By Anna Webber For a young jazz musician, it’s not enough to be really good; you have to find a way to get people to notice that you’re really good. One time-honored method is to join a band led by an older musician who’s already well known. Baltimore pianist Lafayette Gilchrist has done that...
Read more »

Jerry Leiber Jerry Leiber, who was born and raised in Baltimore before becoming one of the greatest lyricists in rock ‘n ‘roll history, died of cardio-pulmonary failure in Los Angeles Monday. He was 78. Leiber’s lyrics, almost always set to music by his longtime partner Mike Stoller, were recorded by Elvis Presley, the Beatles,...
Read more »

Charlie Chaplin Eats Shoe I’ve seen Charlie Chaplin’s 1924 silent film The Gold Rush more than a dozen times, and I never get tired of it, for it is one of the half-dozen greatest motion pictures ever made. And yet, except for the first time I saw it in a college classroom, it never...
Read more »

Nels Cline, by Karen Cline It was quite a weekend for jazz in Baltimore. Friday night began with a concert by Baltimore pianist Lafayette Gilchrist, New York bassist William Parker, and Baltimore reed player John Dierker at the University of Baltimore. Later that same night, New York’s Matthew Shipp Trio held forth at An...
Read more »

Lafayette Gilchrist In 2007, pianist Lafayette Gilchrist reduced his Baltimore septet, the New Volcanoes, to a trio to release the Hyena Records album Lafayette Gilchrist 3. It was, he admitted, partially an attempt to create a more affordable touring vehicle, but it was also an opportunity to test himself in a format where the...
Read more »

The SteelDrivers Many in the full house at Rams Head Tavern arrived at the Annapolis club with the same question in mind: Could the SteelDrivers possibly be as good as before without their original lead singer? After all, Chris Stapleton’s grizzly-bear growl had been the most noticeable element on the bluegrass quintet’s live album,...
Read more »

Gerald Cleaver by Patricia Lay-Dorsey The Bill and Helen Murray Jazz Residency has proven itself a major addition to the Maryland jazz community. Twice a year the program brings in an established jazz musician—not a star necessarily, but someone who has earned the respect of critics and other musicians—for a week-long residency at Towson...
Read more »

By the time Trampled by Turtles played “Wait So Long,” the first song on its breakthrough album Palomino, and the final song of its set Saturday night, the wooden floorboards of the 8×10 were reverberating from the stomping, clogging, pogo-dancing sold-out crowd. And the youthful quintet from Duluth, Minn., had sparked this reaction with...
Read more »

Savoy Family Band When Wilson Savoy plays with his regular band, the Pine Leaf Boys, he usually plays a single-row button accordion, the bleating instrument that’s the bedrock of the Cajun dancehall sound. But when Wilson plays with his parents and brother as the Savoy Family Band, that’s not an option, because the quartet...
Read more »

Kingsley Flood Kingsley Flood, an impressive young Americana band from Boston, recently released its first album, Dust Windows, and on Friday played its first-ever Baltimore show at the Golden West Café. The show wasn’t as successful as the record, but the record is very good indeed. At the center of the CD is Naseem...
Read more »

As she often does when she’s introducing new music to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s audience, Marin Alsop turned around on the podium Saturday night and talked a bit about John Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony. In her black-satin suit with the magenta cuffs, she explained how the piece was based on the invention of the...
Read more »

The Gaslight Anthem Before his manager intervened, Bruce Springsteen originally meant to give his song “Hungry Heart” to the Ramones, and listeners ever since have wondered what that not-to-be-denied pop hit might have sounded like if the Ramones recorded it. Perhaps Gaslight Anthem exists merely to answer that question. When Gaslight Anthem took the...
Read more »

Cedric Watson There’s a reason Cedric Watson calls his band Bijou Creole: He wants to free zydeco music from its current straitjacket that permits nothing but a 2/4 stomp by returning to an earlier version of South Louisiana black music known as Creole (or “la la” or “zodico”). The Houston native and Lafayette resident...
Read more »

LCD Soundsystem, rocking out LCD Soundsystem deserved its headlining slot at the Virgin Mobile Free Fest Saturday, for it’s one of the most exciting rock’n'roll bands in the world right now. I know, I know: some would dispute that it’s really rock’n'roll and even more would dispute that it’s even a band. After all,...
Read more »

Ralph Alessi Ralph Alessi is an avant-gardist who’s not afraid of beauty. As the jazz trumpeter led his This Against That quintet at Towson University Thursday, he was willing to go anywhere the music led him, including the one area jazz radicals often shy away from: passages of gorgeous harmony. Alessi, a tall, slender...
Read more »

“Oh, yeah, I remember this place,” Debbie Harry told the Pier Six audience Sunday night. “Right over there on the waterfront is where we had the wrap party for that film I made with John Waters and Divine. I got the worst mosquito bites of my life.” It was a night for memories as...
Read more »

After his quintet had finished an exhilarating version of Chick Corea’s “Humpty Dumpty” at An Die Musik Friday night, saxophonist Tim Green explained how each of his bandmates had come to join him on stage. He and vibraphonist Warren Wolf, he noted, had been friends since they were kids growing up in Baltimore; Wolf...
Read more »

Courtesy jacksonbrown.com Jackson Browne reached the peak of his artistic powers on Aug. 27, 1977, in Columbia, Maryland. The previous fall he had released his last great studio album, The Pretender, and now he was bringing the songs from his first four albums and most of the musicians who had played on them to...
Read more »

Lyle Lovett While it is true that almost all American music has roots in the blues, it doesn’t follow that every American musician is a blues act. So it was more than a little strange that the headliner for this year’s Hot August Blues festival at Oregon Ridge Park was Lyle Lovett and his...
Read more »

Brave Combo Carl Finch led Brave Combo through the classic, swinging beginning of the jazz standard “Body and Soul” at Blob’s Park on Saturday night. The Texas band’s grizzled eminence in a pork pie hat then stopped abruptly and said, “That’s a cool tune, right? You’re probably asking how could anyone, even Brave Combo,...
Read more »