The Safari finds “Oleo” at Yoshi’s and with Bags’ Groove!

So the other day when I was listening to Hammond Heroes one of the tracks that I really liked was the Pat Martino Trio’s performance of “Oleo” After listening, I went and looked for the album that the track was on and I found it on Martino’s album Live at Yoshi’s. Live at Yoshi’s was released in 2001 a little over 20 years after Martino had brain surgery as a result of a nearly fatal brain aneurysm. The surgery left him with amnesia, that wiped out his memories of his career and how to play guitar!! With the help of friends and his old records he was able to learn to play again. An amazing story, that I had no clue about!! Read More

The Safari finally finds the Progressive Metal of Agora in Mexico!!

So this evening I was searching for some new prog rock, and I went to New Prog Rock Releases and saw that an Italian Jazz-Rock, fusion band named Agora released their new album Ichinen on Monday of this week. So I traveled over to MOG to see if I could find it I found Agora and there was no Ichinen album. I did see however a 2011 release Regresa Al Vértigo. So I continued to search for some information on the band while I was listening. I went to the Prog Archives where I read about Agora…. Read More

A Morning with Hammond Heroes leads the Safari to “Bag of Jewels” from Lou Donaldson!

So this morning started with a cold walk to my office. I left the car at the office yesterday and walked home during the snowstorm!  While that may have been a good idea yesterday, it didn’t seem that good this morning, when I faced a ten minute walk to work with single digit wind chill temperatures. But like I always say when I struggle through a run  “At least the music was good!” The music came from an album released back in November titled Hammond Heroes. The album somehow got accidentally downloaded on to the iPhone a while ago and I didn’t delete it because of the title! Well am I glad I didn’t, because it’s got some great tracks on it. It’s has tracks on it from guys like Jimmy and Dr Lonnie Smith, Larry Young, and Jimmy McGriff where they are the top dog and then it has tracks where the organist is a member of the band or trio, pairing with folks like Pat Metheny. John Scofield, Lou Donaldson and Pat Martino. I was constantly looking at the tracks as great ones kept coming on, to see who was playing this time. Well, one of the tracks I liked right away was “Bag of Jewels” from Lou Donaldson. Donaldson is one of those oh, too many jazz artists whose name I know but not their music. the other track that caught my attention was “Oleo” from Pat Martino. Pat was another artist like Lou, and after listening to him play a few weeks ago on that tribute to Wes, I tracked down his music and listened to his album El Hombre and he is that!! Read More

The Safari finds Blues from Tinsley Ellis’ Midnight Blue on a Snowy Day is a good thing!!

So today was a blues day. A blues day inside and a white snowy day outside, as we here in the northeast were hit with another snowstorm! s]Since it was a blues day, the latest release from Tinsley Ellis Midnight Blue was the album of the day. After listening and thinking about Tinsley I was trying to fix when I first discovered his music. I have his 1992 release Trouble Time and his 1994 release Storm Warning both on cassette, and I may have bought them at Tunes in the late 1990s. Not that it really matters, the important thing is that I’ve known and loved this great guitarist for a while now, and I’d put Midnight Blue right up there with his best work, which almost says is his 2004 release The Hard Way  Anyway for those of you who don’t know Tinsley…. Read More

The Safari’s Eclectic Music Day – A Little Folk, New Age and Prog from three great guitarists!

More New EverythinhCrossposted from Me.Myself, Music and Mysteries

So today was an eclectic music day. I had to return to Lambertville today, so I loaded music on the iPhone from two different genres. First some folk music from a longtime favorite, Brooks Williams,  his latest release, More New Everything which is an EP. Then some New Age from guitarist Alex DeGrassi. I listened to those two albums on the way to the site. Then on the  way back, I listened to music from a third genre Prog Rock from the album Ravens and Lullabies from Gordon Giltrap and Oliver Wakeman. As I was listening on the way back, I thought about what tied all three of these albums from different genres together. The answer was that three of the four artist are exceptionally fine acoustic guitar players!! Read More

The Safari explores Doug Webb’s West Coast Jazz at Another Scene!

