Album Review: Snarky Puppy- Immigrance

Clinical studio perfection?  Check.  Ostentatious instrumental prowess?  Check.  Clever jazz references?  Check.  Insufferably smug fan base?  Check.  Snarky Puppy is the new Steely Dan.  The absence of Donald Fagen’s disdainful voice is the only substantive difference between Snarky Puppy’s Immigrance and Steely Dan albums like Aja.  Oh sure, Immigrance possesses additional components: the most dreadful moments reference the bloated pop of Toto while the best bits recall Return to Forever’s prog-rock fusion.  But it’s just a matter of time until a prankster releases a mashup of Immigrance and Aja.  I’m going to be all about it.  Here’s “Bad Kids to the Back”.


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

---
I took a field trip to 424 Lounge in Leavenworth, Kansas.

---
The R&B OG Andre Williams has died.  Here’s one of the Williams concert reviews I wrote for The Kansas City Star.

---
The rock guitar pioneer Dick Dale has died.

---
I’ve elected not to share the sordid details of the lucid dream I experienced after drifting off to the Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet’s evocative Metamodal.  RIYL: Regina Carter, Venus de Milo, John Blake.

---
I didn’t see the maturation of 2 Chainz coming.  Not only does Rap or Go to the League go down easy, the star-studded project offers nourishing food for thought.  Here’s “Money in the Way”.

---
The video of Tortoise’s set at the Midwinter festival is excellent.

---
It’s not funny anymore.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Bury Me Deep: Andre Williams’ Morbid Checklist

Old friends are dropping like flies.  And even my hair ached when I crawled out of bed yesterday.  Maybe it’s time to begin making funeral arrangements.  Andre Williams’s “Bury Me Deep” indicates that the process needn’t be joyless.  Here’s the beginning of his outlandish checklist: “when I die, I want six female pallbearers, and I want a Jewish hearse driver, and I want a black preacher preaching for me, and I want a pink hearse- gotta be pink…”  The outlandish song is from Williams’ forthcoming Don’t Ever Give Up album.


---
I reviewed concerts by Bonnie Raitt, Toni Braxton, Il Divo and Bob James for The Kansas City Star.

---
I reviewed the Conquerors’ Wyld Time album for KCUR.

---
My most recent weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine are published here and here.

---
I recently discussed Various Blonde and Kansas on KCUR.

---
Tonight’s Schoolboy Q concert is my Big Show of the week for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine.

---
I recently reviewed jazz concerts by Eddie Moore and the Outer Circle and the Hermon Mehari Quartet at Plastic Sax.

---
Helado Negro found ways to transcend the quandry faced by laptop pop artists at RecordBar last night.  Rather than merely singing into a microphone after pushing the play button on his MacBook, he and his computer were flanked by two costumed dancers and were supplemented by a nifty light system.  The experimental artist is also a convincing guitarist.

---
Phil Chess has died.

---
I’m all about Joyce DiDonato’s latest video.

---
Time/Life: Song for the Whales and Other Beings by Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra is a nice surprise.  The late bassist is heard on two of the five tracks.

---
Jamie Lidell’s Building a Beginning is RIYL Hall & Oates, old-fashioned love songs, Bobby Caldwell.  Here’s ”I Live To Make You Smile”.

---
The intentionally absurd album cover of D.R.A.M.’s Big Baby D.R.A.M. reflects its contents.  ”WiFi” features Erykah Badu.

---
Metal na Madeira, a collaboration between vocalist Paula Santoro and guitarist Ian Faquini, is RIYL Gal Costa, cool water on a hot day, João Gilberto.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)