Author: Sal Cataldi

Long-Awaited Documentary of Pink Floyd Founder Syd Barrett Comes to NYC

The meteoric career of Pink Floyd’s madcap founder Syd Barrett has birthed a legend and influence that seems to grow more with each passing year. Syd was the songwriter/singer/guitarist for little more than the band’s watershed 1967 debut album, Piper At the Gates of Dawn, and two equally influential but barely selling solo discs, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett (both 1970), a lyrical and instrumental savant who was virtually gone upon arrival.

Was he an acid casualty? A victim of early adult-onset mental illness? Or did he just almost immediately tire of the pressures of pop stardom, the endless gigging and demand for the next hit single as soon as he began to achieve fame? And what became of him when he left the music world – retreating back into his family’s home in Cambridge to paint and then destroy his works, a hermit who rarely left his house, a singular musical voice who would never pick up a guitar again?

Barrett has been the subject of several fine books and documentaries but none as thorough and sensitive to his struggles as “HAVE YOU GOT IT YET?” Directed by award-winning filmmaker Roddy Bogawa (Taken By Storm: The Art of Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis) and the late, acclaimed album art designer Storm Thorgerson (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, Black Sabbath), this long-awaited documentary will have its U.S. debut at NYC’s Quad Cinema, from July 14 – 17. Director Bogawa will be present for Q&As during several of the 14 NYC screenings.

“HAVE YOU GOT IT YET?” is a chronicle of the mosaic of Barrett’s creative and destructive impulses, his captivating presence and absence – a portrait of the complex puzzle that was his life. His story is told by a multitude of family, friends and associates, many who have never shared their experiences. These include childhood schoolmates, his caretaker sister Rosemary, former girlfriends, 60s musical contemporaries like Pete Townsend, the younger musician he influenced like Stone Roses’ John Squire and, of course, his fellow Floyds – David Gilmour, Roger Waters and the late Rick Wright.

Syd’s story begins with what is described as a charmed childhood in bucolic Cambridge, England, the son of a doctor who was strikingly handsome, charismatic and, most of all, talented in the arts. According to his first girlfriend Libby Gauden: “Life was too easy for him, everything worked — his painting, his friendships, everything.” With his entrance into the Cambridge School of Art in 1962, he gets into “the Beats, Beatles and The Stones.” Born Roger, he will borrow the name “Syd” from a local bass player, Syd “The Beat” Barrett, for his professional career. He will eventually move to London to continue his art studies and into a flat with bandmates-to-be Rick Wright and Roger Waters. They will soon begin playing together and, with the arrival of LSD in his diet, morph from a band copying Bo Diddley-styled R&B into something far more unique, improvisational and adventurous.

The documentary contains a remarkable collection of never-before-seen photos and film clips from his childhood and musical career. The latter includes the legendary 8mm reportedly shot during Syd’s first acid trip, along with the legendary Friday nights gigs at London’s UFO club. Of these, Pete Townsend says: “The only time I missed a Who gig was to take acid and see Syd and the Floyd at the UFO.” Townsend goes on to praise Syd’s unique guitar technique, his use of two Binson echo units, generating a syncopated throb which he calls “spectacular psychedelic heavy metal.” There are other great memories of these gig and the Floyd’s impact on Swinging London related by the band’s psychedelic light show creator Pete Wynne Wilson, legendary photographer Mick Rock and their managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King. Another great video find is a color remaster of the early promotional film for “Scarecrow” from their debut disc. The Dream Academy’s Nick Laird-Clowes goes on to compare the Syd of this halcyon era to a switched-on Lewis Carroll or Hilaire Belloc, “an English romantic wearing a psychedelic cloak.”

Shortly after their February 1967 signing to EMI Records, Syd and Pink Floyd would find themselves recording their debut album at the label’s famed studio, now known as Abbey Road, as The Beatles were working on Sgt Pepper in an adjoining studio. Their debut single, “Arnold Layne” would make the Top 20 and the album would reach #6 on the charts. By the time of their second single, the #5 “See Emily Play,” trouble would be brewing as Syd would balk at appearing to mime their hit on the weekly TV countdown show, Top of the Pops. He would say: “John Lennon doesn’t have to do this, so why should I?” He would make the first two episodes and skip out on the third.

According to Floyd drummer Nick Mason, Syd “didn’t want to be a pop star.” His use of LSD, grip on reality and his irresponsibility would escalate with a move to a flat on 101 Cromwell Road, a true “den” of perversion according to those on the scene. Here, he would be regularly dosed by hangers-on according to his girlfriend of the time, Lindsay Korner. By this time, Syd would also stop playing and singing in the middle of gigs. A mini-tour of U.S. designed to pull the band back together would be a disaster. The low lights? They were a horrendous performance at the Fillmore West and bizarre appearance by a virtually catatonic Syd on “Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.”

The turmoil in his brain would manifest itself in singles that were recorded but not released, “Vegetable Man” and “Scream Thy Last Scream.” In the later part of 1967, the band would bring in Syd’s longtime friend David Gilmour as a support guitarist. Syd Barrett would be out and the five-man Floyd is over when they decided not to pick him up to play a gig at Hastings Place in January 1968.

Gilmour and Waters who would come to the rescue and help Syd finish his debut album, The Madcap Laughs. In the documentary, Gilmour states his belief that “the writing was better than Piper,” praising its “truly fascinating lyrics.” Gilmour and Wright would come to his aid to complete his second and final studio album, Barrett.

After a few aborted attempts at more recording and live gigging and an unsettling visit by a vastly overweight and unrecognizable Syd visit as the band was recording their Syd tribute, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” in 1975, Barrett would finally head back to Cambridge – walking the 50 miles from London. According to his sister Rosemary, who was his caretaker until his death from pancreatic cancer in 2006, “he didn’t want to be reminded of it; he wasn’t Syd anymore.” Indeed, he was Roger again, a man who largely kept to himself and painted, then promptly destroyed, most of his work.

Anyone who has listened to Syd’s music or that of his many musical disciples like Robyn Hitchcock and David Bowie, know that his unique lyrical whimsy and naïve instrumental genius have had a massive impact on the music that came after his brief time in the spotlight. While they do touch base on some of the unseemly episodes in his life, the film is really a tribute to Barrett’s unique and lasting impact on pop’s more creative edge.

At the conclusion of the film, it’s the great playwright Tom Stoppard who sums it up best. “Tragic tales resonate more than tales of triumph.” And while Bogawa and Thorgerson’s film frames the tragedy, it’s their take on his singular talents that will resonate with viewers, like the long tale of his comet-like career and genius.”

July 13, 2023
Greenwich Village Folk Era Reverberates in New Book “The Bleecker Street Tapes”

From the coffeehouses of Greenwich Village to the stage at Woodstock, folksingers were a powerful force shaping the culture and attitudes of the 1960s. Marrying music and politics, tradition and innovation, romance and righteousness, these were singular tunesmiths of the most literate and informed order – a coterie of chordal preachers who put a mirror to the political upheavals and spiritual awakenings of this halcyon era. Richie Havens, Peter, Paul & Mary, John Sebastian, Phil Ochs, Roger McGuinn, Melanie, Janis Ian, Leonard Cohen, Peter Tork and later arrivals, like The Roches and Suzanne Vega, all cut their teeth and catapulted to stardom from a handful of clubs in the narrow streets of NYC’s West Village.

