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Speaking in tongues with Andrew Bird

by Leo Sidran
Andrew Bird has been searching for meaning in sound since he was a young boy growing up outside of Chicago, learning to play violin. He got a degree in violin performance from Northwestern University in 1996, and although his college training set him up for a career in music, it also disoriented him. He was at home playing classical and folk music, he loved rock & roll, and listening to jazz piano trio recordings from the 50s. Specifically ...
Continue ReadingTed Poor: You Already Know

by Chris May
Breaking news 3/23/20: Impulse! is getting its mojo back. Showing definite signs of, anyway... Since its glory days in the 1960s and 1970s, Impulse! has been little more than a logo wheeled out by its parent company, Universal Music, to lend credibility to unrelated one-off projects. Until very recently, the only newly recorded release worthy of Impulse!'s imprimatur was Alice Coltrane's swansong, Translinear Light, in 2004. Fast forward to 2018: A new dawn for ...
Continue ReadingTodd Sickafoose: Tiny Resistors

by Sean Patrick Fitzell
With lush orchestrations of finely honed compositions, bassist Todd Sickafoose's Tiny Resistors reveals a broad musical vision. A stalwart of the new music scene, playing improv and indie-rock projects and blurring those distinctions, Sickafoose's third CD highlights his maturation as a composer and talents as a multi-instrumentalist, with pieces incorporating a swath of stylistic influences--rock, Americana, jazz, blues and touches of modern classical. Sickafoose works a sweeping aural range, with instrumentation that includes two guitars, drums and ...
Continue ReadingTodd Sickafoose: Tiny Resistors

by John Kelman
An active sideman, bassist Todd Sickafoose is best-known for his work with DIY singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco. But he's also been very busy on the outer edges of jazz, working with artists including John Zorn on Voices in the Wilderness (Tzadik, 2003), Tin Hat Trio on The Rodeo Eroded (Ropeadope, 2002), and Scott Amendola Band on the drummer's very fine Cry (Cryptogramophone, 2003). It may be Amendola's disc that hooked Sickafoose up with Cryptogramophone for Tiny Resistors, his third record as ...
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