Concert Review: Aaron Neville at City Winery

My life partner told me that several acquaintances have asked her which Broadway productions she caught on our recent jaunt to New York City.  Those people don’t know us very well.  Predictably, we haunted music venues. Only one show commanded the exorbitant ticket prices associated with hit musicals.  Aaron Neville was worth it. Accompanied by pianist Michael Goods, the legendary vocalist crooned for 200 people at City Winery.  Although I wasn’t always thrilled with the selections- I would have preferred less Carole King and more Allen Toussaint- Neville still sings like a bird.  Enduring a leisurely version of the Bobby Goldsboro hit “Honey” was rough, but the star made up for his lapse in judgement with readings of “Hercules,” “Mojo Hannah” and a bitterly timely interpretation of Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927.”  You can bet I wept.


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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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For once, I come across as a prescient genius in Tim Finn’s analysis of Taylor Swift’s career.

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I enjoy Queens of the Stone Age’s Villians without reservation.  ”The Evil Has Landed” is my jam.

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I’m down with Najee.  Wanna make something of it?  Poetry In Motion is expertly manufactured functional music.

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Quaint swing isn't usually my thing, but To Love and Be Loved, the new release from the veteran pianist Harold Mabern, charmed me.

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The backstory of Sweet As Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn of Africa is horrific.  As for the music, well, I’ve never heard anything quite like it.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Youngblood Supercult- The Great American Death Rattle

When a friend recently informed me that the Topeka based Youngblood Supercult had been added to the lineup of Psycho Las Vegas, a festival headlined by the Brian Jonestown Massacre, King Diamond and Mastodon, he and I marveled at the stoner-rock band's low profile in its home market.  The lo-fi sludge of 151-proof songs like “Wormwood” on the new album The Great American Death Rattle effectively recycle the best bits of early Soundgarden, Fu Manchu and Clutch.  Even though the quartet has yet to make much of an impression in Kansas City, Youngblood Supercult is one of the mightiest bands in the Midwest.


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I reviewed a concert by Marco Antonio Solis and Jesse & Joy.

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I featured jazz bassist Micah Herman on my weekly KCUR segment.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I trespassed on a rarifed jazz salon last week.

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Sonny Burgess has died.

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I claimed Sargasso Sea, my introduction to the music of John Abercrombie, from a discount bin at Classical Westport in the late ‘70s.  I haven’t been the same since. Abercrombie died on Tuesday.

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I’m embarrassed for almost everyone associated with the utterly dismal Rich the Factor Presents KC’s the Town Compilation.

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I like A$AP Ferg’s crossover hits more than his club bangers.  Although it sounds like a million bucks, Still Striving is a street album. Here’s ”East Coast Remix”.

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Acoustic Classics II, a new set of re-recordings, is an ideal introduction to the cult of Richard Thompson.

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Three or four songs on Not Dark Yet, a collaboration between sisters Allison Moorer and Shelby Lynne, please me.

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Even though Yelena Eckemoff is accompanied by jazz luminaries including Chris Potter on In the Shadow of a Cloud, the album is less satisfying than Blooming Tall Phlox, the astounding January release she recorded with relatively obscure Finnish musicians.

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Eddie Palmieri’s music has infused me with joy for decades.  Sabiduria is no different.  RIYL: Willie Bobo, life, Tito Puente.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Throw Your Hands in the Air

Before I could even consider pouting because I was working an Idina Menzel concert rather than a nearby outing by Kendrick Lamar last night, I began receiving a series of unsolicited texts about the poor quality of the consequential artist’s show from outraged friends.  While undiscerning status-conscious Stans might rightfully point out that I wasn’t on hand to bear witness to the greatness of Kung Fu Kenny on Wednesday, the judgements of my like-minded pals affirms what remains painfully obvious: live performances by hip-hop/rap stars (including the two times I’ve seen Lamar) are invariably disappointing.  There are exceptions- Kanye West, Chance the Rapper, the Roots and (sometimes) Tech N9ne come to mind- but too often the quality of hip-hop/rap shows is inversely proportional to the monumental vitality of even the most essential recordings.


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I reviewed Green Day’s concert for The Kansas City Star on Friday.

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I reviewed a concert by Logic and Joey Badass for The Kansas City Star on Saturday.

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I reviewed “An Evening With George Gershwin” at MTH Theater on Sunday.

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I reviewed Idina Menzel’s concert at Starlight Theatre on Wednesday.

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I featured Soul Revival on my weekly KCUR segment.

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Me and my big mouth: I inadvertently stirred up race-related trouble in Kansas City.  My mea culpa is posted at Plastic Sax.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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Aesop Rock’s instrumental score for Bushwick is dandy.  RIYL: Isaac Hayes, tension, Hans Zimmer.

