Metal Dad - Hardcore for Life

Voice Poetry

or Lunchtime Listening: Ornette Coleman - Body Meta


Tags: Body Meta, Jazz, Lunchtime Listening, Ornette Coleman

Tempus Fugit

or Lunchtime Listening

I do take a break from making my ears bleed quite often. If anything, my musical tastes are quite varied. So even though I don't usually eat lunch (too lazy to make one, too cheap to buy one. as long as there's coffee i'm good) this was playing during my lunchtime.

Bud Powell - Ultimate Bud Powell


Tags: Bud Powell, Jazz, Lunchtime Listening

Find Of The Week

One of the musical artists I listen to on a regular basis is Anthony Braxton, much to the consternation of Mrs. Metal Dad. She has never understood my fascination with his recorded output.  But I have been an enthusiast ever since I heard 3 Compositions of New Jazz in 1968.

Recently the web site of his Tri-Centric Foundation had a reboot. One feature they now provide is access to a whole bunch of Braxton bootlegs. They've collected some of the best quality boots that have been floating around and are making them available in both FLAC and MP3 formats. Thus I was able to acquire a copy of a recording of Braxton and Max Roach in duo performance in Verona from 1989.

Track one is an almost hour long improvisation between Roach's percussion and Braxton's alto. The second track is their take on John Coltrane's "Giant Steps."


Tags: Anthony Braxton, Bootlegs, Current Listening, Max Roach, Tri-Centric Foundation

From Out Where Others Dwell

The Light of My Life is pretty eclectic when it comes to music. In the course of a couple of hours we can go from Raffi or Barney to Pat Travers, Slayer, and the many permutations of George Clinton. She is sometimes heard to exclaim, "I wants to get funked up!"

There seems to be  a very definite connection between Clinton's P-Funk mythology and the cosmic persona and world view of Sun Ra, which leads me to The Play of The Week: Live at Montreux - Sun Ra and his Intergalatic Cosmo Arkestra.

The story goes that someone once complained to Thelonious Monk that Sun Ra was "too far out." To which Monk replied, "Yeah, but it swings." And it sure does swing. There's an absolutely brilliant version of Billy Strayhorn's "Take the 'A' Train" on this recording.



Tags: Current Listening, Family, Jazz, P-Funk, Sun Ra

Word For Bird

The Morning Drive: John Zorn - Spy vs. Spy: The Music of Ornette Coleman It's my humble opinion that John Zorn should be considered a national treasure. This album of Ornette Coleman compositions reflects Zorn's incorporation of hardcore punk and grindcore influences which would be more fully explored by his group, Naked City.


Technorati Tags: Current Listening, Grindcore, Hardcore, Jazz, John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, The Morning Drive

"He Was All Music, All The Time"

R.I.P. Fred Anderson, a mainstay on the Chicago jazz scene, club owner, and a co-founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. I remember seeing him at a small club in Chicago, Alice's Revisited, way back in the late Sixties. It was my first encounter with free jazz in a live setting and he and his band shook the walls and ceiling with the intensity of their playing. I've never forgotten that show.

Technorati Tags: Chicago, Fred Anderson, Free Jazz, Obituaries

What Would Sun Ra Do?

or The Morning Drive: Sun Ra and his Arkestra Live at Montreux - 6:00 AM root canal this morning but this made the drive to the office afterwards quite enjoyable. Inside or outside, his band always swings like crazy.


Technorati Tags: Current Listening, Jazz, Sun Ra, The Morning Drive

It's My Life (cont.)...

or Life is Good: Mrs. Metal Dad is back home from her trip, the Light of My Life is down for the night, and I'm watching the NBA playoffs while listening to John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy.


Technorati Tags: Current Listening, Eric Dolphy, Family, Jazz, John Coltrane, NBA

God Has Smiled On Me

The Morning Drive: Lester Bowie - The 5th Power - The late, great Lester Bowie on a live date in 1978 with Arthur Blythe, Amina Claudine Myers, Malachi Favors, and Phillip Wilson. The Allmusic review by Michael G. Nastos describes the album as "Creative jazz and a progressive gospel segment. Bowie at his eclectic best. Essential".

"Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future" indeed.


Technorati Tags: Current Listening, Gospel Music, Jazz, Lester Bowie, The 5th Power

The Ending To The First Side

Play of the Morning: Charlie Haden - Liberation Music Orchestra
Labored leftist politics aside, this is an album of beautiful music arranged in large part by Carla Bley with moving performances from Don Cherry, Gato Barbieri, and others.


By the way,


Technorati Tags: Carla Bley, Charlie Haden, Current Listening, Liberation Music Orchestra, Jazz