The life and times of 19 of the most impactful artists who emerged from New York City’s folk scene are profiled in The Bleecker Street Tapes (Trouser Press), the latest from veteran music journalist Bruce Pollock.

As stated in the introduction, Pollock was an eyewitness who became a chronicler of many of the most important names in folk in writings for outlets like The New York Post and Entertainment Weekly. Pollock lived in four apartments in Greenwich Village from 1966 – 1975 and had been frequented clubs like the legendary Gaslight nightly since the early 1960s.

Pollock’s book is interesting because of the timing of the interviews. Most of the quotes in these profiles come from the mid ‘70s – mid ‘80s when the commercial fervor for folk was waning. In many, it shows artists in reduced financial and professional circumstances stubbornly plugging away before modest cult audiences. Many are pondering the failures of the Age of Aquarius and its idealism as American approaches the conservative swing to the Reagan era.

Pollock’s begins with Dave Von Ronk, the bearish man who ruled the roost at the Gaslight Café’s open mics, an early champion and inspiration for Dylan and many who came after.

Von Ronk is captured heading to a scarcely attended club gig in 1982. He reflects on his “few good earning years” and how he always seemed “on the brink” of something bigger. He tells how he passed up the opportunity to be the “Paul” in the folk mega group, Peter, Paul & Mary (that went to Noel Stookey, a Village comedian whose act ended with him imitating a toilet flushing!), and of his failed audition for Dylan’s manager-to-be Albert Grossman. This was after a winter hitchhike to his club in Chicago, something borrowed for the Coen Brothers’ wonderful folk music film, Inside Llewelyn Davis.

In his interview with Phil Ochs, we learn that his decision to become a songwriter came while in jail for vagrancy in Florida. Ochs’ political powered anthems were an outgrowth of his first desired career – journalism. Phil was writing about Vietnam in 1962, way before any songwriter was penning war protest songs. And, contrary to popular belief, he shares that he didn’t think less of his longtime rival Bob Dylan’s decision to stop writing about politics and social causes. He also reveals, perhaps in jest, that his favorite cover of one of his songs was former beauty queen and anti-gay activist Anita Bryant’s of “Power & Glory.”

One of the more interesting profiles, one that truly captures the low-rent, pre-Gentrification splendor of the era, is that of Tuli Kupferberg of the infamous The Fugs. Tuli was in his mid-40s and divorced when he teamed with writer Ed Sanders to marry rock music, poetry and racy lyrics in a group named after a Norman Mailer term for intercourse. Gentrification be damned, as Tuli relates renting a six-room apartment of Avenue D for $12 a month in 1965. It was all about fun, poetry, revolutionary theatre and orgies. “We weren’t worried about writing for the ages,” he declares.

Buffy St. Marie relates how her writing of classics like “Universal Soldier” was the product of “channeling words and music that come at once, like a radio station.” The most romantic folk star of the Gaslight era, Eric Andersen, believes his songs survived because he didn’t get too political. Don McLean tells of the impact of Pete Seeger on his work and personal life, namely his adventures as a part of the original crew of Seeger’s ecological boat, The Clearwater, in 1969. Also, how his mega-hit, “American Pie,” ruined his career by branding him a “sellout” and how the fortunes from it bought him a Mercedes Benz and not a Chevy he would drive to the levy. Both Loudon Wainwright III and Leonard Cohen reveal they turned to songwriting because it was easier than writing novels.

Pollock calls folkie-turned-Monkee Peter Tork “a rock-n-roll Maynard G. Krebs.” He captures Tork in 1981 when he had lost all his Monkees’ money but is content in his move back to the East Coast and playing gigs that provide him and his daughter with “three hots and a cot.” His 1982 interview with Roger McGuinn provides a pocket history of folk and country rock, two genres birthed by his band, The Byrds. McGuinn also reveals how he was the catalyst for Beatle George’s interest in both Ravi Shankar and Eastern Religion.

The most interesting and lengthiest profile is that of Lovin’ Spoonful singer/songwriter John Sebastian.

Unlike anyone else here, aside from his early bandmate/friend Maria Muldaur, Sebastian was born and raised in Greenwich Village. He was raised on Bank Street in a family headed by a renowned classic harmonica virtuoso father who would have friends like Woody Guthrie and Burl Ives drop by. Sebastian traces his woodshedding days, playing as a teenager with Lightnin’ Hopkins, doing sessions with Bob Dylan and Tom Rush, his time in the Even Dozen Jug Band before forming the Lovin’ Spoonful. Their lengthy residency at The Night Owl Café was the event that ushered in a bit of rock raucous to the high-minded acoustic scene.

Sebastian recounts the Spoonful’s run of huge hits and their eventually breakup in the wake of a drug bust, the fits and starts of his solo career and disillusionment with the business. Sebastian would move to L.A. and live in a tent for two years before remarrying, having a son and moving into, then flipping, a couple of houses. “I would make as much from real estate as songs in the early ‘70s,” he says. Of course, there’s talk of his unscheduled performance at Woodstock, something done with a borrowed guitar and on a “triple acid trip,” and how it both helped and hurt his career. Some other interesting bits – a cameo by the real-life Frank Serpico of movie fame who would revive drug O.D.s among the scene . There’s also discussion of the invitation to join Crosby, Stills & Nash as their drummer in the early days when they were getting their act together out at Sebastian’s place in Sag Harbor.

Sebastian credits some of his longevity to seeing his dad hustle a career in the not so lucrative world of classical music. “He wasn’t afraid to get his tux dirty,” quips Sebastian. Shortly before this 1982 interview, Sebastian would find himself back on top with a number one hit he wrote on order and almost forget. It was the theme to the TV series, “Welcome Back Kotter.” For the past few decades, he’s been living a happy and unironic life in Woodstock.

Pollock’s book concludes with a playlist featuring the works of 70 artists who influenced or emerged from Greenwich Village’s folk scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYBnGmXgB1E

June 18, 2023
The Allman Brothers’ Post-Duane Breakthrough Profiled in “Brothers and Sisters”

For some fans, The Allman Brothers 1971 live double-disc, At Fillmore East, was the pinnacle of the band’s career and artistry. It was the culmination of years of relentless touring, a door-to-door musical missionary work that sold fans on bandleader Duane Allman’s unique fusion of blues, rock, big band styled melodic harmony and extended jazzy improvisation into a form that, more than any other, gave birth to the still-thriving jam band idiom. While At Fillmore East remains one of rock’s most revered live albums, it was another crafted after Duane’s death, 1973’s Brothers and Sisters, which was their commercial highpoint.

With over seven million copies sold, Brothers and Sisters was their best-selling album. It was also the one that generated a level of fame that would find them swaying a Presidential election, headlining the world’s largest rock festival, ushering in the commercial juggernaut of Southern Rock and, yes, even becoming the subject of a steady stream of Hollywood tabloid fodder.

