Jazz Articles about Mike Blankenship

About Mike Blankenship

Album Review

Throttle Elevator Music: Final Floor

Read "Final Floor" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
June 30, 2021

Final Floor marks the last stop of a band that one might say never really was. Throttle Elevator Music was the name given to a jazz-punk studio cooperative project organized and operating from 2011 through 2017 around saxophonist Kamasi Washington, drummer Mike Hughes (aka “Lumpy") and composer and guitarist Gregory Howe. Howe also founded and serves as producer and engineer for Wide Hive Records, the label that recorded and distributed their music. He notes on the back jacket ...

Album Review

Throttle Elevator Music: Emergency Exit

Read "Emergency Exit" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
July 1, 2020

The sub-genre of “punk jazz" has existed—on paper— since the 1970s when Patti Smith proposed a collaboration with Ornette Coleman. That partnership did not materialize. When all the moving pieces are pulled together there is little substance to suggest that the category ever shared specific practices or conventions. Then, in 2012, Throttle Elevator Music emerged with their self-titled debut (Wide Hive Records). The original group was a trio posing as a quintet. Drums and guitars were manned by Mike “Lumpy" ...