Art’s biography is a depressing relentless catalogue of abuse – to himself, of himself and many others. His third wife Laurie – long the keeper of his flame – is reading it chapter by chapter on Bandcamp, bringing […]

Tell your son to ignore the bragging and bling and follow the good Reverend’s message – the only rap record I believe that recommends keeping your hair combed.

The Crusaders in the mid-70s were quite something – and here’s possibly Larry Carlton’s finest solo – a minute plus of sustained brilliance from around 1.30.

Used to play this at house parties way back when – […]

Couple of quiet ones from recent releases:

Crooner/guitarist’s lovely lockdown musings on Pat Metheny’s more hummable hits.

Just a beautiful piece of solo piano from the late Japanese jazz pianist.

A couple of years ago I sat next to a chap at a record fair in London. While the rest off us struggled loading up our stalls with hefty boxes of vinyl he turned up with a suitcase from which he produced a table […]

Fine 70s style soulful vocal arrangement on what I imagine might be called a “current chart smash.”

To be honest, hadn’t given them much of a listen – but did yesterday and liked what I heard, particularly this:

Seem to be quite a big deal in the US with multiple Grammy nominations – bet they’re great live.

As a longstanding “soul bore”, I think there’s still plenty of great music about. It’s not the quality and quantity of the 60s/70s of course but here’s some recent stuff that hopefully shows the genre is still muc […]

Couple of lesser known mid-80s Manc minor classics.

First up – A Certain Ratio spin-off and released on Factory – Kalima’s “Smiling Hour” – a decent version of the Sarah Vaughan Latin gem. Great video as well […]

Couple of Bs:

Dwight Yoakam/Buck Owens – Streets of Bakersfield
Frankie Sanders – Blues Time In Birmingham

I had my jab in the bizarre setting of an empty unit in a shopping centre in Cambridge. Naturally, all the shops – bar Boots – were closed but it was dispiriting wandering through the building to see so many […]

Brucie does Blood, Sweat and Tears – didn’t he do well?! etc. I own this record.

And this – Sammy’s ace version of “Shaft”.

Bit o’northern….

SEEN:

Couple of things on Netflix: “Pretend it’s a City” – New York “humourist” Fran Liebowitz in conversation with Martin Scorsese – acutely funny, smart observations on Big Apple life and beyond. “The […]

More jazz.

Bit late for Burns Night…but this sublime musical version of “My Love is Like a Red Red Rose” by the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra is very lovely. You can skip to 4.34 for the music – unless you […]

The vid pretty much chimes with my limited experience as a parish councillor. A neighbour asked me to join because they were short of numbers and you could be co-opted without an election. Thankfully, it was short […]

Tata Vega does a great disco version of this – but it’s been a while since David Cassidy put in an appearance here.

And some jazz – courtesy of Fergus McCreadie who has a new album out later this week. Very fine young player and if anything like his first album will have a distinct Scottish flavour to it.

Also – some scenery – […]

The best:

Pat Metheny – From This Place
Eddie Chacon – Pleasure, Joy and Happiness
Jimmy Heath – Love Letter
Elina Duni/Rob Luft – Lost Ships
Cory Wong and Jon Batiste – Meditations
Vox Clemantis – Cyrillu […]

Thank you – though I haven’t seen dear, dear Dickie and Hughie for many years now…

Always thought that someone else had used the Emil and the Detectives name but imagined it would be some fey jangly 80s Brit […]