Now on its 50^th Anniversary, veteran music journalist Alan Paul is chronicling the making and lasting impact of this milestone record in Brothers and Sisters: The Allman Brothers Band and The Inside Story of The Album That Defined the ‘70s. (St. Martin’s Press).

In 2015, Paul penned the definitive title on the band, the New York Times best-selling oral history, One Way Out: The Inside History of The Allman Brothers Band. He is also co-author of another comprehensive biography of an American blues master, Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

To set the scene for this latter chapter of the band, Paul begins with a compact, pre-fame history of each of the original Allman Brothers players. There is Duane and Gregg’s early days as the Allman Joys and the underrated Hourglass, Duane’s time as a session musician and in Derek and the Dominoes and guitarist Dickey Betts’s experience pioneering dual lead and melody in the Second Coming alongside Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt. His description of Betts as “Zen Charles Bronson” is worth the cover price of the book alone. The preamble takes us up to their breakthrough days after At Fillmore East, when all should have been well but really wasn’t. The entire band, minus drummer Butch Trucks, were addicted to heroin. Duane would die in a motorcycle crash a couple of months after its release; bassist Berry Oakley would be dead by the same cause a year later.

Paul’s book captures the Allmans at a time of uncertainty — of rebuilding a band and a shifting in their creative power balance. The addition of young Chuck Leavell on keys and Lamar Williams on bass would help usher in a new style, in studio and on the stage. Williams would bring more of a solid groove to the rhythm section, one propelled with a pick made from a Clorox bottle by the seasoned bassist (my favorite bit of weird trivia in the book). Twenty-one-year-old Leavell would add a depth of harmony, honky tonk swing and a new, virtuoso lead voice to complement the Allman’s new, one guitar lineup.

That one guitarist, Dickey Betts, would emerge from Duane’s shadow to be the leader of the band during Brothers and Sisters. He would pen four of the six originals on the disc, including “Ramblin’ Man,” the Allman Brothers’ first and only Top Ten hit. The tune would feature one of late bassist Berry Oakley’s final contributions and harmony guitar by Les Dudek. The author also shares how Betts, unhappy with the tempo, asked for the song to be speedup, then changed his mind. In a mix up, the speed up version was released, with Betts’s voice in a higher than wanted range, infuriating the mercurial guitarist. This tune ushered in an old school country feel to the Allmans’ sound and even spurred a mighty accolade from Bob Dylan who called it “one of the best songs ever written.” Guitarist Dudek would also be featured on another Betts’ standout from the album, “Jessica,” a tune the author adds was written as an exercise inspired by the work of two-fingered jazz great Django Reinhardt.

One reason Betts assumed leadership was Gregg Allman’s dividing his time between recording Brothers and Sisters and his first solo disc, Laid Back. Here, Paul delves into Gregg’s love of Laurel County folksingers, his own desire to be viewed a part of the creative community of his onetime roommate in L.A., Jackson Browne.

Paul’s book provides a balanced perspective on Phil Walden, the man who served as both manager and record company for the band through his Capricorn Records. Walden would have an up then way down history with the band and would, via their success, build an empire largely around Southern rockers like The Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels and others. There are some colorful descriptions of Walden’s annual Capricorn Picnic and Summer Games, which drew strange bedfellows like Andy Warhol and boxing promoter Don King to rub shoulder with the rowdy Southern rockers.

Author Alan Paul – photo by George Lange

One of the more interesting chapters is how the Allman Brothers help revive the Presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter, something covered in great detail in the wonderful 2020 documentary “Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President.” Paul also spends a great deal of time exploring the history of The Allman Brothers’ on-going touring partnership with the Grateful Dead, something culminating with Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, the 1973 festival which attracted a world record 650,000 attendees. For the gossip minded, there’s a detailed look at the star-crossed union of Gregg and Cher, a relationship which, like the band itself, was severely compromised by Allman’s addictions. Another factor compromising the band was guitarist Betts’ dependence of cocaine and alcohol, something which made his stage performances, and the bands, more unpredictable as time passed. By 2000, Betts would be out of the band for good and The Allman Brothers would never play “Ramblin’ Man” again.

Like his earlier book on the Allmans, Paul’s latest is an honest and very in-depth assessment of the most commercially vital era of the band. In creating it, Paul had access to hundreds of hours of never-before-heard interviews with the band and its confidants, including Dickey Betts and Gregg Allman, from ABB archivist Kirk West.

Paul will be supporting the launch of the book with a variety of events around the country featuring a reading, Q&A and performance by his band, Friend of the Brothers. Paul ensemble will feature former members of Dickey Betts’ Great Southern, Jaimoe’s Jassz Band and the Phil Lesh Band and special guests including Duane Betts. The lineup includes a July 30 events at New York’s City Winery and August 4 and 5 at Daryl’s House in Pawling, New York.

May 31, 2023
Author Aidan Levy Creates a New Jazz Standard with Sonny Rollins Biography

In his new book, Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins, author Aidan Levy has created a work nearly as sprawling and monumental as the seven-decades of sounds crafted by a man widely considered “jazz’s greatest living improviser.”

Levy devoted seven years to the task of capturing Rollins – the musician, the myth, the civil rights activist, environmentalist and wandering spiritualist – in a whopping 750 very readable pages. The book is based on more than 200 interviews with Rollins, his family members, friends and collaborators, as well as the artist’s personal archive of letters, journals, photos and press clippings accrued over a career in which he has taken a few notable sabbaticals and sharp stylistic turns. It pretty much traces every recording session and gig that the Saxophone Colossus participated in. The depth of Levy’s astounding research is furthered by the more than 400 pages of footnotes available only online (including my story for NYSMusic on his legendary concert at Opus 40 in Saugerties).

I’m a pretty fast reader but I spent close to three months with Levy’s book. It was devoted to toggling between deep reading and deeper listening to the many corners of Rollins’ 60 solo and live albums, and the multitude of classics on which he guested with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Clifford Brown and the like.

Rollins was a child of the Harlem Renaissance. Inspired by his Sugar Hill neighbor, tenor great Louis Jordan, he picked up the sax at 8 and landed, beginning as a teenager, on the bandstand and in the recording studio with greats like Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. His youthful exposure to the Calypso music of his familial roots in the West Indies and love of classic Hollywood movies would bear fruit later in his career in respective classics like “St. Thomas” and “I’m An Old Cowhand.” With drawn-on moustaches, he and his original band formed while attending Franklin High, the Counts of Bop featuring Art Taylor, Walter Bishop, Jackie McLean and Kenny Drew, would head to Minton’s or the phalanx of jazz clubs on 52^nd St to watch and hopefully be invited to sit-in with idols like Coleman Hawkins.

