Donald Byrd blasted off this mortal coil earlier this month and this site was completely remiss in honoring his legacy. No excuses are worthwhile, but I will point you in the direction of Oliver Wang’s Soul Sides blog, who eulogized the jazz great with abyssal depth. Go there, download those tunes, dig deeper into the […]

There is a particularly inane acronym called “F.O.M.O” (fear of missing out) that people regularly quote in an attempt to convince themselves that it’s better to stay at home and watch “Downton Abbey.” I don’t have a television, but sometimes, you end up being lazy and staying at home because you assume that moments repeat […]

Deen was and is advanced. I still remember the first time someone asked what kind of music I listened to. I wasn’t quite as much of a music nerd as I am now (I was about 8 or 9), but I already had a pretty cool answer for my age: “all kinds of stuff – […]

Funny story. So I’m quickly trawling through Counterpoint Records in Hollywood and stumble upon a record marked “rare.”It’s a day before Christmas and I’m looking for a last minute gift. An album from Etta James can’t help but be well-received, right?  In light of her shaky health, her music gains an extra (unneeded but natural) […]

Farmland funk filmed somewhere in the middle of Kansas. Roy Ayers. I mean. My vibraphone lessons start Monday. Via Ego Trip Download: MP3: Roy Ayers-“Vibrations”

For all us smart dub cats who took Spanish instead of French, Karl Hector stays dificil with his Gallic/German/Ethiopian flair. Thankfully, the title of his Paris DJ’s mix is self-explanatory: modal jazz of the world. What happens next is even more crystalline, the enigmatic Teuton behind 09’s excellent Sahara Swing drops esoteric old Folkways and […]