You Run Your Mouth, I'll Run My Business

My obsessive-compulsive tendencies compel me to think twice before queuing up compilations of irreproachable music by the likes of the Carter Family, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday or Django Reinhardt.  Their timeless works tend to send me down unproductive rabbit holes.  It was with great reluctance, consequently, that I played the first of 136 tracks on the new Louis Armstrong collection The Complete Decca Singles 1935-1946.  I was out of commission for the next six hours and 38 minutes.  Oh, but what glorious waste of time!  Armstrong was such a genius that his interpretations of extremely problematic material, culturally insensitive compositions and pure drek are just as compelling as his classic works.  And when it comes to Armstrong, too much isn’t enough.


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I reviewed a concert by RL Grime, What So Not, Graves and Longer Days at the Midland theater for The Kansas City Star.

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I reviewed a concert by Primus and Clutch for The Kansas City Star.

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I reviewed a concert by the Harlem Quartet at Plastic Sax.

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I featured Bloodstone in my weekly segment on KCUR.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I don’t think any album in my old man’s regular rotation annoyed me more than Glen Campbell’s 1969 release Live.  It opens with a over-the-top medley.  The second track is a corny rendition of “White Lightning.”  My whiskey-drinking dad would mimic the vocal effects.  I never got past it.

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Barbara Cook has died.

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DL Menard has died.

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Howard Husock, the father of Eli “Paperboy” Reed, has written a fascinating account of his fleeting relationship with the late blues man Fred Davis.  The Kansas City native was killed in Cleveland in 1988.

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I admire all of the genre-shattering impulses displayed on Paul Jones’ Clean.  His version of jazz is RIYL Philip Glass, chamber music, David Binney.

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Tyler Childers’ Purgatory doesn’t contain a single original idea.  I like it anyway.  RIYL: the young Steve Earle, “real” country, Turnpike Troubadours.  Here’s ”Whitehouse Road”.

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I’m annoyed (and a bit embarrassed) that I immediately fell for Forq’s new album Thrēq.  The quartet melds the most appealing (and dorky) elements of prog-rock and jazz fusion.  RIYL: Brand X, imaginary soundtracks, Bob James.

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Damn hippies!  Power of Peace, a collaboration between Carlos Santana and the Isley Brothers, is far out.

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Hey, John Scofield is pretty good.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Concert Review: Ben Sidran at White Theatre

A bit of ugliness marred an otherwise engaging presentation by Ben Sidran at the Jewish Community Center on Sunday afternoon.

Following Sidran's lecture and demonstration, a befuddled man in the audience of about 200 seemed to mistake a question-and-answer session for a meeting of Racists Anonymous.

In a jarring monologue, a man who identified himself as a Christian repeatedly upheld a handful of Jewish stereotypes.  The subsequent commotion spoiled the remainder of the presentation and was the only thing I heard people discussing as they exited White Theatre.

It's too bad.  While promoting his current book There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream, Sidran made a convincing case for the importance of what he called "the Jewish meme" in American society.  He suggested that that not only is American popular music shaped in large part by Jewish musicians, composers and businessmen, but that Americans in the 20th century adopted the Jewish dream as the American dream.

Sidran performed material by Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Bob Dylan and Billy Joel to make his case.  He also parsed "Take Me Out To the Ballgame" and "Over the Rainbow" as (his phrase) "Jewish music."  During one of his many digressions, Sidran implied that a significant portion of Louis Armstrong's brilliance was inspired and guided by Jewish culture.

Sidran touches on many of the same themes in this recent discussion.

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Joe Bihari of Modern Records has died.

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Sterlin, the new album by She's a Keeper, was released on December 11. RIYL: The Lumineers, kids with banjos, Punch Brothers.

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Eight months late- here's the video for Devon Allman and Samantha Fish's version of "Stop Dragging My Heart Around".

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My top jazz albums of 2013 are posted at Plastic Sax.

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Beyoncé!

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)