Music

By Jason Ward Boyte

Tired of your Jobim/Astrud Gilberto album? Never fear: even part-time jazz fans can look cool at cocktail parties, impress dates, and give cred to their music collection with this very hip, very accessible classic.

When I thought of writing this piece, my motivations were, and remain, simple. Since I’d “reviewed” the Grammys—an event as related to music as an NRA convention—I felt it important to discuss something else, preferably something relating to music as opposed to inane music politics, or pop fads.

Deciding the album was fairly simple, too. Miles Davis’ Miles Ahead had been turning in my CD player for some time, and it was a fine place to start. Very big and brassy, yet far from frantic, it just seems to be the album to introduce spring. I suppose also, that I will discuss albums/musicians past and present indiscriminately. I mean, if I am going to do a column gratis, then folks shouldn’t give a rat’s patootie what I ramble about. Besides, if someone hates it, they should send me a CD and I’ll review it. (I won’t return it).

Recorded in 1957, Miles Ahead is the first of several album-length collaborations of Miles Davis and arranger Gil Evans. The latter having previously done arrangements for the ground-breaking effort Birth of the Cool, which effectively slowed the frantic pulse of East Coast hardbop and helped usher in the “Cool School.” Other album-length collaborations include Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain, and Quiet Nights. By far their most famous collaboration is Sketches of Spain—so comparing this album to Miles Ahead is inevitable. Continue Reading

By Jason Ward Boyte

Yes, it’s been about a month since his passing, incidentally the same week as Ray Brown, famous and remarkable jazz bassist. What a terrible week for the bass. Their loss made me wonder if there was some cosmic statement being made. Are we to be left now with only the one-dimensional bass playing typified by U2’s Adam Clayton? Perhaps we are destined to hear only quarter-notes thudding inarticulately on the root of every chord, mixed purposely low so we aren’t reminded that the bass player was the guy who simply wasn’t good enough to play guitar.

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By Jason Ward Boyte

What the hell?

Pretty much my reaction upon hearing these names – one for the 10-15 member band hailing from Toronto made of alt-rock alums and also their album, respectively. My reaction: who wants to hear anything from someone with the name “Broken Social Scene?” It sounds Smashing Pumpkins 10 years and 15 million copycat albums too late.

Still, it was strongly recommended by someone I trust, so I dutifully bit. And I must say, I have not been this pleasantly surprised with an album since Spoon’s “Kill the Moonlight”, which blew my socks off last year.
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by Jason Boyte

Farewell to George Harrison. As someone who grew up on the Beatles, it was a shock to hear that he’d passed away. I can’t pretend to be special in my attachment to the Beatles, but that is part of their enduring success as musicians and a collective band – just about anyone who talks of the Beatles immediately gets a look of protective defensive ‘fandom.’ “Oh, I LOVE the Beatles. I grew up on them.” Just about any serious fan feels as though they “get” the songs in a … Continue Reading