Album Review: Yelena Eckemoff- Blooming Tall Phlox

Transfixed by the 98-minute album, I listened to Blooming Tall Phlox twice before researching the backstory of the unheralded but startlingly brilliant new release.  I discovered that each of the selections is intended to evoke a different scent that Yelena Eckemoff recalls from her childhood in Russia.  Whatever.  I’m far more interested in the ingenious arrangements and stellar playing of Eckemoff and the young band of Finns who realize her vision.  The cringey album trailer doesn't reflect the project's dazzling qualities.


---
I suggest at Plastic Sax that a reading by poet Hanif Abdurraqib ruined jazz for me.

---
I reviewed a disappointing Alexis y Fido concert.

---
I reviewed “I Got Rhythm” at Quality Hill Playhouse.

---
I featured A La Mode on my weekly segement on KCUR.

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

---
I wrote an extended concert preview about Eric Church’s return to the Sprint Center for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine.

---
Maggie Roche has died.

---
Overend Watts of Mott the Hoople has died.

---
Jaki Liebezeit of Can has died.

---
Butch Trucks has died.

---
Kid Koala’s wondrous Music To Draw To: Satellite is RIYL floating, Björk, dreaming.

---
Cherry Glazerr’s Apocalipstick is a rockin’ good time.

---
Nicky Jam’s new album Fénix goes on forever.

---
Bash & Pop’s quaint Anything Could Happen is RIYL: Pleased to Meet Me, Keith Richards’ solo career, Isolation Drills.

---
Craig Taborn’s Daylight Ghosts has that new ECM smell.

---
Wells Fargo’s Watch Out, an archival release by an obscure rock band from Zimbabwe, is RIYL the Faces, electric guitars, Jefferson Airplane.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Noah Preminger- Meditations On Freedom

Noah Preminger is tilting at windmills.  Few artistic statements are more quixotic in 2017 than jazz protest albums.  Twitter rather than tonality is the order of the day.  Yet even if the New York based saxophonist fails to engage the new president in a war of words on social media, he’s made jazz great again with his sixth album Meditations On Freedom.  The project is slated for digital release on Friday, January 20, to coincide with the presidential inauguration.  Trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Kim Cass and drummer Ian Froman join the saxophonist on instrumental interpretations of familiar material including Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is” and striking original compositions like “The 99 Percent.”  Performed in the liberating free jazz style associated with Ornette Coleman’s classic quartet, the appropriately named Meditations On Freedom is terrific, tremendous and very, very strong.


---
I wrote a nasty review of a desultory concert by Lloyd and J. Holiday.

---
I reviewed Ramsey Lewis’ concert at the Gem Theater.

---
I reviewed Echoes of Europe, the new album by the Dino Massa Kansas City Quintet, for KCUR.

---
I chastised a misguided Kansas City artist at Plastic Sax.

---
I wrote an extended preview about Atmosphere’s return to the Granada.

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

---
I discussed Blackbird Revue on KCUR this week.

----
Posted here, for the first time anywhere- my response to the contemporaneous teen albums meme:

1. The Clash- London Calling
2. Michael Jackson- Off the Wall
3. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson- Waylon & Willie
4. Bob Marley- Survival
5. Prince- 1999
6. Ramones- Ramones
7. Bruce Springsteen- Darkness on the Edge of Town
8. Talking Heads- Fear of Music
9. Hank Williams, Jr.- Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound
10. Stevie Wonder- Songs in the Key of Life

---
Buddy Greco has died.  I thought about goofing on the late lounge lizard, but I genuinely like this ish.

---
Tommy Allsup has died.

---
Greg Trooper has died.

---
William Onyeabor has died.

---
Yukmouth’s JJ Based On a Vill Story is an unexpected triumph. RIYL: The Game, Oakland gangsta rap, E-40.  ”Thank You Lord” may be the album’s worst song.

---
Systema Solar’s Rumbo A Tierra is a party-starter.  RIYL: Bomba Estéreo, a sense of surprise, Julieta Venegas.

---
The XX’s I See You is an adorable homage to 1980s synth-pop artists like Alison Moyet and the Human League.

---
I’m glad for my friends who are excited about Radiohead’s return to Kansas City on April 5.  An even more promising performance of forward-thinking sounds will take place at the Folly Theater on April 7.  The quartet of Donny McCaslin, Jason Lindner, Tim Lefebvre and Mark Guiliana act as convincing jazz ambassadors in a recent Tiny Desk Concert.

