The year is 2000. Y2K. First, the good news: the world does not end on January 1st, 2000, the start of a new millennium. (Actually, to be picky, the new...
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Saxophonist Sam Rivers was a well-respected figure in the free jazz scene of the ‘60s and beyond, playing with Tony Williams, Andrew Hill, Dave Holland and many more. This playlist…
If ever there was a band that seemed destined for the label of one-hit-wonder, it was Radiohead. Indeed, there were two songs from the early ‘90s—Radiohead’s “Creep” and Beck’s “Loser”—that...
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Jeff Beck got his start in the Yardbirds, as the guitarist after Eric Clapton and before Jimmy Page. But he soon established himself as a solo artist, leading several terrific…
There’s a moment in many John Coltrane songs, just after the climactic sax solo, when the music hangs suspended, with nothing really happening—perhaps a fluttering of piano, some light drum…
British R&B belter Joe Cocker didn’t write many songs himself, but he was a master of reinterpretation of other people’s material. It’s rare to find an artist who can competently…
Like Jackie McLean, pianist Andrew Hill is yet another of those second-tier artists in the upper echelon of ‘60s jazz greats. Not quite at the same level as Coleman, Coltrane,…
1990. As global tensions start to ease and positive change begins in some arenas of world conflict, new areas of tension arise. Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize...
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Some consider Amon Düül the first Krautrock band, and they may indeed be the first German rock band to make waves internationally—but the music they create doesn’t fit exactly with…
For any serious fan of ‘60s jazz, I imagine that the biggest names would surely have to be (alphabetically) Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Charles Mingus. Those four…
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