March Recap

Top Five Performances
1. The Big Ears Festival
My capsule reviews of 30 sets.
2. Leikeli47- Encore Room
My Instagram clip.
3. Metallica- Sprint Center
My review.
4. Ryan Keberle & Catharsis- Mod Gallery
My review.
5. Eric Church- Sprint Center
My review.

Top Five Albums
1. Solange- When I Get Home
I no longer pine for new music from Erykah Badu.
2. Little Simz- Grey Area
A true boss.
3. Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom- Glitter Wolf
Delirious chamber jazz.
4. Willie Clayton- Excellence
Take me to the river.
5. Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah- Ancestral Recall
Generational brilliance.

Top Five Songs
1. Townes Van Zandt- “Sky Blue”
Buried treasure.
2. 2 Chainz with Kendrick Lamar- “Momma I Hit a Lick”
I want it, I want it, I want it.
3. The Wild Reeds- “Moving Target”
Garage-rock perfection.
4. Zara McFarlane- "East of the River Nile”
New life for an Augustus Pablo gem.
5. Nick Lowe- “Love Starvation”
Pure pop for old people.

I conducted the same exercise in January and February.

(Original image of Dwight Andrews and Leo Wadada Smith at the Big Ears Festival by There Stands the Glass.)

Fats Domino, 1928-2017

I’ll share an extremely unflattering anecdote as I note the passing of Fats Domino.  I sat next to the noted New Orleans based music journalist Jeff Hannusch, the author of I Hear You Knockin: The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues, on a bus during a music industry convention in the 1990s.  When the conversation inevitably turned to Domino, I told Jeff that I regretted my recent purchase of the icon’s four-CD, 100-song box set that includes his expansive liner notes.  I explained that the single disc compilation I already owned was more than enough Fats for any reasonable person.  I think Jeff might have quit talking to me.  Not only was I a jerk, I was wrong.  There could never be enough of the Fat Man’s seminal American music.


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I’ve partnered with the Green Lady Lounge to revive The Kansas City Jazz Calendar.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I named Freight Train Rabbit Killer KCUR’s Band of the Week.

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My review of a performance by the Owen/Cox Dance Group and the People’s Liberation Big Band at Polsky Theatre is at Plastic Sax.

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Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s The Emancipation Procrastination may be the best of the three albums the polarizing jazz artist has issued in 2017.

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I’ve long been enamored of Chanté Moore.  The Rise of the Phoenix is a delight.  Here’s ”Something to Remember”.

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I lost my taste for Magnetic Fields somewhere along the way.  I’m sure I’d admire a handful of songs on 50 Song Memoir, but I’m not willing to invest the time to find them.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Pistol Pete- The 3Pete

The rims on the minivan in the hilarious video for ”Konichiwa” sold me on the Kansas City rapper Pistol Pete.  He’s as funny as Mac Lethal and as funky as Rich the Factor on his new album The 3Pete.

Pistol Pete insists that “I ain’t a rapper, I’m more a storyteller” on “2bad2good.”   The track’s jazz foundation indicates that the title is a likely reference to the Canadian jazz/hip-hop collective BadBadNotGood.  “So Gone” also swings while other tracks reveal the influence of Mac Dre.

The 3Pete concludes with my new theme song “Only Opponent.”  Like Mac Lethal, Rich the Factor and Pistol Pete, I see my most formidable adversary “when I look in the mirror.”


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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I featured Molly Hammer in my weekly segment for KCUR.

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I documented a portion of my recent whiskey trip to Louisville at Plastic Sax.

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The one-time Kansan Mark Selby, a graduate of Fort Hays State who co-wrote the Dixie Chicks hit “There’s Your Trouble,” has died.

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Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s first album of 2017 struck me as a pointless recreation of Miles Davis’ Decoy.  A more interesting groove makes Diaspora a much better listen.

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Difficult admission: I’d never heard most of the tracks on the new Can compilation The Singles.  Aside from a few slices of cheese at the end, every song is stunning.

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Rock musician Jeremy Porter wrote an excellent remembrance of Grant Hart.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Concert Review: Salif Keita at Town Hall

I was disappointed when I checked the live music listings after I snagged a cheap flight to New York City.  No Henry Threadgill.  No Cecil Taylor.  Not even Wadada Leo Smith would be playing while I’d be in town.

During my previous trip to New York City, I heard Joyce DiDonato light up Carnegie Hall (my review) and sat a few feet from Dave Douglas, Lee Konitz, Matt Mitchell, Linda Oh and Ches Smith at the Jazz Standard (my review). While I experienced nothing quite as momentous on my visit earlier this month, I didn’t go wanting.