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Single Mothers’ Our Pleasure is RIYL F*cked Up, extremely irritating vocalists, Titus Andronicus.

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Reactionary condemnations of the latest disruptive sound are always a bad look.  Unlike some of my peers, I endorse Lil Peep’s controversial Come Over When You’re Sober.  The successful merger of the aesthetics of Kurt Cobain and Lil Uzi Vert seems like a license to print money.  Here’s ”Brightside”.

(Original image of Joey Badass at his wickity-wickity-wack performance on Saturday by There Stands the Glass.)

You Run Your Mouth, I'll Run My Business

My obsessive-compulsive tendencies compel me to think twice before queuing up compilations of irreproachable music by the likes of the Carter Family, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday or Django Reinhardt.  Their timeless works tend to send me down unproductive rabbit holes.  It was with great reluctance, consequently, that I played the first of 136 tracks on the new Louis Armstrong collection The Complete Decca Singles 1935-1946.  I was out of commission for the next six hours and 38 minutes.  Oh, but what glorious waste of time!  Armstrong was such a genius that his interpretations of extremely problematic material, culturally insensitive compositions and pure drek are just as compelling as his classic works.  And when it comes to Armstrong, too much isn’t enough.


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I reviewed a concert by RL Grime, What So Not, Graves and Longer Days at the Midland theater for The Kansas City Star.

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I reviewed a concert by Primus and Clutch for The Kansas City Star.

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I reviewed a concert by the Harlem Quartet at Plastic Sax.

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I featured Bloodstone in my weekly segment on KCUR.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I don’t think any album in my old man’s regular rotation annoyed me more than Glen Campbell’s 1969 release Live.  It opens with a over-the-top medley.  The second track is a corny rendition of “White Lightning.”  My whiskey-drinking dad would mimic the vocal effects.  I never got past it.

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Barbara Cook has died.

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DL Menard has died.

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Howard Husock, the father of Eli “Paperboy” Reed, has written a fascinating account of his fleeting relationship with the late blues man Fred Davis.  The Kansas City native was killed in Cleveland in 1988.

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I admire all of the genre-shattering impulses displayed on Paul Jones’ Clean.  His version of jazz is RIYL Philip Glass, chamber music, David Binney.

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Tyler Childers’ Purgatory doesn’t contain a single original idea.  I like it anyway.  RIYL: the young Steve Earle, “real” country, Turnpike Troubadours.  Here’s ”Whitehouse Road”.

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I’m annoyed (and a bit embarrassed) that I immediately fell for Forq’s new album Thrēq.  The quartet melds the most appealing (and dorky) elements of prog-rock and jazz fusion.  RIYL: Brand X, imaginary soundtracks, Bob James.

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Damn hippies!  Power of Peace, a collaboration between Carlos Santana and the Isley Brothers, is far out.

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Hey, John Scofield is pretty good.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Shabazz Palaces- Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star and Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines

The overwhelming onslaught of alarming events has compelled many of my friends to embrace intoxicants with renewed fervor.  Even though I’m often tempted to turn to the bottle for deliberative escapism, I’ve found that a pair of gauzy new albums by Shabazz Palaces are capable of transporting me to an alternate reality that allows me to unwind, toy with astral projection and regain a semblance of composure.  I prefer Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines to Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star, but both releases possess some of the most appealing aspects of Sly and the Family Stone, Sun Ra, Future and Linton Kwesi Johnson.


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I hailed Kendrick Lamar in advance of his return to the Sprint Center.

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I featured Mac Lethal in my weekly KCUR segment.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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Guitarist Chuck Loeb has died.  He was a leading figure in the final wave of commercially viable and artistically compelling crossover jazz.

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Jan Fichman of 7th Heaven makes a cameo in the video for Rich the Factor and the Popper’s ”Aristocrat”.

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The Kansas City pianist Mark Lowrey oversees an disarming arrangement of Soundgarden’s “Fell On Black Days.”

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Trevor Lawrence Jr.’s Relationships is RIYL Quincy Jones, the intersection of jazz and R&B, the Brothers Johnson.

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Algorhythms turned me on to Matt Cappy’s debut release Church and State.  The jazz-based album by the Philadelphia trumpeter includes an Afro-beat selection and an interpretation of “Nessun Dorma.”

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Arcade Fire’s Everything Now is RIYL Abba, preciousness, Destroyer.

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Numero Group will release a Jackie Shane compilation in October.

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The 2017 Living Blues Awards indicate that the blues clearly isn’t alright.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)