Sonny Rollins with Don Cherry and Henry Grimes at the Stockholm Concert Hall, January 17, 1963. Not pictured: Billy Higgins. Ove Alström. Courtesy of The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research and Inger Stjerna

Sonny’s passion for civil rights and justice was shaped by two early events. The first was his military-lifer father’s court martial and jailing for the crime of “teaching a white woman to dance” at an officer’s party he was managing, an event that made national headlines. The second was his own experiences in the criminal justice system. This latter was the result of his and his musician pals’ heroin addictions, something plied in a Harlem park they called “Goof Square.” Rollins would do two stretches on Riker’s Island for pickpocketing and a gun charge. It was during a stint at that jail in 1954, while playing in the Protestant chapel band, that Rollins penned three of his much-covered classics, “Airegin,” “Doxy” and “Oleo.”

In 1955, Rollins turns his life around by starting to kick junk after a stay in Lexington, the famous prison/rehab facility, and a move to Chicago and legendary collaboration with the Max Roach/Clifford Jordan. He would stay clean working day jobs as a porter, door-to-door salesman and janitor in Chicago. It’s also the city where he would meet his second wife and manager Lucille.

In 1956, Rollins begins what may be one of the most critically acclaimed and productive runs in jazz history, waxing ten astounding classic albums, six as leader including his twin masterworks, “Tenor Madness” and “Saxophone Colossus.” He would conjure nine additional solo classics in 1957 and 1958 including “Way Out West,” “Newk’s Time” and “Freedom Suite.”

For these and the dozens of albums that followed, Levy gives a blow-by-blow on the sessions. He details the careful selection of sidemen and the sometimes dozen-plus takes Rollins would record before hitting on something that met, maybe, his insanely perfectionist standards.

While by this time he was finally being accorded the acclaim he deserved, the revelation in Levy’s book is how savagely he was treated by critics like Leonard Feather in earlier solo discs and in sessions with Miles Davis and others.

A great deal of the myth around Sonny Rollins has been predicated on his sabbaticals from the world of music, ones taken because he didn’t think he was “good enough.” The most legendary was the one from 1959 – 1961 when Rollins would walk from the apartment he shared with Lucille on Grand Street to the Williamsburg Bridge, where he would play for 15 hours – day and night – to the skyscrapers and ships passing in the harbor below. This sabbatical, and another in India in 1968, weren’t only about music. During these times, Rollins explored various religions like Rosicrucianism, anthropology and sociology. He also became deeply committed to nutrition and fitness, practicing Hatha Yoga, juicing and vegetarian diets and weight lifeting. Later on, Rollins would travel the world with a suitcase full of dumbbells, something that was impossible for any of his bandmates to lift. Rollins’ devotion to fitness even earned him a place on JFK’s Fitness Committee.

Great light is shed on Rollins’ methodology and inner thoughts, and those of his Swife/manager Lucille, in the many diaries and letters Levy was granted access too. Sonny seemed to forever be trying to commit his practice methodology, mixed with life and spiritual lessons, in a never-finished book he sometimes titled “Saxophone Energy & Health.”

A scourge that returned repeatedly to hamper Rollins’ playing and career were his dental problems, which made playing his marathon live sets nearly impossible. On many nights, he just played through the pain, creating a brand of improvisatory ecstasy that he may never have felt was properly captured on disc.

Sonny Rollins on the Williamsburg Bridge, October 7, 1961. Atsuhiko Kawabata. Courtesy of Hanako Kawabata

Another thing that is evident in Levy’s book is Rollins never-ending quest for the right group of musicians. Sonny would fire folks in the middle of sets, actually firing his whole band, one by one, during the opening night of a run at the Village Vanguard. It wasn’t personal; he was always looking for the right mix, and players who were fired, would often be asked to return.

Levy devotes a great deal of time to Sonny’s classic eras like his return in 1961 in a quartet, donning a Mohawk haircut, with guitarist Jim Hall, a configuration which yielded albums like “The Bridge.” Levy also discusses Sonny’s writing and recording of the soundtrack to the classic British film, “Alfie.”

As someone who has seen Sonny live numerous times and listened to a lot of his discography, I, like many, kind of brushed aside Rollins’ so-called fusion period of 1970s. Levy’s book made me come to appreciate a lot of the great work on these later albums, the Herbie Hancock Headhunters-inspired “Nucleus” and “Next Album.” The author also sheds light on Rollins’ guesting with The Rolling Stones on “Tattoo You.” He didn’t know who they were and didn’t really want to be a part but Lucille insisted, knowing it would heighten his profile with younger music fans. He made the overdub session, waxing ballsy one-take solos on tracks including “Waiting On A Friend” and the blazing jam “Slave.” But when they came with a cool million in hand asking him to join them on the road, Sonny said “nyet” because rock was “below jazz.”

Levy takes us up to the present with Sonny’s story. In the beginning on the 2000s, he sees many of his contemporary and collaborators – Miles, Monk, Dizzy, etc. – slip the mortal coil. We hear all about the legendary gig at Opus 40 where he breaks a heel jumping off the stone monument stage then continues to finish the concert, drama immortalized in the “Saxophone Colossus” documentary. I had the pleasure of seeing Sonny on his next gig on a Hudson River cruise boat, where he played a steaming, three-hour set seated in a lounge chair with his wounded foot elevated. It was one of the top three gigs of my lifetime. I was also lucky enough to catch another gig detailed in the book, Sonny’s 80^th Birthday show at the Beacon Theater. Here he reunited with past collaborators like Jim Hall and Roy Haynes and played, for the first-time on stage, with Ornette Coleman.

Ahh, the interesting sidebars and detours. While not central to the story, Levy shares reams of gee-whiz history/trivia. In a discussion of Rollins’ island-inspired classics, he shares how Nation of Islam leader Lewis Farrakhan and novelist Maya Angelou first gain notoriety. It was as calypso singers, The Charmer and Miss Calypso respectfully. We hear how Dave Brubeck’s sax man Paul Desmond turns Sonny on the wonders of Pepto-Bismol and of the multi-faceted life of Babs Gonzales. Babs was a vocalist/poet/author/promoter/proto-hipster and global playboy with whom Sonny made his recording debut in 1949.

Sonny finds peace with a move to a farm in Germantown, N.Y, where he will take only the best live gigs, with Lucille minding the business, including touring and record production. In 2001, he will finally win a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental album.

Also in 2001, Sonny becomes another victim of 9/11. Rollins was in his pied-a-terre six blocks from the World Trade Center at the time of the tragedy. Possibly due to his inhalation of toxic dust from the site in the day it took him to evacuate, Sonny develops pulmonary fibrosis. In 2004, Sonny’s wife Lucille passes. In 2012, he plays his last concert in Barcelona. Also, that year, he moves to Woodstock, where he remains being looked in on by friends like drummer Jack DeJohnette and his wife.

In 2014 due to his lung condition, Sonny totally quits playing sax. He stays busy with his reading and study of things maybe far greater than jazz. He believes in reincarnation and tells his dying collaborators that he will just catch them at the next gig in whatever world comes next.

Levy’s book is a wonderful detailed and insightful journey through the life of an incredible artist and thinker. It is unlikely anyone will pen anything about Rollins, and maybe any other jazz musician, that will be its equal.

