MUSINGS
Remembering Allen Toussaint through His Words on Music
TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2015
A brief remembrance of New Orleans songwriter, pianist, producer, arranger and singer Allen Toussaint, who died in Madrid on 10 November 2015. Many of his songs are better-known in versions by other artists (e.g., “Southern Nights” by Glen Campbell, “Yes We Can” by the Pointer Sisters), and his sonic signature as a producer is recognizable on recordings like Labelle’s Nightbirds (1974), which featured “Lady Marmalade.” If you don’t already know his music, click through to find out what you’ve missed.
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Perfect Pop Songs #5: Tanya Donelly’s “The Storm” (2002)
SATURDAY, 21 DECEMBER 2013
After too much time, there’s finally another entry in the PPS series. This one’s taken from an EP and full-length LP Tanya Donelly recorded for 4AD and released in 2002. Although the song is stylistically consistent with Donelly’s earlier output, especially when she led Belly, there’s something about “The Storm” that grabs me and holds me every time I hear or remember it. Maybe you’ll feel the same way after hearing it…
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Premature Autopsies, Overdue Celebration: Mulgrew Miller and Hand in Hand
WEDNESDAY, 29 MAY 2013
Despite the sad news delivered online and repeated in a steady stream of tweets (based on an unsourced Facebook posting), news arrived later in the afternoon yesterday that the pianist Mulgrew Miller, who suffered a severe stroke last week, is still among the living. Read on to find out why I’m relieved that he’s still here, and why—if you’re concerned at all with straight-ahead jazz over the last several decades—you should know his music…
Update: Early this morning, official word arrived, via a forwarded e-mail message sent to William Paterson University jazz students by David Demsey, the coordinator of the Jazz Studies Program there, that Mulgrew Miller has in fact left the planet. Click through for further details.
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WEDNESDAY, 27 MARCH 2013
2012 Put to Bed; Dreams to Follow
My 2012 best-of list has finally been posted. As usual, its contents range widely over the popular music and jazz landscapes. Click through to learn whether your picks match mine, to find out what barely missed the list, and maybe to add a few items to the list for your next CD-, vinyl- or mp3-purchasing mission.
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Some Have Waited a Lifetime: mbv and the Recording Return of My Bloody Valentine
THURSDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2013
After what has to be one of the longest hiatuses in rock history, My Bloody Valentine has just quietly and almost stealthily released mbv, their first new album since 1991’s Loveless. Critics so far seem united only on the fact that this album is not a sequel to Loveless and in equivocating on how it compares to its predecessor. For a brief round-up of the critics’ takes and a slightly different view … well, you know what to do—the link’s right there.