Articles by Dennis Cook

Saxlife Plays Yes: Total Sax Retain

by Dennis Cook
January 7, 2005

Anyone who's ever collected crappy bootlegs of a favorite band will understand the illogical passion at the core of this tribute to Yes. SF Bay Area saxophonist with funkateers Ten Ton Chicken has transformed himself into a one-man sax quartet, charting out and playing all the parts of tenor, soprano, alto, and baritone (and on the gorgeous “We Have Heaven," a baritone floating on a chorus of altos).

Smeltz possesses the gutbucket throatiness of '50s jump blues but harnesses it ...

Kyle Hollingsworth: Never Odd Or Even

by Dennis Cook
January 6, 2005

Press play on Never Odd Or Even and you're suddenly tuned into a foreign radio broadcast, mechanized drums and wailing voices sparring with hot wax keyboards. On his solo debut, String Cheese Incident ivory tickler Hollingsworth trots out his considerable chops, but more importantly his compositional skills. His band is a who's who of Boulder, Colorado players, including Motet drummer Dave Watts. “The Crusade" kicks it off with a bumping soul jazz workout, a vibe that resurfaces several times. Joshua ...

Jean Luc Ponty: In Concert

by Dennis Cook
November 25, 2004

There's a reason jazz-fusion has a bad reputation. It frequently takes the simple, graceful sway of group themes and solos and allows the latter to dominate in icky extended masturbatory excess. At the same time, the melodies are often an afterthought, an excuse for noodling and aimless technique demonstrations. Jean Luc Ponty once apprenticed with Frank Zappa, who knew a thing or two about complex musicianship paired with equally complex compositions. In the intervening decades, he's slipped into the same ...

Vinyl: All The Way Live

by Dennis Cook
October 4, 2004

When a band can gather guests like organist Bernie Worrell, blues great Sugar Pie DeSanto, Son of Champlin Terry Haggerty, and bassist Rob Wasserman for a live album, it's usually worth a spin or two to see what all this high-powered talent sees in it. Vinyl, hailing from the San Francisco Bay region, play the entire African diaspora of musical styles: pulsing reggae one minute, greasy soul the next, with room in between for juke blues, Fela funk and anything ...

Zony Mash: Farewell Shows

by Dennis Cook
October 2, 2004

The Hammond B3 organ and the Rhodes electric piano must possess a sorcerer's charm. Keyboardists in every genre, especially in jazz, have fallen under the sway of these instruments since their emergence in the '60s, often to point of distraction. Downtown NYC veteran Wayne Horvitz is no exception, and his Seattle based Zony Mash mixed up classic boogaloo with smatterings of prog, stomp rock and Charles Earland funk grinders. These shows, recorded on December 12, 2003 in their hometown, represent ...

The Slip: Live At Lupo

by Dennis Cook
September 22, 2004

Uncompromising creativity. That's the harmonic buzz underscoring every note that pours from The Slip. On their first full concert release, these players announce immediately that they are forging their own path, but they've made it wide enough for anyone with the ears to hear to join them, living proof that an adventurous spirit can also be catchy as all get out.

Opener “Old George," with its bullets and boxes, shows that pop music need not lack character or complexity. And ...

Transcendental Hayride: Sweet Waters And Country Roads

by Dennis Cook
September 15, 2004

Transcendental Hayride August 14, 2004 Sweetwater Saloon Mill Valley, CA

The Hay wagon was already building up speed when I walked in, straw and woodsy smoke flying everywhere. Tight, warm halogen harmonies and be-de-boop keyboards took us out of Hazard County and off towards the 3rd moon of an inviting astral body in the distance. Dano Kildsig hunkered down behind a KORG set-up, beer sweating next to it, guitar ready at his side, and ...

Sunburned Hand Of The Man: The Trickle Down Theory of Lord Knows What

by Dennis Cook
September 5, 2004

"Oh great sound in the sky, please reveal yourself." Thus begins another stone soul field trip from Massachusetts' Sunburned Hand Of The Man. This is a dish composed of partially digested scraps of Pharoah Sanders' post-Coltrane hippy jams, scream therapy, the barely controlled mayhem of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Grateful Dead's Aoxomoxoa. And a sprinkling of alchemist's five-spice for a faint taste of salt & cinnamon, flared nostril immediacy redolent with unforced exoticism.

After a ...

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey: Walking With Giants

by Dennis Cook
August 24, 2004

Walking With Giants Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey Hyena Records 2004

They are content to be where they are, talking or not talking.Their breaths together feed someone whom we do not know. Poet Robert Bly talks of a “third body" shared in common, an “other" that love and commitment bring into being. It's hard to imagine a more apt metaphor for the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. Three people, feeding something ...