May 9, 2023
Bill Orcutt & Company Electrify with Music for Four Guitars at Roulette

Bill Orcutt, one of the most distinctive voices in experimental and alternative guitardom, brought his latest disc, Music for Four Guitars, to life before a sell-out crowd at downtown Brooklyn’s home to all things sonically avant-garde, Roulette, on March 27.

Orcutt is the former guitarist and founder of the notorious ‘90s group Harry Pussy. His sound is a stuttered reimagining of blues guitar, one weaving looping melodic lines and angular attack into a dense, fissured landscape of American primitivism, outsider jazz, and a stripped-down re-envisioning of the possibilities of the guitar.

Bill Orcutt’s Music for Four Guitars is comprised of 14 brief pieces built upon tiny minimalist phrases which evolve into dense tapestries of sound, texture and mood. On the disc, Orcutt plays all the parts. For the performance at Roulette, he was abetted by three of the most noteworthy players who are bending and mutating the borders of guitaring – Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza and Shane Parish.

The 12-tune set began with “A different view,” the album opener. This is a knotty Gamelan guitaring affair, one that brings to mind some of the work of ‘80s era King Crimson with the dirty guitar tones reminiscent of Trout Mask Replica Captain Beefheart. For this and many of the compositions, the players stayed close to the tight arrangements on the record.

On “Or from being,” Mendoza was a standout riding the higher melody guitar parts and taking a lengthy solo spot followed by Parish. For many of the compositions, Orcutt and Parish held down the bottom while Mendoza and Eisenberg took to the melodic rafters. Eisenberg takes the prize for the most melodically out soloing, for an extended run across the pulse-y tune, “Only at dusk.”

In the dense jungle of weaving guitars and harmonies, a listener gets many musical cross-currents – a bit of fractal boogie, Irish reels, the dense orchestral guitar minimalism of Glenn Branca and, as mentioned earlier, elements of Beefheart, Crimson and Fripp’s League of Crafty Guitarists and Gamelan.

About six songs in Orcutt spoke to audience in an entertaining and self-effacing manner. No naming of the tunes played, just an introduction of his collaborators then a jump into one of the most pleasant chapters of the evening – a traditionally melodic, very spacious unaccompanied solo reminiscent of his “Odds Against Tomorrow” from his 2019 disc of the same name. All the players would get their solo moments and demonstrate differences in approach – unique melodic and textural languages that are adding a fresh face to this very been-around-the-block instrument.

A guy who does with words what Orcutt does with the guitar, the edge-pushing alt.poet and writer William A. Lessard, accompanied me to the show. A lover of pretty much every boundary pushing genre of music, he had his own observations:

“The surprise for me was the moments when the music would drift into Stained Class-era Judas Priest, then give way to microtonal playing by Wendy Eisenberg. Eisenberg, for me, was the big surprise of the night, bringing that Pete Cosey groove into a new context. Anyone who has the chance should see this band; watching them weave together all these influences is a delight.”

The set will soon be available for a limited time at Roulette’s Live Stream Channel on YouTube.

Setlist: A different view, Seen from above, At a distance, In the rain, Out of the corner of the eye, Or from behind, Only at dusk, On the horizon, Barely driving, In profile, From below, Or head On

April 7, 2023
Interview: Bill Janovitz On His New Leon Russell Biography

The latest evidence that musicians can make great writers is illustrated in Bill Janovitz’s LEON RUSSELL: The Master of Space and Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History (Hachette Books). Janovitz made 10 albums with the alt.rock stalwarts, Buffalo Tom, and four solos while also carving out a career writing about music. He did this in articles for the likes of Esquire and The Observer and in books including the 33 1/3 series’ The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street and Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones.

But Janovitz’ exhaustively captivating profile of Russell, one of rock’s most Zelig-like and complicated figures, is something else altogether. It’s a delicious masterwork of research and insights that could only come from a musician – someone who has tread the up-and-downs of a life as a professional musician, someone who has absorbed the many genres of American music where Russell not only ventured but repeatedly innovated.

With the blessing of Russell’s estate, Janovitz conducted interviews with 130 of Leon’s musical collaborators and bystanders to the Golden Age of Rock-N-Roll’s moments of true creativity and debauched excess. There are Leon’s chops-gathering years in Tulsa and on the road with Jerry Lee Lewis, his days as a session man playing on classics for everyone from The Beach Boys and The Byrds to The Ronettes and Gary Lewis and the Playboys, his catalyst roles with Delaney and Bonnie, Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishman and George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh. There’s his time as a hitmaker and, even more lasting, a writer of much-covered classics like “A Song for You” and “This Masquerade.” There’s his latter shift to country music, his slide into financial and creative doldrums beginning in the ‘80s and his return in his final chapter under the patronage of a mega-star who idolized him above all, Elton John.

Claude Russell Bridges (aka Leon Russell), piano prodigy, circa 1946. Courtesy of the OKPOP Museum

Janovitz’ book also looks and put into context Russell’s struggles with illnesses, physical and mental, addiction, stage fright, bipolar disorder and much more.

In 530-plus pages and 41 chapters, Janovitz does music-lovers a great service by reminding us of the extraordinary talents and contributions of Russell – a man who is revered by generations of star music-makers, but who is getting a bit lost in the sands of time in the mind of the general public. Here are some of his thoughts on Russell and his journey to bring Leon’s remarkable story to life.

With the amazing list of stars he collaborated with, the many classic songs he wrote and records he played on, do you think Russell is still a somewhat undervalued commodity in the annals of rock music?

I don’t think he is undervalued among those who are aware of who he is. His legacy was obscured due in large part to his own decisions, but also due to the ephemeral attention spans of the music business and trends. He refused to deal with it all pretty music after 1980.

Left to right : Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, and Leon filming at the House of Cash, Johnny Cash’s studio, 1974. Leon had moved into country music with his 1973 album, Hank Wilson’s Back, recorded with Nashville’s A-team of session players. He returned to Nashville a year later to produce a video production with his new friend, Willie Nelson, and some of country music’s elder statesmen and stateswomen. The video suffered from technical problems and was never released. Photo © Les Blank, www.lesblank.com, courtesy of Harrod Blank/Les Bank Films

What was “the Tulsa Sound” and the role Russell played in developing it and then, later, when he resettled back in his native Oklahoma to create a home for Shelter Records? And how did his witnessing a performance by Jerry Lee Lewis help shape his career?

There really isn’t a “Tulsa Sound.” But the mix of rock & roll, R&B, gospel, blues, country, swinging drums, etc. were all important to the musicians coming out of Tulsa in the ‘60s. In that way, it is not much different than the Memphis area. But J.J. Cale is a lot different than Leon Russell, and both are very different than David Gates, e.g.

Playing in a teenage band backing Jerry Lee Lewis on a short tour in 1959-60 was the most galvanizing event in Leon’s journey to becoming a professional musician. Lewis was a hero of his as a pianist, but Leon also learned showmanship from Lewis.

