More record store visits on Thursday, like Solo Records & Tapes on Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak or Street Corner Music on Greenfield in Oak Park. Peggy Lee, Noel Pointer, Aretha Franklin, The Jones Girls, etc. I’ve also toured the Henry Ford Museum where they have a lot of artifacts from the American history, from…
So here I am in Detroit going to all these great record stores, like Peoples Records on Woodward Avenue or Found Sound on West 9 Mile in Ferndale. They even have this big guide list of all the record shops in Detroit and the metro region. I’m just trying to figure out how to schlep…
I had no idea that this would already be singer Natalie Douglas‘ 51st performance at Birdland and I never told anyone but I was originally scheduled to fly to Detroit on Monday and when I realized that she was singing at Birdland that night, I rescheduled and postponed my flight to Tuesday. Was it worth…
It was a double-bill last night at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center with the Whispers and Gladys Knight performing at the venue’s Prudential Hall. Celebrating 52 years in the business and still going strong, the three remaining founding members of the group, the Scott twins Walter and Wallace and Leaveil Degree, took us on…
A Rhodes keyboard and a Hohner D6 Clavinet is all it takes to make me happy. And of course someone who is able to play them. Nicholas Payton was introducing music from his forthcoming release “Afro-Caribbean Mixtape” (out on February 10th) at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola on Thursday night. And the continuous groove, sometimes swampy…
Pianist Kevin Hays has taken a break from his Rhodes and Wurlitzer sounds on his album “New Day” (see review on these pages from Oct 12, 2015) and recorded in acoustic trio format for “North”, his latest release. Music from the album was the main thing at Kitano on Thursday night, where I attended the…
When singer Bilal was invited up on stage on Wednesday night at the Blue Note, the whole concept of trumpeter Keyon Harrold‘s show took on a new direction, and a pretty unorthodox and cool one. With a set heavily reminding me of Bitches Brew material, but not at all copying it, here was another example…
There were a lot of expectations yesterday before going to the Jazz Standard to see legendary singer Carol Sloane. After all, she hadn’t performed in the city for many years and seemed to be a bit off the radar. So it came as a bit of a surprise to see her name popping up during…
A mixture of traditional folk and free jazz isn’t what you normally indulge when going out on a freezing Monday night, but it’s what was part of this year’s Winter Jazzfest at Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker Street. The Sam Amidon Extended and its 11-piece ensemble played music from “I See The Sign”, a monstrous…
So APAP madness continued on Sunday with a million artists showcasing for 25-minute sets. Only a few of those I saw stood out: singer and composer Peter Eldridge, one of the founding members of the New York Voices, played music from his recently-released “Disappearing Day” album. Opening his set with the very cool, groove-bending “Mind…