I heard the artist known as the Golden Voice of Africa perform for hundreds of Malians in a historic venue built by suffragettes.  It was a quintessential New York City experience.  I uploaded a snippet to Instagram.  Super-fan Banning Eyre reviewed the concert for Afropop Worldwide.


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I reviewed a concert by In This Moment, Motionless In White, Avatar and Gemini Syndrome for
The Kansas City Star.

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I wrote an extended concert preview about Mastodon for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine.

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

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I named Alicia Solo KCUR’s Band of the Week.

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I laud Kansas City’s new lounge band Agora at Plastic Sax.

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Allan Holdsworth has died.  Feels Good To Me might be the last prog/fusion album I enjoyed before the Sex Pistols, the Ramones and the Clash changed my outlook.

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Orchestra Baobab’s Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng is the leading candidate to be my all-purpose album of the summer. My next-door neighbors have already heard it twice as I’ve worked in my driveway.  RIYL: life, Buena Vista Social Club, love.  Here’s ”Foulo”.  (Tip via Big Steve.)

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Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng is light and breezy, but Vieux Farka Touré‘s Samba is loud and brassy.  RIYL: 1970s’s-era Carlos Santana, dancing, Ali Farka Touré.  Here’s ”Homafu Wawa”.

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Damn isn’t To Pimp a Butterfly or Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City.  So what?  It’s still essential.  Kendrick Lamar remains the #rapmessiah.  Here’s ”DNA”.

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I’ve always loved Decoy.  Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah successfully updates the 1980s sound of Miles Davis on Ruler Rebel.

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Rodney Crowell’s Close Ties is a mishmash of great and cringe-worthy- songs.  ”Nashville 1972” is both.

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Howard Shore’s Two Concerti, ably played by Lang Lang, is a noble failure.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Christian Scott- Stretch Music

I’m no longer crestfallen that Christian Scott isn’t performing in Kansas City on his current tour.  I expected his new release to expand on the exciting advances he made on Christian aTunde Adjuah, my #2 album of 2012.  Instead, it’s a tedious retrenchment.

Stretch Music is billed as "a genre-blind musical form that stretches the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic conventions of jazz to encompass as many musical forms, languages, thought processes and cultures as possible."

The project reeks of unflattering me-too-ism.  Scott seems to be trying to unnecessarily prove that hip-hop, rock and jazz can coexist.  He’s merely rehashing the work of Flying Lotus, Nicholas Payton, Miles Davis and Gil Evans. 

I expect Scott to be a leader.  He’s opted to be a follower.  Unless Frank Ocean or Kanye West stumbles, Stretch Music will be the most disappointing album of 2015.


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I reviewed Citizen Cope’s concert at Crossroads KC.

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Here are the weekly music previews I write for The Kansas City Star.

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I spotlighted Making Movies’ Carnaval for Ink magazine.

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I contributed a Local Listen segment about Making Movies to KCUR.

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Bobby Watson and his touring band thrilled me at the Folly Theater on Friday.  Here’s my review.

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A man seated near me softly snored through much of the Kansas City Symphony’s concert on Sunday afternoon.  The tiresome program didn’t excite me either.  I’m more of a Berg: Lyric Suite; Wellesz: Sonnets By Elizabeth Barrett-Browning guy.  Here’s the intriguing EPK for the new collaboration between the Emerson String Quartet and Renée Fleming.

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I assume that Shannon and the Clams and the critics who extol the band are trolling.  Gone By the Dawn is dismal.  RIYL: The Shaggs, the first rehearsal of an unpromising garage-rock band, Jonathan Richman at his most insufferable.

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The subtleties of The Evolution of Oneself initially eluded me.  Repeated listens have revealed that the trio of Orrin Evans, Christian McBride and Karriem Riggins have created one of the year’s best jazz albums.  Recommended to people who appreciate both Ray Brown and the Wu-Tang Clan.

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I love everything about Windhand’s Grief’s Infernal Flower.  RIYL: Slayer, cemeteries, Pallbearer.

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Mary Halvorson’s Meltframe does nothing for me.  RIYL: Robert Fripp, dissertations about music theory, Bill Frisell.

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I don’t have anything bad to say about Keith Richards’ Crosseyed Heart.  RIYL: Ian McLagan, lions in the winter, Chuck Berry.

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Steve Van Zandt’s maximalist production of Introducing Darlene Love is too much for me.  Here’s the overblown ”Forbidden Nights”.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)