Sam Bush, Bill Kenner, and Leon. On tour with New Grass Revival, 1981. ”For two years, we would open the show, and then we would back him, so it was strenuous work. I mean, it wore our ass down,” Bush said. Photo by Diane Sullivan, courtesy Jan Bridges

Russell was an important member of “The Wrecking Crew,” the corps of studio musicians who played on seemingly most hits coming out of Los Angeles in the ‘60s. What were some of the rock classics, and unlikely novelty tunes, he played on during this era?

So many, this list is just a sampling of some of the hits he played on in his pre-star session days:

“Mr. Tambourine Man” – The Byrds

“Be My Baby” – The Ronettes

“Da Doo Ron Ron” – The Crystals

“California Girls,” “Don’t Worry Baby,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” and “Little Old Lady From Pasadena” – The Beach Boys

“The Ventures Play Telstar” – The Ventures

“This Diamond Ring” – Gary Lewis and the Playboys

Whipped Cream and Other Delights LP – Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

Leon’s home/studio in Los Angeles, Skyhill, was a real locus of rock-n-roll creativity and err, debauchery during the classic rock era. Tell us a little about what went on there and who was a party to this insanity?

They called it the “Home for Unwed Musicians.” They recorded around the clock. Leon often had no idea certain people were even living there. But aside from his own Tulsa crew, Bobby Keys, Levon Helm, Pat Boone, Glen Campbell, Eric Clapton, Rita Coolidge, Dean Torrance, Boyce and Hart, Joe Cocker, Steve Cropper, Buddy Miles, Duck Dunn, Jerry Lewis, and other notable figures either passed through or stayed for longer stints, working or just hanging out. It was so out of control there at times that Leon went to crash elsewhere, generally with a girlfriend, though he had another apartment at some point.

The Starlighters at the Tropicana Club, 1959. Left to right: Leo Feathers, Chuck Blackwell, Ron Ryan, Johnny Williams, Russell Bridges (aka Leon Russell). A promoter at Cain’s Ballroom hired the Starlighters to back Jerry Lee Lewis at a show there. After the Starlighters’ first warm-up set, Lewis came up onto the bandstand, pointed at seventeen-year-old Leon, and declared, ”I’m not gonna set down at that piano. He plays a lot better piano than I do!” Lewis immediately hired the band to back him on a tour. Courtesy of the OKPOP Museum

Russell became rich and famous inspired by Black art forms like gospel and blues, but seemed a bit oblivious to racism, even refusing to defend his African-American backup singer wife Mary McCreary when she faced abuse from audiences. Why didn’t he take a stand?

I take umbrage with the terms “refused,” and “oblivious.” I certainly did not use those words in such contexts. As for the influence of different kinds of music, it is a continuum for all musicians, no matter what cultural background. It does not exist in a vacuum.

Gospel, for example, is informed by white and Black people. Leon was decrying racism in his earliest interviews (see The Rolling Stone 1970 Ben Fong-Torres interview quoted in my book, e.g.). He also integrated bands as soon as he could form them. And he married a Black woman and had Black kids.

While there were virulent racists who shouted epithets and did worse at his shows, I think he felt he shouldn’t give oxygen to that particular flame; don’t feed the trolls, as it were. As the Black singer in his band Maxayne Lewis said, he thought the music and the band spoke for itself. He certainly did not “refuse to defend” his wife. This is not to downplay the effect of such hatred on Mary or any of the Black artists Leon worked with. But Leon wasn’t someone to get into a physical altercation with rednecks.

Leon and his most famous acolyte, Elton John, soon after they first met in Los Angeles, 1970. Elton said Leon “was everything I wanted to be as a pianist, vocalist, and writer. His music has helped me and millions of others in the best and worst of times.” Photo by Don Nix, courtesy of the OKPOP Museum

What role did Leon play in transforming Willie Nelson from the clean-cut songwriter to the original hippie-looking outlaw of country music?

He was the primary influence on Willie changing his look and outreach to the rock & roll audience.

What role did his lifelong battle with his many illnesses, both physical and mental, play in his career and personal life?

It was obviously a struggle, as detailed in the book. Depression would sideline him for months sometimes. As for his partial paralysis on the right side resulting from a birth injury, it was a challenge that he met by devising his own style to overcome it.

His relationship with singer Rita Coolidge offered a look at his insecurities and obsessions. Tell us a little about their time together and, something I saw in an early review of your book, his insistence on getting a monkey when she did want to have his child.

I don’t draw a line in the book connecting the lack of a child and a pet monkey that he got for her birthday. But Rita painted a portrait of Leon as a bipolar personality, “Mr. Entertainment” one moment, an a dark brooding person at another. Like a few other women to follow, she felt she did not fit into Leon’s lifestyle during the late-1960s.

“If you’re in Oklahoma, the amount of real legends that you can just reach across, just bump into and touch, there’s not that many,” said Taylor Hanson of the band Hanson. “But Leon was one where, all of a sudden, it was a relationship.” Left to right: Leon, Steve Ripley, and Taylor Hanson. Tulsa Mayfest, 2005. Photo by Kelly Kerr

You write that Leon was a central figure in both George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh and Joe Cocker’s career-making Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour. What was the scope of his involvement in these events? And how do you think an artist like Leon, who you say suffered from massive stage fright and paranoia, could deal with this kind of spotlight?

Leon was the one who put together the Mad Dogs and Englishmen band, chose the repertoire (along with Cocker), arranged the songs and the show itself, played piano and guitar, and sang some songs. He was the bandleader. Joe was the star of the show, but it was essentially Leon’s band. He also helped out to gather the band for Harrison for the first major rock music charity concert, the Concert for Bangladesh. Yes, for both shows, Leon adopted his rock-star-preacher persona, a larger-than-life act to overcome his naturally taciturn personality. He really did have to overcome stage fright.

Elton John was one of the musicians most inspired by Leon. Tell us about Leon’s impact on Elton and Elton’s role in reviving Leon’s artist and financial fortune is his later life?

Elton told me that Leon was his idol, “everything I wanted to be as a piano player.” Leon took him out on the road to open shows for Leon and his band in 1970-71. Elton repaid that debt and went well beyond that by bringing Leon back to the public spotlight, making the hit record The Union together and lobbying to get Leon into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Your book received advanced raves from a wide range of musicians. What artist today do you think are continuing to be influenced by Russell and carry his torch?

Tedeschi and Trucks Band comes to mind.

You had a long fruitful music career with the band Buffalo Tom. Is there any music-making on the horizon for you?

Yes, we are finishing a new record now. Thanks!

April 2, 2023
Alt Guitar Great Bill Orcutt Brings His Music for Four Guitars to Roulette on March 27

San Francisco-based guitarist and composer Bill Orcutt will return to Brooklyn’s Roulette to present his latest project, an all-electric Guitar Quartet, performing the music from his critically-acclaimed 2022 LP, Music for Four Guitars on Monday, March 27 at 8 pm.

One of today’s most innovative guitarists and composers, Orcutt will join forces with three other renowned experimentally-minded players – Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza and Shane Parish – to present this music in an expanded format combining Orcutt’s intricate compositions with no-holds-barred improvisation.

