Symphonic Prog from the USA’s Rocket Scientists – Supernatural Highways! (Video)

Superntural HighwaysMany moons ago, when my on Andrew still was working part-time at Target, I have a vague recollection of him telling me about a band he had listened to and enjoyed – Rocket Scientists. I think that I gave the band a quick listen and really didn’t care for them. A week or so ago, the band released a new EP titled Supernatural Highways, so I went to Spotify to check it out. There are two tracks on this 30 minute EP- track one “Traveler on the Supernatural Highway” hogs 26 minutes of them, leaving 4 minutes plus for “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”! Anyway both are instrumentals and both are really good!! Read More

This Day in Music – May 3rd – Happy Birthday Jazz Flutist Andrea Brachfeld!! (Video)

andreabrachfeldAG350On this day May 3rd in the year ??? (Hum, we don’t really need to know that) flutist Andrea Brachfeld was born! From All About Jazz….

Flutist Andrea Brachfeld, is a graduate of The High School of Music and Art and Manhattan School of Music. Over these past 20 years she has recorded more than a dozen CD’s with many artists including, Africando, Noel Pointer, and Timbalaye. Her breakthrough performance as the flutist for the popular Latin band Charanga ’76, catapulted her into Salsa history and fame as the first female flutist to play this music in the United States. While in high school she received the “Louis Armstrong Award for Outstanding Student” from Jazz Interactions. Study with Hubert Laws, Jimmy Heath, and Mike Longo helped her develop her own style. Downbeat magazine referred to Andrea as “one of the finest jazz flutists around.” She has twice been the recipient of the Latin New York Music Award as a flutist. Read More

Book 7 of 2014 – Light of the World – James Lee Burke

Light of the WorldI read the first of James Lee Burke’s twenty novels featuring Dave Robicheaux The Neon Rain in July of 1990. I loved it and I have read almost every books since. I actually finished reading the latest book Light of the World back on the 14th of April, but I am just getting around to writing about it now and for most of those 16 days I’ve asked myself why am I avoiding writing about the book. The truth of the matter is that I really don’t know why except that I just thought that there was just something amiss with the book. It certainly wasn’t the descriptive writing that Burke is so well-known for, because that was still there, although this time he was describing Montana and not the Louisiana  bayou. And it wasn’t that Dave and Clete Purcel were not battling some really bad villans because the main one serial killer Asa Surrette was a bad as they come and many of the other characters on both sides of the law were pretty evil, too. So what was it?? I know that at 502 pages this book is the longest of the series, and it took me a long time to get through it. Actually, it took much longer for me to get through the first half of the book than the second. Generally I think that Burke may have tried to force things a little too much, for me it seemed that there were too many bad guys, none on the level of Asa but a couple them, including one police officer came pretty close and the rich folks that Dave and Clete always run up against were no sweethearts either! Read More

This Day in Music – May 1, 1982 – Jazz Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire was born (Video)

the imagined savior is far easier to paintOn this day May 1st in 1982 Ambrose Akinmusire (ah-kin-MOO-sir-ee) was born in Oakland California.  His latest release The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint  has been in my listening rotation and I have enjoyed it! This was not my first meeting with Mr. Akinmusire, winner of the 2007 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition, two of the most prestigious jazz competitions in the world. No, I first listened to his trumpet back in August of last year when  I  spent A Night of Exploration – Contemporary Jazz Trumpeters! Since then I have listened to his second album on Blue Note records,When the Heart Emerges Glistening  and I like it more and more with each listen. The New Yorker calls Ambrose:               “a thrilling young trumpeter and astute bandleader [with a] unique spark in his playing”  Ambrose’s musical journey started when Steve Coleman asked the then 19-year old Ankinmusire Manhattan School of Music student to join a European tour with his Coleman’s Five Elements. After the tour Akinmusire returned to the West Coast and received his Master’s Degree from the University of Southern California. In 2007 he attended the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, and studied with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Terence Blanchard. the imagined savior is far easier to paint  is Ambrose’s second release on Blue Note Records and the second with a title that is pretty long. On his website he says….. Read More

This Day in Music – April 30, 1933 – Abbott, Texas – Willie Nelson was born!!

So today is Willie Nelson’s 81st birthday, Happy Birthday Willie! From  Wikipedia; Willie Hugh Nelson…Willie Nelson 3

….was born in Abbott, Texas on April 29, 1933,[1] during the Great Depression, to Myrle Marie (née Greenhaw) and Ira Doyle Nelson.[2] He was born on April 29, 1933, but his birth was recorded by doctor F. D. Sims on April 30.[1] He was named Willie by his cousin Mildred, who also chose Hugh as his middle name, in honor of her recently deceased younger brother.[1] Nelson’s ancestry includes English, Irish, and Cherokee.[3] His parents moved from Arkansas in 1929, to look for work. Nelson’s grandfather, William, worked as a blacksmith, while his father worked as a mechanic.[4] His mother left soon after he was born,[5] and his father remarried and also moved away, leaving Willie and his sister Bobbie to be raised by their grandparents. Read More Read More

Life’s Soundtrack – Another Good Run this time with Lisa Mann’s New Album – Move On (video)

