Category Archives: Reviews

Event review: “Wake Up, Madagascar” with legendary “King of Salegy” (Eusebe) Jaojoby!

Date: Saturday, July ,21, 2012
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (NY)

Concert review by Chris Arnold

Thanks to the Le Poisson Rouge  we were treated to 21 non-stop, infectious songs by Madagascar’s top stars and showcasing distinct musical traditions not found anywhere else. For fans of guitar music it was an extra special treat with 3 very different styles on display.

Guitar virtuoso Charles Kely kicked of the concert with 4 songs of mesmerizing fretwork on a classical guitar that would put most jazz guitarists to shame.  Without bending any notes and playing without a pick, Kely created a sound that perfectly blends traditional and modern.  Built on his regional ba gasy music with jazzy phrasing up and down the neck and classical guitar finger picking mixed in, Kely synthesizes rhythm, melody and harmony taking an African approach to the guitar to a master’s level.  His musicianship and unique musical voice make Western “world music” critics’ discussions of authenticity irrelevant

Continue reading →

Concert review: Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan: The Voice

Date: July 22, 2012
Venue: house concert in the Upper West Side

Next show: August 1, at 8pm. Details here.

Review by Dawoud Kringle and photos by Marcus Simpson

Indian classical music is based essentially on vocal music. It is a widely held belief among the genre’s masters that without an understanding of vocal music, one cannot ever properly perform a raga. Arabic music, African, and some jazz (such as Dexter Gordon, who refused to play a song unless he knew the lyrics) all hold this to be true. So, when one is listening to a raga sung by a master, one is assured one is getting the real thing.

Continue reading →

Concert review and thoughts about Jazz: Michel Camilo keeps Jazzzzzzzzzz alivvvvvvvvve!!!

Venue: Highline Ballroom (NY)
Date: June 27, 2012.

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Is jazz “really” dead? In 1975, when an angry, bitter and maybe exaggerating Miles Davis declared “Jazz is dead (it’s) the music of a museum,” I felt the same — especially when Fusion jazz and later Smooth jazz became very popular and very commercial, thus changing jazz into elevator and background music. Jazz became music that was “easy” to listen to and very accessible. Bored of that kind of music my interest went to American free jazz and to international jazz, such as European, Asian, African and Latin jazz.

As a jazz lover, I can say that this music has become stagnant, especially over the last twenty years. There’s no shortage of talented musicians out there, but jazz in America has gone decades without producing an artist capable of reinventing the genre the way Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, my mentor Ornette Coleman and many others did.

Continue reading →

CD review: Sylvain Leroux’s music of “French Creole…Creoles of color”.

Artist: Sylvain Leroux
Title: Quatuor Creole
Label: Engine Rec
Genre: world/jazz
Review by Leo Volf

Sylvain Leroux‘s debut recording Quatuor Creole might not necessarily be groundbreaking or earth shattering, but at times is quite pleasant. The music is a mix of two New Orleans’ cultures: the “French Creole” and “Creoles of color”. While one can nitpick and pin point exactly where one can hear each particular influence, that does not seem to be Leroux’s prerogative. The album and this cultural fusion manage to create its own kind texture, one that is predominantly jovial. With that being said, there is still enough variety throughout the recording, mostly due to the ensemble’s diverse instrumentation, to keep the listener engaged for the full duration.

Continue reading →

Concert Review: Fishbone at CBGB FESTIVAL 2012

Date: July 9, 2012
Venue: Brooklyn Bowl (NY, Brooklyn)
Concert review by Jim Hoey

While the first ever CBGB Festival was raging all over town this week and bands were playing in the hot sun defying expectations, some of the older bands on these round-town bills were trying to bring back the magic of ’02, ’92, or ’82. This is the agenda of the CBGB Fest: present emerging and established artists in the spirit of early NYC punk and Hilly Kristal (CBGB’s owner).

When Fishbone took the stage this Sunday at Brooklyn Bowl for the final performance of the festival, they did just that, playing a raucous, hard hitting set that dwarfed the efforts of the opening act, Paranoid Social Club, and probably most of the other bands playing on bills across town at venues like Central Park Summer Stage and Times Square. Groups like Agnostic Front, Guided By Voices, the So So Glos, Superchunk, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, and the Hold Steady all fanned out across the city and presented a battering array of sounds for curious fans to attempt to experience. Fishbone was the one act I was able to catch.

Continue reading →