Orcutt is the former guitarist and founder of the notorious 90’s group Harry Pussy. His sound is a stuttered reimagining of blues guitar, one weaving looping melodic lines and angular attack into a dense, fissured landscape of American primitivism, outsider jazz, and a stripped-down re-envisioning of the possibilities of the guitar. Whether he’s playing his decrepit Kay acoustic or gutted electric Telecaster (both stripped of two of their strings, as has been Orcutt’s custom since 1985), Orcutt’s jagged sound is utterly unique and instantly recognizable, compared with equal frequency to avant-garde composers and rural bluesmen. The New York Times has called him a “powerful musician… a go-for-broke guitar improviser,” and described his sound as “articulated sprays of arpeggiated chords and dissonance.”

With Music for Four Guitars, Orcutt created 14 brief pieces built upon tiny minimalist phrases which expand into dense tapestries of sound and mood. His sound marries the collective guitar punch of the minimalist guitar orchestras work of No Wave pioneers Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham with the knotty Delta psychedelia of Trout Mask Replica-era Captain Beefheart.

While Orcutt played all four guitars on the album, he is presenting the expanded version at Roulette with the assistance of three of the most talked-about players on the alternative guitar scene – Ava Mendoza, Wendy Eisenberg and Shane Parish

Mendoza is a guitarist, singer/songwriter, composer and bandleader based in Brooklyn who leads the globe-trotting avant-rock trio Unnatural Ways, works in a duo with former Can vocalist Malcolm Mooney, and records and performs in a variety of contexts. She is a first-call session musician who has worked with bandleaders including William Hooker, Nels Cline, Nate Wooley, and William Parker. Her knotty, dynamic, yet intricately melodic playing style mixes rock, jazz, metal, and funk with years of classical and improvisational training.

Wendy Eisenberg is an improviser and songwriter who uses guitar, pedals, the tenor banjo, the computer, the synthesizer and the voice. Their work spans genres, from jazz to noise to avant-rock to delicate songs in performances spanning from international festivals to intimate basements. Though often working solo as both a songwriter and improviser, with acclaimed releases on Tzadik, VDSQ, Out of your Head and Garden Portal, they also perform in the rock band Editrix, and in endless other combinations of their heroes and peers including Allison Miller, Carla Kihlstedt, John Zorn, Billy Martin, and Caroline Davis.

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Athens, Georgia-based guitarist/songwriter Shane Parish is a self-taught musician who communicates through emotion, unexpected melodicism, technical whimsy, a nuanced sense of form, and rich timbral variety, simultaneously drawing from the guitar’s history and aiming for its future. Avant Music News described Parish as “one of the most consistently innovative finger-picking acoustic guitarists in a generation.” In 2016, he was recognized for his solo acoustic efforts by composer John Zorn, who issued the album Undertaker Please Drive Slow on Tzadik Records, hailing it as “a remarkable and soulful acoustic solo project that digs deep into Appalachian roots… At times reminiscent of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, at times of John Cage and Morton Feldman.” Parish has self-released numerous recordings of folk interpretations in the years since Undertaker.

For tickets and information, visit the event site here.

March 20, 2023
Harrison and Belew Serve Up A Cool Cool Cool Tribute to Talking Heads Remain In Light

For many Talking Heads’ fans, their 1980 album, Remain In Light, is the pinnacle. It’s groundbreaking blend of Afrobeat rhythms, synth textures, obtuse lyrics, Brian Eno’s crafty production and the searing “stunt guitar” of Adrian Belew made it a classic – the disc that put the funk into punk and New Wave. It was also the album that propelled this art school educated band of newbie groove nerds into the MTV mainstream. This was a non-stop dance party with cerebral trimmings, a collection of fierce tunes that were always the best parts of a Talking Heads’ live show, something evidenced in the peerless concert film made about their tour to support it, Stop Making Sense.

Last month, the band’s founding keyboardist Jerry Harrison teamed up with Belew and the band Cool Cool Cool to bring a concert celebrating the iconic album to 19 cities coast-to-coast.

If the March 8th performance at Albany’s Empire Live was any indication, they have achieved their stated goal – to recreate the excitement and joy of the Talking Heads’ remarkable 1980 tour.

The evening opened with a strong seven-song set by Cool Cool Cool, a super slick collective of funkateers with tight vocal harmonies, punchy horns, clavinet soul and stage presence to spare. The band is comprised of seven musicians who split – dramatically and en masse – from their former long-running band, the popular festival attraction Turkuaz, a year back. It includes Shira Elias and Sammi Garett (vocalists), Chris Brouwers (trumpet), Josh Schwartz (tenor/baritone sax/vocals), Greg Sanderson (alto/ tenor sax), Michelangelo Carubba (drums) and Craig Brodhead (guitar/keys). For this tour, the group is augmented by master bassist Julie Slick (Adrian Belew Power Trio/The Crimson ProjeKct) and percussionist Yahuba Garcia-Torres.

The Prince/Sly Stone/Tower of Power vibes were in evidence from the opener, “Gotta Give It Away,” sung with bravado and David Byrne-like hand gestures by Josh Schwartz (those would return in the next set too!). Shira Elias distinguished herself with lead vocals on “NAH” and “Tied Up,” while Sammi Garett shined on the ballad ,“With You,” and the baritone sax-driven set closer, “Try.”

Cool Cool Cool is not only a joyful party band but an ensemble of players’ players. In a duo of tunes, saxman Greg Sanderson slowly architected long spiraling solos that brought to mind the great Kenny Garrett in Miles Davis’ late 80s/early 90s band. On “With You,” Chris Brouwers offered up a muted trumpet solo with plenty of spacey echo. It was one that fused his own Milesisms with the prog/ambient leanings of ECM Records’ trumpet great Nils Petter Molvaer.

Harrison and Belew covered 14-songs in their set, most of Remain In Light, along with classics like “I Zimbra,” “Cities” and “Drugs” from their 1979 album, Fear of Music, and “Psycho Killer,” the set opener from their debut disc, Talking Heads: 77.

As he did in King Crimson, Belew handled most of the lead vocals in a style that bears more than a passing resemblance to David Byrne.

As anyone who’s seen him live can attest, Belew has boatloads of charisma. He’s got an amiable everyman vibe that invites everyone into the party, while sometimes obscuring his revolutionary talent as a guitarist. On “Psycho Killer,” he projected the appropriate amount of psycho and slayed with the first of his many animalistic guitar solos on the outro. The following tune, a rendition of “Houses in Motion,” greatly benefited from the backing vocals Shira and Sammi provided to Harrison’s lead. And here, there was another revelatory solo from Belew, who made his guitar sound like the Indian horn instrument heard on another Harrison’s The Beatles tunes, the shehnai.

Cool Cool Cool’s horn section ladled on added heft to many of the songs, especially “Cities” and “Born Under the Punches.” The latter was sung, more so preached with Byrne-like hand gestures, by Schwartz.

