Rant ‘n’ Roll Mike Greenblatt February 20, 2019 Albums, Columns, Rant 'N' Roll, Reviews Solo Piano Billy Joel once wrote “And the piano it sounds like a carnival....” Nowhere is that more applicable than on James Fernando’s solo piano debut, his self-released The Lonely Sailor, where he deconst...
Rant ‘n’ Roll: The Jazz Page Mike Greenblatt February 13, 2019 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll Good Vibes Vibraphonist Behn Gillece resides in a Parallel Universe on his fourth Posi-Tone album. The 11 originals feature his good vibes alongside a tenor sax/trumpet frontline, complete with piano/bass/dr...
Rant ‘n’ Roll Mike Greenblatt February 6, 2019 Rant 'N' Roll Pete Seeger, American Hero During and after World War II, the Soviet Union were our friends. So much so that American communist groups started sprouting up in the United States. Sure, the USSR used So...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt January 30, 2019 Rant 'N' Roll Vocal Champian Champian Fulton came out of Oklahoma to become a vocalist/pianist with or without the blessing of her trumpeter/educator/father who had friends like the legendary Clark Terry for whom she san...
Rant’n’Roll – The Best of the Rest: One Last Look at 2018 Mike Greenblatt January 16, 2019 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll Best Idea Soul’s Core was Atlanta singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins’ 1998 debut that had the folkie touring behind the surprise million-selling single “Lullaby.” In an extremely rare move, Mullins has r...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt January 9, 2019 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll Heady Han Los Angeles pianist/composer Connie Han is barely 23 but her Crime Zone debut (Mack Avenue Records) cannot be ignored. With a sax/trumpet frontline and a blistering drums/bass rhythm section...
Rant’n’Roll – The Best of 2018 Mike Greenblatt January 2, 2019 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll The Best of 2018 I’m a list freak. Always kept ‘em. Always will. When I was a little kid, I kept lists of baseball players, professional wrestlers, TV shows, songs, movies, girls who let me kiss them,...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt December 26, 2018 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll A New Miles Davis EP Well, it’s only five different mixes of the same song but still. The year was 1985. The notoriously impossible-to-deal-with Miles Davis, curmudgeon that he was, abruptly left...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt December 19, 2018 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll Jukes To Party Like it’s 2019 On New Year’s Eve The walls of The Count Basie Theater in Red Bank will shake and sweat when Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes welcome in 2019 for what has become a...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt December 12, 2018 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll These Two Guys Mark Turner and Ethan Iverson are Temporary Kings on their new ECM Records record. It’s but those two guys on six originals by pianist Iverson (one of which, the grandiloque...
