Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

I’m home alone for the first time in thirty years.  The members of my brood aren’t going to burst through the front door at any moment and my wife is exploring a distant island.  I feel jarringly isolated no matter how high I crank the volume on the latest albums by Brockhampton, Rapsody and Taylor Swift.

That’s why the new release from Shannon Lay hit me like a ton of bricks.  I intended to give August just a cursory listen, but bleak songs like “Death Up Close” and “Nowhere” directly address my newfound solitude.

Lay is best known for her affiliations with Ty Segall and Kevin Morby, but August is superior to anything I’ve heard by either indie-rock mainstay.  Of the multitude of recordings by the Nick Drake and Sandy Denny facsimiles currently clamoring for attention, only Bill MacKay’s Fountain Fire and Lay’s August are worthy distractions from blockbusters like Ginger, Eve and Lover.


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I commend the Kansas City jazz musician Brian Scarborough at Plastic Sax.

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Miniature reviews of the aforementioned albums: Taylor Swift remains intensely unlikeable on Lover, but her craftsmanship is impeccable.  The sound field on Rapsody’s Eve is atrocious. I demand a remix.  Brockhampton’s Ginger is a glorious mess.  Sad songs (say so much).

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I knew Carl Jefferson.  I can say with complete confidence that he’d be horrified by most of the music currently released by the straight-ahead jazz record label he founded.  That said, you can’t argue with success.  The absurdly revisionist The History of Concord Jazz video feature is worth a look.

(Original image of Iceland by the life partner of There Stands the Glass.)

Sour Concord Grapes

I’m not one of the three pasty men in the photograph that accompanies a The New York Times report about the latest transmutation of the entity once known as Concord Records.  While I bear a slight resemblance to the executives who oversee the conglomerate, I suppose I lack some of their business acuity.  I certainly had myriad opportunities to get in on the ground floor of the operation.  I regularly interacted with Carl Jefferson, the late founder of Concord Records, as I toiled as a sales rep for independent record labels when his company was strictly devoted to mainstream jazz recordings.  When he wasn’t scolding me about slow payments or the ostensibly light spreads of his latest releases, Jefferson and I had delightful discussions about our mutual admiration of musicians like Ruby Braff.  Even though things have worked out for me, I occasionally regret not striving to become a redoubtable music industry mogul.


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I reviewed the 25th anniversary edition of Rockfest.

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I reviewed Tech N9ne's return to the Midland.

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Future’s concert at the Sprint Center was my show of the week for The Kansas City Star and
Ink magazine.

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I gave Nick Schnebelen my KCUR Band of the Week designation.

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

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I reviewed Hermon Mehari’s solo debut album at Plastic Sax.

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Danny Cox recalled the summer of 1967 for The Kansas City Star.

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Bern Nix has died.

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The remix of Bob Marley & the Wailers' Exodus is disorienting.  Here’s ”Turn Your Lights Down Low”.

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Mad Decent added just the right amount of production sweetening to Omar Souleyman’s music on To Syria, With Love.  Here’s ”Chobi”.

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Cuong Vu’s Ballet is miraculous free-ish jazz.  RIYL: Bill Frisell, four (brilliant) dudes jamming, Dave Douglas.

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Orrin Evans might be my favorite mainstream jazz pianist.  His presence elevates Sean Jones’ Live From at the Bistro.  RIYL: Hermon Mehari, the St. Louis jazz club, Terrel Stafford.

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Rock may be dead, but the members of Greta Van Fleet are expert necromancers.  Black Smoke Rising is RIYL Led Zeppelin IV, gravedigging, Houses of the Holy.  Here’s ”Highway Tune”.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)