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Article: Extended Analysis

The Pogues: The Very Best Of The Pogues

by Skip Heller
March 30, 2013

The hybrid of punk rock and world music is by now expected, and the Pogues are by now the known avatar. But in 1984, when the band's debut album, Red Roses For Me (Stiff), was released, it made no impression. It didn't sell, and it wasn't written about much. Their blend of Celtic folk and English ...

Article: Hardly Strictly Jazz

Reliving Elvis

by Skip Heller
March 27, 2013

No matter how much is written, or by whom, Elvis Presley remains impossible to explain. The usual “young white rocker who could sing black" is as inaccurate as any standing American mythology. His legacy has been as mangled as his career was, often to the detriment of the work itself. Yes, at the time of his ...

Article: Hardly Strictly Jazz

Carole Simpson Remembered

by Skip Heller
February 21, 2013

As news of Donald Byrd's passing was leaking out slowly, jazz educator Keith Pawlak sent me a note on Facebook asking if I had heard that pianist/vocalist Carole Simpson had passed away. Her name is barely known except to a few collectors who specialize in female singers of the Eisenhower era. She was during ...

Article: Hardly Strictly Jazz

Beyond The Blues

by Skip Heller
February 6, 2013

Back when I was a kid—I was born in 1965—the first comprehensive push for children's education about American Black History was on. Elementary school libraries suddenly included books about Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and George Washington Carver, and there were even a few books about jazz and blues for young readers.I wish I could ...

Article: Album Review

Gabriel Alegria Afro Peruvian Sextet: Ciudad De Los Reyes

Read "Ciudad De Los Reyes" reviewed by Skip Heller

by Skip Heller
January 28, 2013

Trumpeter Gabriel Alegria has all but issued a mission statement to establish and cultivate a Peruvian/jazz style. Unlike most styles of Latin music, like montuno-based Afro-Cuban and bossa nova, Peruvian music does not stem from the clave rhythm, but instead from 12/8 (or 6/8, depending on who is your resident self-proclaimed expert). In short, it's a ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Various Artists: Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard

by Skip Heller
January 26, 2013

There is always complaint that American contemporary musical life is at turns either too glitzy or overly-intellectualized. Either claim is overly simplistic, neither completely wrong. And in no area is it more true than country music. On one hand, there is the proud stupidity of Toby Keith and Gretchen Wilson. On the other, the self-consciously literate ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Jazz on Film: Beat, Square & Cool

by Skip Heller
January 24, 2013

Again presenting eight film scores spread across five discs, packaged in a gorgeous box and enclosed with a beautifully illustrated and comprehensively notated booklet, the Moochin' About staff (who are also the force behind the excellent British magazine Jazzwise) have returned with their second installment of noir and near-noir jazz movie music. As with their previous ...

Album