By Dave Cantor

“Larry Coryell was an interesting case,” says vibraphonist Gary Burton from a twenty-fourth floor room at a New York City hotel. The sixty-eight-year-old jazzbo ties his onetime guitarist into a group of players, who like himself, strove to again make jazz a popular music during the sixties, a time when rock bands sturdily held the attentions of younger audiences. “He also played with rock groups in clubs and developed this interesting schizophrenic style of playing,” the vibesman says. Coryell’s ability to spit out a few jazz-based ideas, quickly followed by a procession of notes slathered in reverb and a hint of distortion, was an indispensable part of what made Burton’s quartet from 1966 onward an important precursor to bands like Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew crew and the following Mahavishnu Orchestra. Read the rest of this entry »

At the Illinois Youth Center/Photo: Todd Rosenberg

By Dennis Polkow

The Gospel of Matthew states, “I was in prison, and you visited me.” It’s an adage Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti takes very seriously. He has visited prison a number of times in his native Italy, and during the first days of his inaugural season last year as music director it was a top priority for him.

“The experience was wonderful, fantastic,” Muti said of his first visit to the Illinois Youth Center in west suburban Warrenville, an incarceration facility for female juveniles, where he gave a concert and first visited with the inmates in September of 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

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Some of the best and some of the worst music sounds like it was made by artists on a boatload of drugs. Cameron Stallones’ “Sun Araw,” a solo recording endeavor and live road-act, deals in both. Stallones started dishing out albums under the auspices of Sun Araw in 2008. Working on as many Not Not Fun Records-associated acts as humanly possible (Magic Lantern and its high-viscosity recording endeavors deserving of particular distinction), a torrent of releases followed, too many to keep track of unless one falls under the heading of collector-scum.

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As a singer whose singles are as highly prized as his live performances, Lee Fields doesn’t boast the most sprawling back catalog of any vintage soul shouter. Instead, his recordings, slowly measured out over time, distill the steady advancement of a groove technician supremely engaged with wrenching the most emotion out of the minimal backing he’s associated with. Dishing out “Bewildered” in the late sixties, a song James Brown worked with almost a decade earlier, wasn’t a leap forward in the genre. Sharing a syncopated minimalism with the better-known vocalist followed for Fields. As much as any lone funky track can revel in a solitary musical idea, “She’s a Love Maker,” from Fields’ 1973 “Let’s Talk it Over” turns in a reasonably traditional backing track as the singer figures out one of his femme-conquests.

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Canadian hardcore punks Fucked Up have had an intriguing rise to fame. In their early career, they released only very limited-run seven-inch records and played basement shows in their hometown of Toronto. Nowadays, they are receiving coveted Polaris Music Prizes and releasing modern interpretations of the rock-opera format with this year’s “David Comes to Life.” They’ve managed to become a “hardcore band for people that don’t generally like hardcore,”  as reflected in their signing to the indie-rock label Matador Records and their collaborations with the likes of Kurt Vile, Tegan & Sara and even Moby, who joined them on stage to perform a Ramones cover during the twelve-hour set they performed in New York City in 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

The California-based Tierney Sutton Band chose a selection of songs relating to America itself for their debut release on BFM Jazz after several years with the label Heads Up International. Though not every track on “American Road” is a folk song, many have ingrained themselves into our memories as a part of American music, even those written for Broadway shows or movie soundtracks.

This proves to be a challenge—how to bring something new to tunes that are so well known? The Tierney Sutton Band’s answer was to take an innovative approach toward each song that focused on Sutton’s unique vocals and the band’s longtime chemistry. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ben Small

“’The Outsider’ was a provocation; it was intended to pull the wheat from the chaff.” Josh Davis or, as he is more famously known, DJ Shadow, does not mince his words as he sits in his tour bus on the corner of Ashland and Lake discussing his soon-to-be-released fourth studio album during the steaming hot Saturday of this summer’s Pitchfork Festival. For those unacquainted with the music of DJ Shadow, he makes very experimental and progressive instrumental hip-hop that stems from his obsession with the genre during his childhood and formative years.

“The Outsider,” Davis’ last record, came out in 2006. With the release of that record his intention was to remove the deadwood of his fan base by writing a particularly confrontational collection of songs. There’s a resentful tone in Davis’ voice as he discusses those fans who dwell on his renowned 1996 debut, “Endtroducing.” Read the rest of this entry »

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The Rapture is coming your way, and you better be ready to dance. The New York indie rockers pioneered dance-punk in the early 2000s under the producer’s eye of a pre-LCD Soundsystem James Murphy, with songs like 2002’s “House of Jealous Lovers.” They were at the forefront of experimenters that melded house and disco influences into rock songs, interspersing vocal hooks and guitar riffs with synth, cowbell and saxophone, looping and mixing them together with a hefty dose of funk. When they sing “People don’t dance no more” on their 2006 single “Whoo! Alright, Yeah… Uh Huh,” they’re throwing down a challenge.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Despite the regrettable formation of Fine Young Cannibals subsequent to the English Beat’s breakup, the earlier band became one of the most visible and successful ensembles from the 2-Tone era. Charting in the States didn’t provide for a prolonged career, but the Beat was able to squeeze out three long-players before going their separate ways. The first disc, 1980′s “I Just Can’t Stop It,” worked to incorporate roughly the same musical elements its 2-Tone peers dealt with. But instead of attempting to mash each disparate influence into a single song, the Beat went ahead and recorded some straight ska tunes, some in a reggae vein and even a pair of overtly punky numbers.
“Click Click” clocks in at a minute and a half, sports a frantic bassline and comes off as an effort the Police were aiming for, but incapable of summoning. The song’s pacing matches just about anything from punk’s first wave and is able to deal with burgeoning racism in the UK, particularly relevant to this multiracial band. Read the rest of this entry »

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Songs from Frankie Rose and the Outs aren’t any more tuneful than those from either the Vivian Girls or Dum Dum Girls. Of course, that latter group might only be meaningful to listeners as concerned with what their favorite musicians are wearing as they are with the music’s quality. But as a drummer for both those latter ensembles, in addition to the vastly more engaging Crystal Stilts, Frankie Rose has displayed a penchant for updated garage and girl-group stuff. Varying only slightly from band to band, it’d seem that the basic formula for these ensembles almost defies founding individual groups. Read the rest of this entry »