls and reflexive raspberries.  I should have known that there’d be side effects to my obsessive listening to Future all year.


---
I was a guest on Chris Haghirian’s Eight One Sixty radio show on December 5.  I featured tracks by Samantha Fish, Vince Staples, Isaac Cates & Ordained, Brother Ali, Pistol Pete, Bobby Watson and Syd in the year-end best-of program.

---
An article about my work on behalf of the Kansas City Jazz Calendar is in the December issue of Jazz Ambassador Magazine magazine.

---
I recently named The Matchsellers, The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra and The Floozies the KCUR Bands of the Week.

---
John Scott of the Green Lady Lounge is Plastic Sax’s Person of the Year.

---
My most recent weekly music previews for The Kansas City Star were published here and here.

---
Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens has died.  He appeared to be in very poor health when the band performed at a community festival in downtown Overland Park in 2016.

---
Kevin Mahogany has died.

---
Johnny Hallyday has died.

---
Keely Smith has died.

---
The jazz guitarist Mundell Lowe has died.

---
The jazz drummer Sunny Murray has died.

---
Leon Rhodes of the Texas Troubadours has died.

---
The Chicago jazz pianist Willie Pickens has died.

---
Saxophonist Ralph Carney has died.

---
Blues man Leo “Bud” Welch has died.

---
After dreading the obligation for months, I finally hit play on Chuck Berry’s posthumous album Chuck.  It’s fine.

---
I regret overlooking Downtown Boys’ Cost of Living this year.  RIYL: the Clash, relevant rock, Priests.

---
The vintage Ghanaian party album Ebo Taylor and the Pelikans has been reissued.  RIYL: Osibisa, highlife, Fela.

---
Tyler, the Creator’s Tiny Desk Concert outing is vastly superior to his recent perfunctory concert at the Truman.

---
Dustin Lovelis adds a polished spin to the psychedelia of Syd Barrett and Ty Segall on Been Hit Before.  (Via S.S.)

---
My former coworker Glenn Jones delivers “A Different Kind of Christmas Carol”.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Chuck Berry, 1926-2017

Prior to buying The Great Twenty-Eight as a new release in 1982, I thought of Chuck Berry as the guy responsible for the novelty hit “My Ding-a-Ling.”  The compilation rectified that misleading impression.  The euphoric aggressiveness of Berry’s earth-shaking songs was of a piece with a few of my other favorite albums of 1982, including the Clash’s Combat Rock and George Clinton’s Computer Games.

I attended my first Berry concert a year or two later.   It was terrible.  He was clearly going through the motions.  Yet I didn’t give up.  My persistence paid off the third or fourth time I saw Berry.  Lou Whitney and his cohorts in the Skeletons and the Morells acted as Berry’s backing band at Parody Hall in Kansas City.

Fondly remembered in these parts as ”the best bar band ever”, the quality of Whitney’s group clearly surprised Berry.  The legend became increasingly elated as his exceptional pickup band survived each of his challenges.  Against his contrary inclinations, Berry went all-in on that memorable night.  I never saw him try half as hard again.  Berry died yesterday.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Lou Whitney

Chuck Berry still maintained a heavy tour schedule when I became old enough to sneak into nightclubs.  What a disappointment!  The first two times I caught him, the legend was clearly going through the motions. 

Ever the glutton for punishment, I once found myself at Parody Hall to give the man another go.  Berry's demeanor shifted from contempt to delight upon recognizing the expertise of the pickup band.  That outing remains the only time I've seen Berry give a damn.  Lou Whitney and his cohorts in the Skeletons/Morells were the men responsible for inspiring Berry.

I spent several nights dancing to Whitney's bands during the next few years.  On the two or three occasions I spoke with him, he was funny and gracious.  Whitney died this week.  C.J. Janovy wrote a nice piece about the beloved Missourian. 

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)