Organized

The owner of a Kansas City jazz establishment does an uncannily accurate impression of me.  Rolling his eyes while whining about “that f*cking organ,” the entrepreneur mocks my longstanding dislike of the Hammond B-3.  Three convincing recent releases forced me to reassess my bias.

The presence of the mighty Pharoah Sanders compelled me to check out organist Joey DeFrancesco’s In the Key of the Universe.  The grooviest tracks almost make me believe that “The Creator Has a Master Plan”.

The James Carter Organ Trio emits as much energy as the sun on the radiant Live From Newport Jazz.   The saxophonist, organist Gerard Gibbs and drummer Alexander White are committed to getting backfields in motion.

Steve Howe- yes, that Steve Howe- is joined by organist Ross Stanley and drummer Dylan Howe on New Frontier.  It’s a tasteful blend of prog-rock, jazz fusion and the conventional organ trio sound.

A few hours after composing the previous paragraphs, I plopped down in a chair three feet from the Hammond B-3’s auxiliary speaker at the Green Lady Lounge last night.  I was unexpectedly overcome with a newfound appreciation of the vintage analogue sound.  Here’s actual footage of my ecstatic response.


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I write weekly concert recommendations for The Kansas City Star.

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I contributed to KCUR’s guide to the Middle of the Map Fest.

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I extol the addition of Adam Larson to Kansas City’s jazz scene at Plastic Sax.

(Original image of an organ combo at the Green Lady Lounge by There Stands the Glass.)

Misterioso

My professional affiliation with the Kansas City venue Green Lady Lounge isn’t a secret.  Nor do I attempt to hide my ambivalence about the organ-based orientation of the bookings in the jazz club’s main room.  While I genuinely enjoy some of the organ jazz specialists who regularly appear at Green Lady, I rarely listen to the form for pleasure.  My passion for organ jazz began and ended during the era in which Milton’s served thirsty underaged punks who were eager to be schooled on the likes of Jack McDuff by the scofflaw bartenders who manned the dive’s turntable.  Yet Organ Monk Blue, a bracing new album by organist Gregory Lewis, guitarist Marc Ribot and drummer Jeremy "Bean" Clemons, is anything but stale.  The reckless trio makes Monk sound wonderfully strange again. 


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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I featured Lonnie McFadden in my weekly segment for KCUR.

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Hugh Masekela has died.  It’s possible that “Grazing in the Grass” was the first jazz-oriented song I encountered as a child.

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Mark E. Smith has died.  I distinctly remember the hullabaloo that accompanied the release of the Fall’s Live at the Witch Trials in 1979.  I never bought in.

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Rapper Fredo Santana has died.

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Sir shamelessly cribs Miguel and Frank Ocean on the solid November.  I can’t say I blame him.  Here’s “Summer in November”.

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John Surman’s stately Invisible Threads is RIYL Jimmy Giuffre, chamber jazz, Anouar Brahem.

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I’m embarrassed by how easily I was seduced by the deliriously gimmicky pop songs on The Go! Team’s Semicircle.  Here’s “All the Way Live”.

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I’m amused by Avatar’s Avatar Country.  Here’s “The King Wants You”.

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When I went through a funk-punk phase in the early 1980s, I subjected everyone around me to the Contortions, the Bush Tetras and James “Blood” Ulmer.  Shopping revives the style on The Official Body.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)