David Murray: An Appreciation

Although the designation doesn’t have any impact on my estimation of the man, I’m glad that Henry Threadgill won a Pulitzer Prize yesterday.  In his self-congratulatory report, Howard Reich notes that Ornette Coleman was awarded a Pulitzer in 2007.  David Murray could be the next titanic jazz saxophonist and composer to be similarly honored.  Perfection, Murray’s new collaboration with pianist Geri Allen and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, is the latest entry in a massive discography that was already loaded with thrilling music.  Unlike the output of most supergroups, Perfection doesn’t disappoint.   With a previously unrecorded Coleman composition as its centerpiece, the album shot past Logan Richardson’s Shift as my favorite jazz release of 2016.


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I reviewed a concert by the Bad Plus Joshua Redman at the Gem Theater.

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The most recent rounds of the weekly music previews I write for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine are here and here.

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I wrote an extended show preview about the Tedeschi Trucks Band for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine.

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The Kansas City rapper Gee Watts created a video for ”Grammys”.

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Gib Guilbeau, an integral part of the West Coast country-rock revolution, has died.  (Tip via BGO.)

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Phil Humphrey of the Fendermen has died.  The group’s version of “Mule Skinner Blues” was a  hit in 1960.  (Tip via BGO.)

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Loyalty is good.  Nostalgia is bad.  That’s why I don’t entirely trust my affection for Deftones’ Gore.  Combining Boy-era U2 and Disintegration-era the Cure with thrash elements makes my heart go pitter-patter, but I’m inclined to dismiss the approach as a cynical parlor trick.  Pals who suggest that I need to get in the “right frame of mind” to properly appreciate Gore are undoubtedly right, but I’m on a straight-and-narrow tip at the moment.  Here's "Prayers/Triangles".

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Hayes Carll’s Lovers and Leavers is a spot-on evocation of the moment in the 1970s when Billy Joe Shaver, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and Guy Clark were at their artistic peaks.

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The Black Sabbath cover that serves as the colossal title track of Charles Bradley’s Changes is the album’s best song.  RIYL: O.V. Wright, emoting, Wilson Pickett.

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Yeah, I like Aesop Rock.  Wanna make something of it?  Here’s a live reading of ”Lazy Eye”.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)