EP Review: Radiant Children- Tryin'

Why hasn’t Radiant Children blown up?  The four dream-soul songs on Radiant Children’s Tryin’ EP are superior to almost everything the Internet, Janelle Monaé or Little Dragon have issued recently.  Don’t believe me?  Even cursory examinations of “Life’s a Bitch” and “Poke Bowl” will convince you that the London based trio has been unjustly overlooked.


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I reviewed Luke Bryan’s concert at the Sprint Center for The Kansas City Star

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I reviewed Lonnie McFadden’s "Charlie Parker: Past, Present & Future" at the Gem Theater at Plastic Sax.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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Believe it or not, the Temptations’ new interpretation of the Weeknd’s “Earned It” is excellent.

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Luciana Souza’s Book of Dreaming is too rarified for my blood.  RIYL: Gretchen Parlato extreme tastefulness, Joni Mitchell.

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Old dogs execute all manner of new tricks on a strange new tribute album.  Billy Swan and Buzz Cason perform surprising interpretations of Buddy Holly songs on Billy & Buzz Sing Buddy.  “Lookin’ For Someone to Love” is one of the project’s most conventional selections.

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I’m disappointed that Ólafur Arnalds’ Re:member doesn’t possess the emotional resonance of the late Jóhann Jóhannsson’s work.  RIYL: androids, Brian Eno, bleeps.

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Vete de mi vida.

(Original image 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.)

Whoa

I watched surfers from a beachside dive while on vacation in San Diego yesterday.  The soundtrack was similar to the sounds I’d heard at multiple Southern California establishments this week.  Rather than irritating me as they do when I encounter them in my Midwestern home, new millennium reggae songs from the likes of  Rebelution, Sbid, Iration and Damian Marley tickled my ears in an unfamiliar way.  Otherwise subdued barflys banded together for a hearty singalong when the 311 hit “Amber” popped up on the playlist.  I may have joined in.


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I shared tracks by Deborah Brown, Matt Otto with Ensemble Ibérica, Samantha Fish, Lee Ann Womack, Future and Alejandro Fernández on a KCUR program titled “From Kansas City And Beyond, The Best Music Of 2017”.  Bonus: I made a case for Rich the Factor as my favorite Kansas City artist.

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I write weekly music previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I reviewed Lonnie McFadden’s Live at Green Lady Lounge at Plastic Sax.

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Denise LaSalle has died.

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“Fast” Eddie Clarke of Motörhead and Fastway has died.

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Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries has died.

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The crossover gospel artist Edwin Hawkins has died.

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The press materials for Suss’Ghost Box imply that the New York group’s “ambient country” concept is groundbreaking.  It’s not.  Calexico, Bill Frisell and B.J. Cole are among the artists that have previously explored the Ennio Morricone-influenced terrain.  That observation doesn’t mean that I don't take enormous pleasure in Ghost Box.

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The albums Jack Antonoff produced for Lorde, Taylor Swift and his band Bleachers provided satisfying pop kicks in 2017.  Børns’ Blue Madonna offers a similar sort of immediate gratification.  Here’s “I Don’t Want U Back”.

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I intended to bail on Anderson East’s Encore until I recognized the opening lyric of the album’s fifth song.  His surprising cover of Ted Hawkins’ “Sorry You’re Sick” is a nice surprise.  Even so, does the world need another painfully sincere blue-eyed soul singer in the vein of Ray LaMontagne, Allen Stone and Amos Lee?  Here’s
“Girlfriend”.

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”Do you like it hardcore?” Yes, Fools Gold and Masayoshi Iimori, I do.

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Listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Wrong Creatures is the rock and roll equivalent of rewatching the anodyne John Hughes movie The Breakfast Club.  RIYL: the Black Angels, vinyl reissues of the Velvet Underground, the Kills.  Here’s “Little Thing Gone Wild”.

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The video for Inara George’s lovely chamber-pop song “Young Adult” is charming.

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New Stravinsky!  The world premiere recording of the recently rediscovered “Chant Funébre” by Riccardo Chailly and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra on Stravinsky: Chant funŠbre; Le Sacre de Printemps is a swirling mind-bender.

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Umphrey’s McGee’s It’s Not Us is a typically frustrating affair.  The jam band is best during noisy freakouts that evoke King Crimson’s Discipline.  The group is intolerable when it sounds like a third-tier version of the Police.

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I’m invariably delighted on the rare occasions when I encounter a music enthusiast who is even geekier than I.  Cole Cuchna pores over every note and lyric of Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy on the second season of his Dissect podcast.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Troyka- Ornithophobia

My defenses were down when I happened upon Troyka last week.  The British trio combines the prog-rock wankery of King Crimson, the geeky jazz fusion of Billy Cobham and the fluid modern jazz of Flying Lotus.  I melted within minutes.  To quote an irritating meme: “shut up and take my money.”  The trailer for the new album Ornithophobia and the snippets streaming at Amazon reveal the source of my latest guilty pleasure. 


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I reviewed Chris Brown’s concert at the Sprint Center.

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Miguel's outing at the Midland theater last night is likely to be favorite concert of 2015. Here's my review.

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I contributed a Local Listen segment about Lonnie McFadden to KCUR.

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I laud Hmph and the Jorge Arana Trio at Plastic Sax.

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I’ve never seen the Colombian star Carlos Vives perform.  His new live album indicates that I’m really missing out.  Here’s an exciting version of the irresistible “Como Le Gusta a Tu Cuerpo”.

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Tokyo Adagio, a duet featuring Charlie Haden and Gonzalo Rubalcaba recorded in 2005, is predictably enchanting.

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The Internet’s Ego Death sounds incredible.  Too bad Syd tha Kid can’t write a decent song.  Or am I wrong?  Here’s ”Girl”.  RIYL: Frank Ocean, headphones, Teena Marie. 

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Pictures and Paintings, Charlie RIch’s last recorded statement, is one of my favorite albums.  Boz Scaggs’ A Fool to Care is a similarly sentimental work.  RIYL: James Booker, fond farewells, Curtis Mayfield.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)