Album Review: Monty Alexander- Wareika Hill: RastaMonk Vibrations

I’ve long believed that gimmicky bands and novelty albums are only embraced by people who don’t like music all that much.  Preferring comedy to music isn’t a crime, but it’s safe to say that the quality of most ostensibly funny music is criminally awful.  Monty Alexander’s Wareika Hill: RastaMonk Vibrations should be the musical equivalent of a Rastafarian dreadlock wig in a costume shop.  Yet against all odds, the album of Thelonious Monk compositions set to reggae rhythms is stupendous.  The Jamaican jazz veteran comes by the concept naturally.  Born in Kingston a year before Bob Marley, Alexander insists that he’s long harbored “a deep impression that the world of Monk and Rasta were one spirit.”  That’s why a dub reading of “Brilliant Corners” is both hilarious and moving while “Rhythm-a-Ning” sounds as if Monk anticipated reggae when he wrote the pliable melody.  Alexander demonstrates the premise in a revelatory video.


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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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The first of my three-part examination of the Chicago Jazz Festival is at Plastic Sax.

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My Brothers & Sisters was the best band I saw during the two hours I spent at the Crossroads Music Fest last week.

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Anticipating a desperate need for a respite from jazz, I bought a ticket for this Squeeze concert before traveling to the Chicago Jazz Festival.  Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook were fine, but I regret the decision.

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Earthgang’s implausible Mirrorland allows me to pretend that Outkast reunited, Prince is alive and Lauryn Hill lives in a recording studio.  Please don’t pinch me.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit- The Nashville Sound

By evoking peak-era Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band during Ink’s Middle of the Map Festival at the Uptown Theater in May, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s concert at the Uptown Theater momentarily restored my faith in the viability of traditional rock and roll.  The best songs on the setlist- “If We Were Vampires” and “Hope the High Road”- acted as previews of the forthcoming The Nashville Sound.  It’s a drag, consequently, that those songs are far and away the album’s best tracks.  I’ll probably listen to “If We Were Vampires and “Hope the High Road” for the remainder of my life, but I’m just not down with the rest of The Nashville Sound.


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I wrote a feature about Oleta Adams for KCUR.

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I reviewed Ann Wilson’s concert at the Uptown Theater.

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I reviewed George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic’s appearance at the Boulevardia festival.

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Willie Nelson was rained out on Saturday, but I reviewed opening sets by Dwight Yoakam and Robert Earl Keen.

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Concerts by John Legend and Portugal. The Man were my shows of the week for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine.

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I named My Brothers & Sisters the KCUR Band of the Week.

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I take note of Gerald Spaits latest release at Plastic Sax.

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My weekly music previews for The Kansas City Star are here and here.

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Prodigy of Mobb Deep has died.

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Ben Goldberg School’s The Humanities is RIYL Henry Threadgill, the combination of clarinet and accordion, Don Byron.

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I had a spiritual epiphany while listening to the opening selection of Ahmad Jamal’s excellent new Marseille. Here’s a music video for the fourth track.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Aloe Blacc- Lift Your Spirit

It happened as I watched the NFL draft earlier this month.  "I'm the Man," the ubiquitous hit by Aloe Blacc, was used as bumper music during the broadcast.  Already weary of the song, I began to actively loathe "I'm the Man." 

Burnout was inevitable.  The song's blockbuster potential was immediately apparent when it popped up in December.  But what about the rest of Blacc's album Lift Your Spirit?

Well, it's more of the same.  The third track is a version of "Wake Me Up," the inescapable Avicii hit featuring Blacc's vocal.  The shameless hooks of "Here Today" and "Can You Do This" make the biggest hits of One Direction and Ariana Grande seem likes studies in subtlety.

"Owe It All," the closing track that sounds like a late period gem by the Four Tops, is one of two or three selections that successfully seduced me.  I have little doubt that several additional songs will win me over when I see Blacc perform.

I have nothing against blatantly commercial music, but Lift Your Spirit resembles a collection of expertly crafted advertising jingles.


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I reviewed Tony Bennett's concert at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts on Friday.

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Sunstroke?  I saw ghosts at Union Station yesterday.

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My Brothers & Sisters' "How To Move What To Wear" was my pick of the week for KCUR's Local Listen segment.  It's my favorite song from the band's Violet Music: Volume One album.

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Metatone's video for "When the Dreams Come" is excellent.

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The trailer for a 1974 music festival in Sedalia is hilarious.

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A recent edition of Barry Lee's Signal To Noise program on KKFI featured music from the collection of the late Anne Winter.  (Via Tim Finn.)

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Herb Jeffries, "the bronze buckaroo," has died.  (Tip via BGO.)

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Motivational Jumpsuit, the latest outburst from Guided By Voices, is unaccountably excellent.  RIYL: Rubber Soul, weirdos, Robyn Hitchcock.

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Medeski Martin & Wood's collaboration with Nels Cline on The Woodstock Sessions, Vol. 2 contains plenty of fine skronk, funk and noodling. Here's a track.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)