Jerry Harrison enjoyed a solo spot on two tunes, “Rev It Up” from his solo disc Casual Gods and “Slippery People” a much-covered song from the Heads’ 1983 album, Speaking in Tongues. The first number left space for an obtuse keyboard solo from Harrison and a nice guitar solo from Cool’s Craig Brodhead, who added some funky wah wah clavinet through both sets. Belew got his solo turn with a high-energy take on “Thela Hun Ginjeet” from King Crimson’s Discipline. More whammy bar guitar solo torment (a very VERY good thing) from Adrian on this track, one which featured a playback of his recounting his mugging in NYC from Crimson’s original recording.

Schwartz was back on lead vox doing his best Byrne for “Once In A Lifetime” and the set reached a peak with “Take Me to the River.” The Harrison/Belew version had even more punch than the Talking Heads’ original, bolstered by a Stax Records/Memphis stew of horns and backing vocal power.

The evening ended with a delightfully off-the-rails spin on “The Great Curve.” On Remain In Light, this tune percolates at 152 beats-per-minute, a hectic pace bettered in this live performance. It is also the song where Belew first got to fully stretch out on record. On record and at this concert, he stopped the show with his uniquely “apeshit” brand of Fender Stratocaster abuse, a step ahead in guitaring and stomp box logic that was the natural extension of Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock.

As fan well knows, the likelihood of seeing the original Talking Heads reformed in concert is quite dim. And Remain In Light itself is one of the sticking points, with songs that grew out of collective grooves and improvs at rehearsals for which Harrison, drummer Chris Franz and bassist Tina Weymouth may not have gotten their due.

And while he just dropped in to overdub his parts, Belew is another important ingredient without whom this album may not have been quite as iconic and continually relevant to new generations of music-lovers.

Photos by Jarron Childs

March 11, 2023
Reunited Venezuelan Alt Rock Legends Zapato 3 Come to Cutting Room in March

South American rock legends Zapato 3 are making The Cutting Room the site of their first-ever New York City concert, one of a select number of U.S. stops on their much-anticipated “Requiem for A Shoe” reunion tour, on March 31 at 10 p.m.

One of the first Venezuelan rock bands to achieve worldwide success, Zapato 3 came together as high schoolers in early 1984. Over time, their original punk style transitioned into a more social-oriented rock with some sexual lyrics, something evidenced on albums like their 1990 debut, Amor, Furia y Languidez. Their second long player, Besame y Suicidate, is the one that would put them on the map internationally and would to several hits across Latin America and gigs in Mexico, Miami and other locales. The band would make several more albums, some embracing techno strains, before its “first” breakup after the release of their 1999 album, Ecos Punzantes del Ayer. The group would come together in 2012 for a reunion long tour called The Last Crusade.

Zapato 3’s current lineup includes founding members keyboardist Jaime Verdaguer, guitarist Álvaro Segura, vocalist Carlos Segura, bassist Fernando Batoni and a new drummer, Dario Adames. Critics have compared their sound to a fusion of New Order, The Cure and Soft Cell, with a live show that still packs a youthful, high-energy punk punch. Check their sounds out here on Spotify.

Opening for Zapato 3 at The Cutting Room will be another band with Venezuelan roots, New York’s own Toxic Tito.

The latest in a long line of musical outings by Hudson-based, Italian-Venezuelan art dealer Luis Accorsi, Toxic Tito is a band that puts a fresh spin of the adrenaline frenzy of classic NYC punks like The Ramones. In 1977 while living in Venezuela, Accorsi formed JANZ KAPPELLA, noted as perhaps the first-ever pure punk band in the nation. Upon his moves to Miami and New York City, Accorsi formed a host of other projectz including the ska-influenced Modern Method, Naked King and Screwy Louie. Check out Toxic Tito’s, music including their latest long player, 2022’s Energentico, and their cover of “Blitzkrieg Bop,” on Spotify. For a look at Accorsi’s “day job,” check out NYSMusic’s article on May 2022’s “Rock & Roll Circus Art Show” at his New Gallery in Hudson.

For tickets and information, visit the Eventbrite site here.

February 24, 2023
Hearing Aide: Tomer Cohen Showcases Original Approach to Jazz Guitar with Debut “Not the Same River”

A recent import to New York’s forever evolving jazz scene, 25-year-old guitarist-composer Tomer Cohen notches a notable debut with his album, Not the Same River (Hypnote Records). It’s a collection that showcases not only an originality of compositional approach, but a distinctive, fingerstyle and folk shaded playing technique that could one day launch him into the upper reaches of the jazz guitar strata.

The album title, Cohen explains in the press release, relates to an expression by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. “That’s the sentence that encompasses all the compositions on the album,” Cohen said. “We are constantly in motion, we’re always changing, and we just need to accept that.”

Cohen demonstrates his unique fingerstyle-and-pick technique on eight thoughtful compositions reflecting his pastoral upbringing, from age 4 to 21, on a kibbutz in Israel. “The kibbutz is located in the countryside and has a strong sense of community,” he recalled. “I used to play outside with my guitar, watching the fields and the blue sky. I believe some of that vibe is reflected in some of the tunes on this record.” The guitarist is expertly accompanied on this varied collection by the fluid drumming of Obed Calvaire (a current member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis) and the rootsy grooves and frequent soloing of bassist Matt Penman (formerly with the SFJAZZ Collective).

Critics have made smart comparisons of Cohen to players like Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell, influences acknowledged by the guitarist, but I may hear even more of the late, great Mick Goodrick in his style.

For those not in the know, though Goodrick recorded with the likes of Gary Burton, Jim Hall, Charlie Haden and many more, he may be better known as the Berklee School of Music educator who nurtured Frisell, John Scofield, Mike Stern, Julian Lage and many more of today’s leading jazz guitarists. Goodrick also authored a key educational primer for practicing guitarists, jazz and otherwise, The Advancing Guitarist. Like Goodrick, young Cohen is quickly becoming a master of subtly weaving chords and melody, and in serving up expected harmonic turns in his solos and compositions. Collectively, his trio are musicians who are doing some serious listening as they play, err more appropriately interplay. There’s nothing rote or cliched to be found in these grooves, which are expertly recorded and mastered. It’s a music of the mind that never sacrifices the passion and soulfulness.

Cohen’s unique technique is apparent right from the album opener, the title track, “Not the Same River.” There’s a boatload of Metheny’s “As Wichita Falls” to be found in this pastoral composition and in the appropriately titled “Pastures.” The latter is a more energetic number fueled by some knotty single note soloing from the guitarist and one of bassist Penman’s many solos of the album. Penman also stands out on “First Lap.” He kicks this off with an unaccompanied solo before its moves into a chill melody and chordal workout from Cohen. Drummer Calvaire steals the show with a thundering solo on both the opening and the outro of “Connecting the Dots.” Calvaire again gets the chance to show his range and power, and Cohen his remarkable chops as a technician and composer, on my favorite track on the album, the time-shifting, melodically tricky “Probably More Than Two.”

With his fingerpicked chord and melody stylings, it would be interesting to hear Cohen record an unaccompanied solo disc. We get a taste of what that might sound like when his rhythm section drops out for a time in the middle of “Empty?”

February 23, 2023