---
Bonobo updates smooth jazz on the impressive Migration.  RIYL: Bob James, hot tubs, John Klemmer.

---
Sepultura’s Machine Messiah isn’t just another perfunctory genre exercise.  RIYL: Pantera, rage, Kreator.

---
Who needs the parody act Steel Panther when Grave Digger is still producing unironic gems like ”Healed By Metal”?

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Hale Mary

Either I’m suffering from a severe case of Stockholm syndrome or a band I once loathed has dramatically improved.  Halestorm’s 2009 breakout hit “I Get Off” turned my stomach at the time.  The first few of the six or seven times I worked their concerts were dismal experiences.  Things have changed.  Not only would I now gladly purchase a ticket to a Halestorm concert with my own money, I’ve been listening to the group’s new covers EP for pleasure.  Whitesnake never sounded so good.  (Send help.)


---
I touted Lincoln Marshall on KCUR this week.

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

---
I documented my visit to a cocktail lounge on the Plaza at Plastic Sax.

---
Nat Hentoff has died.

---
I’m glad No Plan exists, but most of the new David Bowie EP isn’t nearly as good as Blackstar.

---
Renée Fleming's Distant Light is a lovely adventure.

---
Dale Watson and Ray Benson’s new duet album is charming.  RIYL: Willie Nelson’s countless duet albums, old coots, Texas.

---
Spotify’s bots earned their keep when they tipped me to Courtney Marie Andrews’ Honest Life.  RIYL: Iris Dement, The Last Waltz, Mimi Fariña.

---
Robert Glasper is featured in what may be the  best episode of “What’s In My Bag?”

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Concert Review: Pure Disgust at the Encore Room

I was out for blood on Wednesday.  Not having attended a proper all-ages punk event since last summer, I wanted to taste danger and smell teen spirit at the show at the Encore Room headlined by the consequential Washington D.C. based hardcore band Pure Disgust. 

During its best moments, the abrasive jamboree looked and sound a lot like this. Shuttlecock documented the evening with a photo set.

After paying the $8 cover charge, I joined a distressingly meager audience of about 75 (including the members of the five bands and their significant others) as Agent made a racket on the low-slung stage of the venue adjacent to the Uptown Theater.  The band’s defiant slovenliness and the blood smeared on the face of the front man put me in mind of Sex Pistols.  The amateurish insolence of The Drippies evoked Sorry Ma-era the Replacements.

Incomprehensibly loud, Blindside’s set sounded like a plague of locusts descending on a bowling alley.  With my ears blown out by Blindside, I only managed to track Pure Disgust’s surprisingly nimble rhythm section during the quintet’s exciting but abrupt set.


---
I yakked about Isaac Cates & Ordained on KCUR yesterday.

---
My selections are among The Kansas City Star’s compilation of Top Albums of 2016 lists.

---
I previewed Andy McKee’s concert at the Bottleneck for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine.

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

---
I reviewed a concert by the Floozies, Autograf and Linear Symmetry in December. 

---
I felt thousands of brain cells dying horrible deaths as I listened to Chief Keef’s Two Zero One Seven- and I enjoyed the sensation.  I won’t argue with anyone who insists that the first important rap mixtape of 2017 is infantile trash, but a willingness to get stupid has long been an integral component of the form’s history.

---
The late George Michael was the Justin Timberlake of the late 1980s.  The pop star’s unexpectedly wonderful album Faith received an inordinate amount of spins in my home in 1987 and 1988.

---
The jazz fusion giant Alphonse Mouzon has died.

---
Bobby Previte’s Mass is recommended if you like Bill Laswell, noble but failed experiments, Black Sabbath.

---
I like what J. Cole is trying to do.  I just wish he did it better.  4 Your Eyez Only is RIYL thoughful hip-hop, Big Sean, maudlin raps.

---
Quality control is an issue on Whale Mafi 2, Rich the Factor’s fifth album in nine months.

---
Kindred the Family Soul’s Legacy of Love is RIYL the Isley Brothers, love, Ashford & Simpson.

---
Hey!  Van Der Graaf Generation releaseed a new album last year.  RIYL: Soft Machine, lovable geezers, Kevin Ayers.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)