Saturday, December 19, 1970 For first-time listeners to The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (Columbia, 1970), the first four discs can be like a side trip to unfamiliar neighborhoods of a well-known place. The language is the same, the architecture familiar, but the details are new and delightfully alive. Arriving at discs five and six is […]
Friday, December 18, 1970 When The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (Columbia, 2005) recordings were made, none of the members of Miles’ band had yet reached age thirty. The leader himself was only forty-four. But even at their younger ages, the intense physicality of the playing for three sets a night, Friday and Saturday, had to […]
Thursday, December 17, 1970 –What I Say. With “What I Say,” Miles Davis and his band answered the bell for Round two at the Cellar Door like a boxer bursting off his stool to land a volley of combinations before his opponent has even reached the center of the ring. It’s not quite shock and […]
Before diving in, a note on inspiration. This project is the child of a small-scale obsession. Last fall, I moved my collection of five thousand, six hundred and sixty-four CDs across town to a new home. I like to file them alphabetically by artist and then chronologically within each artist. Seventy-one of these are by […]
Fifty-five years ago this week, Miles Davis brought a new-ish band into Washington D.C.’s Cellar Door club for a four-night engagement. Columbia Records, perhaps hoping to catch lightning in a bottle, sent a crew and two eight-track tape machines to record the ten sets. Edited versions of material from the final night’s three sets found […]
Give the devil of algorithmic media its due for knowing things about you that you never suspected. Who knew, for instance, that Japanese woodworking videos were an obsession lying dormant in my mind, waiting to be activated? Even though I am hopeless with a tool in my hand—or perhaps because of it—I found these little […]
In his “Odyssey,” Homer gave his protagonist the epithet “polytropos,” meaning “of many turns.” This descriptor captures the cunning, adaptability, and intellectual restlessness of Odysseus, a hero shaped by his ever-changing circumstances. It’s tempting to think Coleman – a musician whose career has been defined by perpetual motion, transformation, and the relentless quest for knowledge […]
Michel Petrucciani exploded onto the North American consciousness in 1982 when he persuaded Charles Lloyd to come out of a self-imposed retirement. The French pianist was a sensation and quickly found himself on a New York-bound Concorde to become the first European artist signed by Bruce Lundvall to a Blue Note Records contract. The label […]
Just when you think we’ve reached peak piano trio, a new recording arrives to demonstrate the infinite elasticity of the venerable formation. It happens so often as to become routine. Yet surprises still abound, and this is one, a digital-only EP from a hitherto unknown label – to me, at least – that is one […]
There are recordings that dazzle you from the first few bars—or conversely, put you off—with their audacity. Then there are the agreeably conventional releases that, over time, yield their secrets by degree. Put Lucas Pino’s Covers (Outside In Music, 2023) in the latter category. Notwithstanding some evident drollery, the title proudly advertises Pino’s rejection of conceptual ambition. […]
