Laura Nyro’s masterpiece, “Eli & the 13th Confession”. She embraces her lover like a god, her God like a lover. It’s a pageant of bright lights and fierce emotions. It’s gospel and doo-wop and a spiritual carpet ride through sex, love, the elation and deflation of relationships, drugs, God, the devil. It’s a trip to the entire gallery of experiences of an eccentric, passionate, spiritual, loving person, and you’ll be a richer person for joining her.
Continue reading...Song Of the week
024: Oi Va Voi, ‘Refugee’
I’m a seriously committed Jew, but I don’t like any flavor of klezmer. I don’t believe in world peace, and I don’t like world music. I don’t believe in leaderless bands with amorphous rosters. But I’ve coerced literally dozens unsuspecting friends and acquaintances to listen to Oi Va Voi’s “Laughter Through Tears”, and nary a one hasn’t apologized for snickering. It’s is an utterly irresistible album.
Continue reading...021: Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy, ‘Snake Out’
A serendipitous happenstance, as my mother used to say. On the one hand, I just returned from a short visit to Paris (hence my absence last week), and was looking for a French connection Song...
Continue reading...SoTW 17: Chano Dominguez, ‘Tangos del Fuego’ (Red Sea Jazz Festival)
This week’s SoTW is by Chano Dominguez, a Spanish jazz pianist (b. 1960) who’s carved a successful career of fusing a modern jazz sensibility with traditional flamenco music (palos), dance (baile) and song (cante). Unfortunately,...
Continue reading...SoTW 16: Bob Dylan, ‘Percy’s Song’
A real good thing happened to a real good friend this week. Neal Hendel was appointed to the Supreme Court here in Israel. It’s a little hard for me to digest. I don’t know a...
Continue reading...SoTW 015: Tracy Nelson (Mother Earth), ‘Down So Low’
My friend Avi knows more about a whole range of subjects than your average person – computer graphics, carpentry terminology, and the mechanics of assault rifles, among a whole myriad of others. And music, he...
Continue reading...SoTW 13: Tim Hardin, ‘Black Sheep Boy’
Tim Hardin has perhaps the finest career I know of based on the fewest accomplishments. Two significant LPs in his mid-20s, a drug-ruined mess by 30, dead at 39, far fewer than a dozen great songs. But he managed to do more in two minutes than many others did in decades of writing and recording. Each song is a paragon of honesty and restraint – beautiful and precious, but without a millitrace of the maudlin. I guess it was hard to be so honest.
Continue reading...011: The Idea of North, ‘Fragile’ (Sting)
“Art is a matter of taste.” No one has the right to say what’s ‘good’ and what’s ‘bad’. Everyone’s entitled to his/her/its opinion. Well, I guess I begrudgingly go along with the idea that everyone...
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