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King Crimson: Live in Newcastle, December 8, 1972
"Never say never," or so the old adage goes. When it comes to music, there are two more that should be added: “farewell tour" and, most certainly as it relates to King Crimson's Live in Newcastle, December 8, 1972, “the complete recordings." This, the 48th in the veteran group's King Crimson Collector's Club series of archival releases, turns out not just to be an unexpected addition to the group's Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Panegyric), but belies that fifteen-disc, 2012 40th ...
read moreKing Crimson: Meltdown (Live in Mexico City)
Something happened to King Crimson between June 28, 2017 in Chicago, IL and the band's five-night run from July 14 to 19 (with a night off on the 17th), that same year, in Mexico City. Both engagements were exceptional, with the Chicago performance captured on Official Bootleg: Live In Chicago, June 28th, 2017 (DGM Live, 2017), and now, with Meltdown (Live in Mexico City) serving as an audio and video document of the best performances from those five Mexican nights ...
read moreKing Crimson: Live In Vienna, December 1st, 2016 (UK Edition)
Another year, another live King Crimson set? True, perhaps. But since reforming in a slightly shifting but conceptually constant form in 2013 to begin touring in the fall of the following year, the band's forward-looking, ever-growing repertoire of new music and revisitation of old music (from across its nearly half century career) made new again has been documented solely through live recordings. It's entirely appropriate, in fact, given the band's only remaining co-founder, guitarist/keyboardist Robert Fripp's longtime assertion that Crimson's ...
read moreKing Crimson: Sailors' Tales 1970-1972
If it's a fundamental truth that adversity can sometimes bring the absolute best, creatively speaking, out of music and the people who make it, then the roughly 23 months following the release of King Crimson's classic 1969 debut, In the Court of the Crimson King (Island)--and, after a single North American tour, the breakup of its first lineup--could always be argued as producing some of the group's very best. This, despite a revolving-door lineup and, even, significant doubts and frustration ...
read moreKing Crimson at Lisner Auditorium
King Crimson Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University Washington DC October 28, 2017 The original King Crimson burst like a supernova upon the 1969 music universe, with talents from Jimi Hendrix to Pete Townshend extolling its virtues. The quickly departing band members ultimately would become integral parts of groups from ELP to Foreigner, Camel, and the Alan Parsons Project, as Robert Fripp's vision and acerbic personality became overbearing. As such, the continually ...
read moreKing Crimson: Official Bootleg: Live in Chicago, June 28th, 2017
As many King Crimson fans eagerly await the November release of its latest 40th Anniversary Series box set--this time spanning the years 1970 through 1972, when saxophonist/flautist Mel Collins was a constant alongside band co-founder/guitarist Robert Fripp for three studio albums (1970's In the Wake of Poseidon and Lizard, and 1971's Islands) and one live album (1972's Earthbound)--along comes Official Bootleg: Live in Chicago, June 28th, 2017, another “warts and all" live soundboard recording along the lines of Live In ...
read moreKing Crimson at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier / Massey Hall
Part 1 | Part 2 An Evening with King Crimson Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier / Massey Hall Le Festival International de Jazz de Montréal / Non-Festival Event Montréal, Canada / Toronto, Canada July 3, 2017 / July 5, 2017 Having covered the reunited, refreshed and reinvigorated “seven-headed Beast of Crim" for two nights each in San Francisco in 2014 and, again, in Montréal in 2015, was there really a good reason to see ...
read moreOn (and Off) The Road
Sometimes the best music--and some of the best bands--are those that come from the most difficult of births. When King Crimson co-founder/guitarist Robert Fripp had the idea for a new band after dissolving the last incarnation of the '70s-era Crimson lineups seven years prior, it was a completely new concept and, with the exception of returning drummer Bill Bruford, a totally revised lineup. Gone were the mellotrons and symphonic leanings of old. In their place: technological advancements including ...
read moreRadical Action (To Unseat The Hold of Monkey Mind)
Plenty has already been written about King Crimson's surprise reemergence in 2014 at All About Jazz, beginning when the now 47 year-old progressive/art rock band commenced its first tour since 2008 (and its first extensive one since 2003) with a new, expanded lineup featuring a front-line of three drummers and a back-line of two guitarists (one, also, a vocalist), a bassist/stick player and a reed/woodwind multi-instrumentalist. From reviews of two nights at San Francisco's Warfield Theater in the fall of ...
read moreLive in Toronto: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, November 20, 2015
"The best live albums are the ones that make you glad they were recorded while simultaneously regretting you couldn't have been in the venue on the night." So writes Declan Colgan, president of Panegyric Records--the label responsible for, amongst other things, King Crimson's extensive 40th Anniversary reissue series of its initial run of studio and live albums, remixed by Steven Wilson or Jakko M. Jakszyk--in his liner notes to Live in Toronto: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, November 20, 2015, the full-concert ...
read moreKing Crimson at Theatre St-Denis
King Crimson Théâtre St-Denis Montréal, Canada November 16-17, 2015 When King Crimson's only original member and co-founder, guitarist Robert Fripp, announced unexpectedly that the band was coming out of retirement in 2013, other than the unconventional lineup nobody had any idea what to expect other than the brief snippets being released at the band's DGM Live site, which suggested that this “seven-headed Beast of Crim," in addition to new material, would be revisiting songs not ...
read moreTHRAK BOX - Live and Studio Recordings 1994-1997
After three years spent extensively focusing on its 1972-'74 lineup--documented over a massive 66 CDs, DVDs and Blu Rays (plus some additional downloads) on Larks' Tongues in Aspic (40th Anniversary Series Box) (Panegyric, 2012); The Road to Red (Panegyric, 2013); and Starless (Panegyric, 2014)--King Crimson turns the clock ahead 20 years to an almost completely different lineup, a radically different sound and a far more unwieldy six-piece incarnation dubbed “the double trio" on THRAK BOX: King Crimson Live and Studio ...
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Jazz Story
By Connie Lansberg
Member since: 2010
As a songwriter and vocalist, I love jazz for the experience of being in the center of intense creativity. It is the most potent form of music for keeping the artist and the audience in the 'now”
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