So back on September 4th of last year I ran the same course that I ran tonight. Back then I was coming off a couple of months of inactivity (June and July too hot!) and starting to get back into shape. On that night I there was improvement, as I ran the third and fourth miles faster than I had run them. Now tonight while I’ve run a few times in April – January, February and March were too snowy and cold for me to run much – my old body likes the fair weather! Anyway tonight is like the fourth run in April and my first four-miler and while I thought I struggled my overall time was faster than it was back in September and both my third and fourth miles were faster!! So how come?? I think that the answer may lie in the amount of yoga that I have done over the winter this year!! Overall, my weight is lower than it was and I feel better!! Read More

It wasn’t Record Store Day – But Edward had fun at the Princeton Record Exchange! (Video)

Princetob Record Exchange 2My wife went to the State Archives in Trenton yesterday to “look for dead people”, which is just my way to say that she was doing genealogy investigating. Actually, she was mostly looking up things to help people, who have contacted her on the Internet. Typically, I will drop her off in the morning (we live about 45 minutes south of Trenton) and then pick her up after work. Yesterday, she said she didn’t think she could last the whole day, so she suggested that she could only go for a few hours and that I could travel on up the road to Princeton and visit The Princeton Record Exchange! Since I still have a $25.00 gift card left from a couple of year ago, she didn’t have to ask twice!! She did sweeten the pot though by saying that it would be ok to spend a little more than what was left on the gift card if I wanted to. I said I doubted that I would need more at The Record Exchange but that I do like Labyrinth Books that’s around the corner up on Nassau Street! Here’s a list of the bargains that I found….. .Princeton Record ExchangeAdrian Legg – wine, women & waltz – this 1993 release is a collection of  tunes mostly waltzes, that appear on a few of Legg’s other albums. The ones that appear here are alternate versions. I look forward to hearing these tunes from this great guitarist. Punch Brothers – Antifogmatic –  I have listened to these great musicians in the past both as the Brothers and as solo artists. Each musician is a master of his instrument. The only thing missing from the band is  dobro – just kidding! Ottmar Liebert + Luna negra – Euphoria –  another favorite acoustic guitarist – this is a 1996 release the label on the CD cover says that the album is a special limited edition that contains rare remixes previously unavailable in the US! The Legendary Oscar Peterson Trio …Last Call at the Blue Note – a 1992 release on the Telarc Jazz label The album is a recording of a reunion of the original Oscar Peterson Trio featuring Herb Ellis on guitar and Ray Brown on bass made about 30 years after their origin recordings together!! Miles Davis – The Best of the Miles Davis Quintet 1965 – 1968 – the quintet included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. This CD contains highlights taken from the deluxe box set and included some rare alternate takes!! Ben Webster – Jazz ‘Round Midnight –  This album is a collection of Webster’s recording for Verve in the 1950s and features Coleman Hawkins , Oscar  Peterson and others. I have never listened to a lot of Ben Webster, so I look forward to listening to this album. Lee Morgan: The Very Best – A collection of seven of Lee Morgan’s best songs from Blue Note. Rudy Van Gelder served as the recording engineer on all the tracks and the musicians who played with him include some greats. I listened to this album yesterday and really like it! John Ellis – one foot in the swamp – took a leap of faith on this album based on the folks playing with him. The list includes Nicholas Payton, Jason Marsalis, and John Scofield! We’ll see! Coyote Oldman – Tear of the Moon  – It wasn’t too long ago that I listened to these guys, so it was an easy decision to pick up this album. The album includes not only Native American flute but also Incan pan pipes! I can’t wait!! Mark Whitfield – true blue –  this 1994 release on Verve includes compositions from guitarist Whitfield as well as blues songs from Monk, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane! Now if you haven’t been keeping track that’s 10 albums containing a lot of good jazz and some New Age – I used my $25.00 gift card that now still has money left on it!! Here’s a video showing a rather young Mark Whitfield – the man can play guitar!!! Read More

Blues from Britain’s Matt Schofield!!

Far As I Can SeeYesterday I listened to Matt Schofield’s new album Far As I Can See and if you’re like me and enjoy blues with some great guitar and some Hammond B3 added to the mix, then you’ll like the album – now I will write more about the album later, but now I have to go watch and episode of The BlackList so that I can catch up to where the season is by next Monday night, so here is the post I wrote back when I first discovered Matt’s music……. Read More

Yesterday in Music -April 22, 1936 – Glen Campbell was born!!

Glen CampbellYesterday I saw that Glen Campbell, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago, was in his best interest, moved to a Care Facility. According to the family, it Campbell’s care became too much for them. You can read about it here. Today Glen celebrates his 78th birthday! Glen was born on April 22, 1936 in Billstown, a tiny community near Delight in Pike County, Arkansas. He was the seventh son of 12 children. Way back when, in the late 60s, along with all the rock, and folk music that I was listening to, Glen Campbell’s albums found their way into my music library! He was a great singer, an equally talented guitarist and a seemingly all around good guy. Four wives and the drug and alcohol abuse tell a different story for many years of his life, but bout 25 years or so ago he was able to put that all behind him for the most part. Here is a good article about Glen from The Telegraph. For those of you who don’t know Glen, or those who need some reminding – from Wikipedia….. Read More