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Short Takes: LP Reissues from the Rolling Stones and Muddy Waters
Two Marvelous Double LPs in Vinyl from Eagle Rock Entertainment (With CDs tucked in each three-panel sleeve for the disadvantaged) By Brian Arsenault Last check, the Rolling Stones are still a very...
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Short Takes: Of Wind and Rain, Plaintive Guitars and Joyful Jazz
By Brian Arsenault Cathie Ryan Through Wind and Rain (Mo Leanbh Records) I wasn’t too sure what I thought of Cathie Ryan’s Through Wind and Rain through the first couple of songs, which seemed sort of...
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Short Takes: Of Christmas Music Four Ways
By Brian Arsenault Tis the season, as they say, and there’s music aplenty for those who celebrate Christmas. It’s just a matter of how you likes yours served. Will Scruggs Jazz Fellowship Song of...
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Short Takes: Of My Favorites in Twenty-Twelve
By Brian Arsenault I really don’t feel comfortable calling a column like this “The Best of 2012.” It’s not that I’m not opinionated enough to do so, it’s that integrity would require me to have...
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Short Takes: Between the Silences of ECM Records
A Consideration of Mercurial Balm and On the Dance Floor By Brian Arsenault What, then, to make of these envelopes of ECM released CDs which keep appearing in my mailbox? Oh, the envelopes are plain...
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CD Review: The Asuka Kakitani Jazz Orchestra
Bloom (Nineteen Eight Records) By Brian Arsenault In the wake of the pre-Christmas horror in Connecticut that I shall not name, I needed to be reassured that all beauty has not left the world....
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CD Review: Eric Burdon’s “‘Til Your River Runs Dry”
Eric Burdon ‘Til Your River Runs Dry (ABKCO Music) By Brian Arsenault Dear Eric, When you just cut it loose, as on Marc Cohn‘s “Medicine Man,” we get that Burdon power unencumbered by self conscious...
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DVD Review: “Ferlinghetti A Rebirth of Wonder”
Christopher Felver’s Documentary (First Run Features) By Brian Arsenault Of all the poems in all the world my favorite is “Dog” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and unbeknownst to me till now there is actual...
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Brian Arsenault’s Short Takes: CD Reviews of Luis Munoz, The Sweet Remains...
Of the Allure of Light, Harmony and Sirens (the dangerously beautiful ones) By Brian Arsenault Luis Munoz Luz (Pelin Music) If she won’t kiss you while this plays and the lights are down, things just...
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Brian Arsenault’s Short Takes: CDs by Lunasa and Olivia Foschi
Of Music Beyond Ireland and Back to Italy By Brian Arsenault LÚNASA Lúnasa with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra (Lúnasa Records) Up the Irish. Up the rebels. I always used to like my cousin’s husband...
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Brian Arsenault’s Short Takes:”50″“They Just Keep Coming”“Time Keeps Passing”...
By Brian Arsenault 50 I try to do 50 every morning. Two sets of 25. They call them push-ups but they are really push backs. Push backs against time. Against sagging flesh, loosening skin. A loser’s...
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Irish Tales I: “Alive Alive-O”
By Brian Arsenault There she stands with her cart, sweet Molly Malone, just below the intense shopping of Dublin’s Grafton Street. She’s selling cockles (whatever they are) and mussels and she is...
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Who Killed Cock Robin? A Reflection
by Brian Arsenault There will be a lot of tributes to Robin Williams. Mine is simply this: whatever you fear in your darkest corner about how crazy or fucked up or ridiculous you may be, Robin was...
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Brian Arsenault Takes On: Dead (and loses again)
By Brian Arsenault I ‘d like to write something about Jack Bruce dying. But I can’t. “Crossroads” keeps playing over and over again in my head. By the way, he is dead isn’t he? Not a hoax, like one...
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Brian Arsenault Takes on Christmas
By Brian Arsenault The most surrealistic experience imaginable was available to all on the evening three weeks before Christmas Eve. You simply had to switch back between your local NBC affiliate and...
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Here, There & Everywhere: the 2015 Grammy Jazz Nominations
By Don Heckman It’s that time of year again, when the Grammy nominations are posted for members of the Recording Academy to vote for their favorite performances of the previous year. After decades of...
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An Appreciation: Remembering Joe Cocker
By Brian Arsenault The memories are so intact. The Grease Band singing crappy falsetto behind him at Woodstock. The kickass chorus on the best damn live album ever, Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Belushi...
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2014 Remembered: “Lost Boys” Lou Reed, Joe Cocker, Jack Bruce
By Brian Arsenault They were so different. Unalike. Distinctive. Is that what unique is? Seems like that was typical of the era. Hendrix, not Clapton. Beatles, not Stones. Airplane, not Beach Boys....
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CD Review: Vanilla Fudge “Spirit of ’67”
by Brian Arsenault (Done as a letter to my college roommate.) Dear Flashman, You remember in 1967 when we were living in that basement room and the two lunatics in the room above us had those three...
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Notes From Otherground
By Brian Arsenault Fyodor Dostoyevsky Freeport, Maine. (With apologies to Dostoyevsky, but you’re long winded anyway. Sorry to everyone else for the gratuitous remark about D.) OK, I’m done....
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