Sorry for the long wait between this and last posts. We were just plain lazy and there's no A/C in the "bloggin' office." Kudos to those 'nards over at Pitchfork Media for breaking the news of Nels Cline's chicken pox, which has sidelined our friend for a few Wilco gigs.
We feel his pain: I got the pox in my freshman year of college at the University of Minnesota, while I was living in Middlebrook Hall of all places. I had to be quarantined (boy, was my roomate pissed!) and I wound up sitting around for a week covered in some sort of pink lotion, watching Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock on an endless loop. This kind girl who lived on my floor would deliver me meals, which was nice enough to make me forget that the pustules on my body were giving off this weird rotting-corpse reek. Yikes. My guess is that Mr. Alien Flowerpot will get at least twelve new ideas for recording projects out of this experience.
If you'd like to see Nels during a healthier time, David Witham's Portable Universe site has a 2002 performance from the Nels Cline Singers, whose new record Draw Breath is currently one of Amoeba Music's "Music We Like" staff picks. Here's what they have to say: "Guitar god (and now Wilco sideman!) Nels Cline can shred, skronk, freak, wail and blissout as intensely as anyone who’s ever handled an axe, but with a unique sense of controlled chaos and lysergic adventure. Nobody sings in this band, but Devin Hoff manhandles the bass, Scott Amendola goes postal on his drum/electronics kit and makes it howl like a wounded robot, and Glenn Kotche guests on percussion. An epic noise-jazz odyssey with flavorings of doom metal and celestial ambience." Bless you, 'Meebs.
And speaking of our piano man David Witham, he's doing a three-night stand at The Jazz Bakery in Culver City this Thursday-Saturday (August 23-25) in support of saxophonist Ernie Watts. They'll be recording each nights for a future live release, so maybe you can show up and have your between-solo/song applause preserved for posterity. And if you haven't yet, snap up a copy of Mr. Witham's recent Crypto drop Spinning The Circle.
Let's see...what else?
The current August issue of Los Angeles magazine (Blue cover: "The Best of L.A.") contains a nice feature on the proliferation of home jazz concerts in Los Angeles, written by an absolutely earth-shakingly brilliant writer...ME!!
It's not available on the mag's website, so a newsstand will have to suffice in this 100-degree heat. Check it out now, right about now...
Another thing to check out is our friend Greg Burk's beguiling new blogsite MetalJazz. Mr. Burk has had quite a busy time since leaving the L.A. Weekly last year, with insightful pieces written for both Spin Magazine (on dark-metal prince Glen Danzig) and the Los Angeles Times (about the similarities between heavy metal and jazz -- which isn't as sacreligious as it sounds). Also, the current jazz man at the Weekly, Brick Wahl, does a column called "Brick's Picks" that previews jazz goings-on-around-town. It's a must-read for planning your weekend out.
Which brings us to an exciting new development in the L.A. jazz scene: the opening of a new venue! This is of particular excitement to us because the space is located in the spritual heart of L.A. jazz: Leimert Park. (Well, that's not really true. It's about a mile south of Leimert Village, just one and 1/2 blocks east of Crenshaw Blvd., on the corner of 54th St. and 10th St.) It's called "The S.Central Station" and it's opened run by a local stalwarts named Bongo and Wilmeta (he hosts in dapper fashion, she cooks mouthwatering soul food).
It's a comfortably large space with plenty of African-themed art, couches, multimedia films of Bird and Miles splashed across the walls. The place just opened on June 30th and has been quietly spreading the buzz ever since for its Friday-Saturday night "Cosmic Gathering of Angels/Underground Railroad" music series, which has featured some pretty serious local cats: Dwight Trible, Michael Session, Jesse Sharps and -- we hear -- soon the Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra is going to move their last-Sunday-of-the-month concerts from the World Stage to Bongo's place, so it's primed to become another beacon in this city for liberating sounds. It's about as far from "Hollyweird" as you can get. Check out Bongo's blog for more information and cool pics of the joint.
