Home » Jazz Articles » Skerik
Jazz Articles about Skerik
Skerik: Husky
by Graham L. Flanagan
Harry J. Anslinger, the United States' original Drug Czar, invented an unusual term to sum up what he considered as the moral decay caused by the collision of the jazz and drug cultures in the 1930s and 1940s: “syncopated taint."
Popular tenor sax phenom Skerik--fresh off of a 2005 tour with Mike Clark's Headhunters--adopted the name for his septet, whose new album Husky further cements the leader's reputation as one of the heavy hitters of the post bop/trip-hop ...
Continue ReadingWayne Horvitz/Tucker Martine: Mylab
by Mark Corroto
For Wayne Horvitz and Tucker Martine, the pair known as Mylab, the saying “everything old is new again” should be restated as “Everything New is Old again!”
This studio experiment by the duo (with 17 of their closest friends) samples and loops folk recordings from the turn of the century to create song structures, then replaces those samples with guest musicians. They mash (part Zony) funk, blues, trip-hop, soul, folk, and African music into a roots music played ...
Continue ReadingSkerik: Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet
by Mark Corroto
Is there such a phenomenon as the 'Seattle sound?' Not the Puget Sound, as in water, I mean a distinct regional musical flavor. All those 1980s flannel shirt proto-punk bands thought so. Maybe when it comes to jazz, the Seattle sound is more about an attitude, and maybe irreverence.
Enter saxophonist Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet. Commissioner Harry Anslinger, the head of the 1930 through 1960 version of the DEA, described jazz as a 'syncopated taint' or a moral ...
Continue ReadingSkerik: Syncopated Taint Septet
by AAJ Staff
Lots of people talk about dirty funk, but few of them know. Usually they mean the New Orleans variety, swamp funk that leaves silty mud between your toes. Sometimes the Philadelphia kind, all sweat, grease, and dust. But Seattle funk is a different thing entirely--it's all about throwing clods of rooty sod around, playing catch with earthen pieces of the rainforest.
Seattle saxophonist Skerik (no second name) chose a five horn front line for his Syncopated Taint Septet, ...
Continue Reading
