Miscellany

Summer has hit full force here in Chicago, which means a few things: busy season at work for me, and beautiful weather outside. Both of which conspire to reduce my posting output here. There are some great shows coming up though that I will be writing about and reviewing though, so the lull around here should only be short lived.

In the mean time:

Rob Wagner, Hamid Drake and Nobu Ozaki are reviewed by Jeff Albert, New Orleans Nation (scroll down about half way) and at the New Orleans Times Picayune (the latter review also includes a review of the Ophelia Orchestra). I'm not familiar with Rob Wagner, but I've never made a secret of my admiration of Hamid Drake's drumming, and if Mr. Wagner keeps company with him and Kidd Jordan, I'll have to check out his new disc.

Hamid Drake is also profiled in conjunction with his appearances in Montreal. Panpot has some initial writing on the festival available, and David Ryshpan will be writing more on the shows in the near future (he has already reviewed Marc Ribot).

Rudresh Mahanthappa is interviewed by Mike Heffley as part of Mr. Heffley's continued research for a forthcoming book. I find the South Asian jazz axis to be a particularly fascinating syncretic hybridization, and Mr. Mahanthappa explains his positioning eloquently.

Rastaman vibration...you can buy Bob Marley's seminal Exodus album on USB memory stick:

"The limited edition run will be issued in the Rastafarian colors of red, green and gold in the UK only, and contain the 10 original “Exodus” tracks, plus three videos taped at London’s Rainbow Theatre in June 1977."

Chant down Babylon indeed.

The discussion of the '90s over at Destionation: Out continued through the week, so if you haven't checked back in recently, there are more comments worth reading.

Close up videos of the sun. Mesmerizing.

More soon...