The Years Have Changed You, Somehow

Is jazz corny?  The many people who think so aren’t necessarily wrong.  I regularly publish counterproductive screeds about wack forms of jazz.  Yet I’ve taken great pleasure in willy-nilly dips into a few of the ostensibly squarest recesses of the jazz archives during the pandemic.  Here’s a sampling of my rewarding discoveries.

Speaking of corny, get a load of this album title: A Singer, A Swinger, A Gasser!.  Yet there’s nothing hokey about vocalist Annie Ross’ 1959 collaboration with saxophonist Zoot Sims.  A straightforward reading of “I Don’t Want to Cry Anymore" is among the astonishingly moving tracks.

I’ve never hidden my distaste of organ jazz.  Yet Departures, the recently reissued 1969 album by British organist Don Shinn, is an unlikely mashup of Martin Denny-style exotica and Ray Manzarek-esque pomp.  The three newly recorded bonus tracks are less essential.

More exotica: the unfortunately titled “Chung King” from Guitar/Guitar, a 1963 pairing of Charlie Byrd and Herb Ellis, is an unorthodox trip.

A profound interpretation of “Sophisticated Lady” induced tears of ecstatic joy the first time I heard The Duo.  The privately commissioned 1999 meetup of pianist Mulgrew Miller and bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen was recently made available to the general public.

My sincere admiration for Mac Miller’s new posthumous album Circles reflects my morbid fascination with recordings by dying musicians.  The jazz canon is loaded with devastating death knells.  I recently happened upon Lester Young’s Laughin’ to Keep from Cryin’, a session recorded 13 months before the saxophonist’s death in 1959.  The heroics of pianist Hank Jones can’t disguise Young’s agonizing frailty on “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”.


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Four months ago, I bragged about buying a deeply discounted ticket to a Daniil Trifonov concert.  The presenter announced a date for the rescheduled performance: April 24, 2022!  Here’s hoping I’m still alive 21 months from now.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: The Robert Glasper Experiment- ArtScience

I’m baffled by fans who buy t-shirts and other merchandise before a concert begins.  Won’t they regret purchasing the souvenirs if the performer disappoints them?  Friends who proclaim that a forthcoming event will be “the concert of the year” are no less silly.  So much for the Show Me state.

If symbolism mattered more than content, the Robert Glasper Experiment’s ArtScience, a project on which one of my favorite jazz musicians leads an excellent band in an exploration of R&B, would be my top album of 2016.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of actually listening to ArtScience.  I share the inclinations of Glasper and the members of his all-star band, but their update of classic Stevie Wonder, George Duke’s funk-fusion and current neo-soul by the likes of Erykah Badu falls well short of the mark.  A handful of impressive moments only make me long for what might have been.


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I reviewed John Mayall’s concert at Knuckleheads.

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I reviewed James Bay’s return to the Midland theater.

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I write weekly music previews for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine.

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I discussed Brody Buster’s One Man Band on KCUR last week.

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A forthcoming Sigur Rós concert is my Big Show of the Week for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine.

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Rod Temperton has died.

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Joan Marie Johnson Faust of the Dixie Cups has died.  (Tip via BGO.)

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My new catchphrase: ”I got a new name in the streets. They call me Billy.”.

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The Duo- Live!, a jam session featuring Mulgrew Miller and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, is an old-school treat.

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The end is nigh.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Mulgrew Miller, 1955-2013

The day after I learned that Mulgrew Miller had died, I shuffled into my museum of dead people to inspect my collection of the pianist's works. I uncovered a ticket stub for a 1994 concert at the Folly Theater titled "Four For Phineas."  

The four-piano tribute to Phineas Newborn, Jr., included Miller and some combination of James Williams, John Hicks, Harold Mabern, Geoff Keezer and Donald Brown.  (I want to say that Jay McShann was also in the mix as a special guest artist, but a cursory search doesn't provide any evidence of that fine concept.)

The stub indicates that I paid $17.50 to attend the Sunday afternoon show.  The relatively expensive ticket reflects the tenor of those times.  Miller was a heavily promoted artist signed to a major label.   The accepted wisdom was that he'd become a major star.  The idea seems hopelessly quaint today.  The ongoing marginalization of jazz began to accelerate in the mid-'90s.  The 1994 concert might have represented Miller's commercial- if not artistic- pinnacle.

Although I enjoy his recent work for MaxJazz, I find myself drawn to Miller's material for Landmark.  (That's Kenny Garrett on sax.) 

In today's harsh climate, I wonder what kind of career awaits aspiring tradition-minded jazz pianists.  Maybe the best a young artist in possession of a portion of Miller's bluesy earthiness and sparkling intelligence could hope for is a handful of regular gigs at an upscale piano bar and a teaching position at a local college.  There's no shame in that prospect, of course, but the era in which guys could fill large concert halls playing Phineas Newborn selections in support of a major label album are long gone.


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Clarence Burke, Jr. of the Five Stairsteps has died.

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The schadenfreude that's greeted the announcement of the cancelation of Kanrocksas is discouraging.  What's with all the bitter people who can't stand the idea of others having a good time?

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Beau Bledsoe offers a fascinating peek behind the curtains at Fado Novato's successful fundraising campaign to finance an extended trip to Portugal.

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Tech N9ne is featured on Wrekonize's "Freak".

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Hodgy Beats' "Years" is impressive.  RIYL: OFWGKTA, alcohol, "Swimming Pools (Drank)."

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People continue to attempt to commiserate with me about my work at Rockfest.  They don't get it.  I relish the annual event.  Here's an anecdote from this year's edition of Rockfest.  As the Danish band Volbeat played a medley of Johnny Cash covers, I watched a pair of strangers bond over their NASCAR tattoos.  Witnessing the encounter filled me with joy. 

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)