Saxophonist Doug Webb was born in Chicago and raised from the age of three in California. He is a well-known West Coast jazz musician. Webb has appeared on over 500 recordings for a myriad of artists including:Horace Silver, Freddie Hubbard, Sal Marquez, Stanley Clarke, Brian Bromberg, Quincy Jones, Mat Marucci, Bobby Caldwell, Kyle Eastwood, Rod Stewart, Carly Simon, Art Garfunkel, Queen Latifah, Cher and Vikki Carr.He played for fifteen years with the Doc Severinsen Tonight Show Big Band.. with whom he still tours. He also played with the house band for the Dennis Miller TV show, and the Jimmy Cleveland orchestra   Read More

Life’s Intrusions… a flat tire and a trip to the Veterinarian for Liam!

So I had a couple of life’s unexpected intrusions into my music listening this week. The latest was this morning when the front end of my car started to shake and rumble horribly. I hadn’t gone far so I turned around, and almost made it back home. But I knew I had to stop and pulled to the curb a block from home and checked. The front  passenger tire had blown and was now off the rim. I checked in the trunk for the spare,. It was there, as was the jack. What was missing was the lug nut wrench. After a couple of calls I decided, the best option was to call AAA and have them change the tire. They did their usually good job and a service truck was there within the hour! Now I am sitting at STS waiting to get two tires. While the good thing is that I have two books that I am reading on the iPhone,(Theodore Roosevelt and the Assassin and The Mayor of MacDougal Street)  the bad news is that I forgot my headphones! Read More

Life’s Soundtracks – And She Said Gold from Sweden’s Enbound leads me to a good run!

Well if you told me when I was in the fist half-mile of my run tonight that I would end up running faster and farther than I did on Tuesday night I ay you are nuts!! Obviously I did not feel real spry at the beginning of the run! Part of the reason for that it was a lot colder than i thought it was and I always have trouble breathing when the air is cold. But I had put on an album by what I thought was a progressive rock band Enbound and their 2011 release And She Said Gold and it sounded pretty good, so I tuned in and trudged on!! I clocked in at the first mile point at in 10:16 not bad.So I said let’s just keep moving listening to those guitars. keys and vocals that I could understand!! I asked my self over the course of the next mile, “how was I do” and the answer came back ok!! I really didn’t check my time at any other points. I just kept looking down at my pace and was constantly happily surprised that the pace was for the majority of the time hovering around that 10:30 minute per mile pace!! When I crossed the point where i started and had stopped on Monday night I was almost 2 minutes faster than Monday!! So I kept going and ended up running a full 3 miles compared to 2.8 miles on Monday and the final time was 31:30 for the three miles which coverts to a 10:30 minute per mile pace. I was very pleasantly surprised by both the run and the music! Now like I said the soundtrack for the run was And She Said Gold from Enbound. SAnds she said goldince I knew nothing about the band other than they have a great guitar player and vocalist, I went to their Facebook where I found that they are from Sweden!! I went to ProgArchives and found nothing!! Then I googled the Enbound and found them listed on several metal sites. They label their music on their Facebook page as Hard Rock/Melodic Metal. And when I went to a forum where they discuss what groups they put on the Prog Archives site I read that they liked their music but that tended more to metal than prog. I guess I agree but I thought there were several tempo changes within songs and between songs that they would make it to the Prog Archives!! Anyway the band hails from Boras, Sweden a town of about 66,000 people located in the southwest quadrant of the country. Enbound was formed in 2006 by Mike Cameron Force. His intention was to create something special with Enbound, and Enboundnot just be a normal rock/metal band. The pieces of the band came together over the next several years. bass player Swede was added to the line-up, as well as the extremely talented [then 17, now 20] year old guitar virtuoso Marvin Flowberg. In 2009 the band found their singer in Lee Hunter [Lars Säfsund] who is most famous for his work in the band Work of Art as well as performing in musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar, in the TV program “Singing Bee” on Swedish television and performing with Biondo in the Rumanian Eurovision song contest 2008. So in 2011 the albumAnd She Said Gold mastered by Björn Engelmann [Rammstein, Primal Fear, Sonata Arctica] was released. Ok so now my mind has given up on me ans all I’ll say is that in my opinion this is a great album. Full of hard charging metal that will rock you.. with some terrific guitar by Flowberg and then there are some slow ballads and throughout the whole album, Hunter’s vocals are perfect for band!! So as I say check them out!! Here’s the “official” video for the opening track “Combined The Souls” Read More