Saxophonist Roy Nathanson, co-founder of the Jazz Passengers, is frequently described as quirky–and he’s earned the term the old-fashioned way. According to Nathanson’s partner, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, “You look up `quirky’ in the dictionary, and Roy’s picture is next to it.” As judged by the music they make together, Fowlkes…
Wallace Roney, Saturday, August 12, at the Bluebird Theater, came to the public’s attention in 1981. Then a 21-year-old Berklee student with no trumpet of his own, he auditioned for Wynton Marsalis’s old seat in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, armed with little more than ambition and talent. But that was…
The songs played by Kandombe, a Boulder-based percussion ensemble, represent musical freedom in its truest sense. The performers believe their music cannot be contained or categorized, because the sounds they make are not modeled after various styles or genres. Rather, they derive from the basic rhythms of life. “We put…
Charlie Haden, Thursday, August 3, at the Denver Botanic Gardens, has quietly had one of the most distinguished careers in the short history of jazz. As a key part of Ornette Coleman’s most famous combo, he contributed the sonorous bass lines that held together The Shape of Jazz to Come,…
The music that makes up John Coltrane: Heavyweight Champion–The Complete Atlantic Recordings, a six-CD boxed set due for release in mid-August on the Rhino imprint, was cut over the course of a relatively brief period of time. Coltrane, fresh from several years spent as a member of bands led by…
In Craig Wedren’s world, people really listen–not only for noises but for the spaces that separate the sounds. “Silence is the ultimate dynamic,” says the singer of Shudder to Think. “It’s polar to what most bands do, but it can be a beautiful reminder. There’s so much to listen to…
You might expect a female performer with a hit single entitled “I Kissed a Girl” to be an ardent advocate of the lesbian lifestyle. But singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, who co-wrote the tune with collaborator Robin Eaton, hasn’t used the song’s success (it’s spent nearly three months on the Billboard Hot…
J. Ryan, leader of Six Finger Satellite, from Providence, Rhode Island, has a message for Westword readers. “When we were in Denver, I saw a lot of people in fuchsia-colored Jaguars with hippie crap all over them,” he grumbles. “I’d like to tell them to get their heads out of…
Although ska may be an exceedingly vibrant and energetic force, it’s not a new one. In fact, the roots of the music are practically the same age as Tommy McCook, the fiftysomething leader of the Skatalites, one of Jamaica’s earliest ska bands. But while McCook isn’t personally in great shape…
Everclear’s Art Alexakis doesn’t buy into the tortured-rock-star syndrome. “A lot of bands are kind of whiny, if you ask me,” says the vocalist/guitarist. “If you’re playing guitar and getting paid for it, that’s a pretty good job, I think. I’ve worked plenty of jobs, and I know a good…
“That movie The Mambo Kings? That was a lot of Hollywood bull,” says Andy Gonzales, bassist and musical director for Latin music purveyors Manny Oquendo & Libre. “And I didn’t like the book, either. Maybe for the poetry committee it was all right. But I thought it was full of…
Foetus, Wednesday, July 26, at the Mercury Cafe, makes music far more dangerous than your parents could imagine: It’s morbid, electric, ungodly. Jim Foetus has been pumping out material of this description since 1980, and his dense collections of loud, aggressive, methodical songs have influenced such modern-day pseudo-industrialists as Nine…
Denver-based guitarist Janet Feder didn’t expect to be featured in the July issue of Guitar Player. After all, the publication is devoted to electrified music–and Feder performs her classically based material on an acoustic instrument. “I couldn’t believe it,” Feder says about the item. “I was stunned, truly stunned, because…
Soul Asylum Let Your Dim Light Shine (Columbia) Back in the days when Say What You Will… and Made to Be Broken (from 1984 and 1986, respectively) were new, a lot of us had high hopes for this band: Its loud, fast numbers weren’t all that distinctive, but they were…
Kansas senator Bob Dole’s recent attack on popular culture has garnered largely favorable responses despite his blatantly political motivations (the man would give his good arm to be President) and numerous proclamations that were utterly nonsensical (if Dole thinks the bloody Arnold Schwarzenegger flick True Lies is “family friendly,” as…
Boulder-based singer-songwriter Dave Gershen isn’t shy about making grandiloquent statements. For instance, he says, “A couple of years ago, I had a spiritual awakening. I realized that it was time–that I was sitting on a gift that was too strong, too much a part of me, not to be sharing…
With KTCL, the Peak and what’s left of KBCO all attempting to bend the ears of listeners who went to college during the early Eighties (and apparently lost their taste for musical adventure immediately thereafter), Denver’s airwaves hang heavy with the work of artists who came to prominence when Ronald…
Truman’s Water Milktrain to Paydirt (Homestead) You can’t describe Truman’s Water as just another punk band–not when the closest thing to an influence you can scratch out of cuts like “Unitraction Bath” is Captain Beefheart. Most of these songs include a modicum of structure (even the ones that dissolve into…
“I think people will enjoy our music most when they’re on their third beer,” says Matt Squires, bassist for Denver’s dream popsters Gray Parade. “When they’re just kind of settling down and getting comfortable.” “Yeah,” adds guitarist Joel Richardson, “when the couch starts to swallow them up and they don’t…
Johnny Rzeznik, vocalist/guitarist for the Goo Goo Dolls, describes his reaction to A Boy Named Goo, his group’s latest excursion into power pop, with characteristic candor. “I like it more than I thought I would,” he says. “I always hate everything I do. After a while, I listen to it…
Even if multi-instrumentalist John Hartford found a cure for cancer, the discovery would probably be overshadowed by what the public sees as an even greater achievement–his writing of “Gentle on My Mind,” a hit for Glen Campbell in 1968. But it’s been almost thirty years since Hartford, looking soulful and…
The image that’s long defined Peter Murphy simply does not exist anymore–if it ever did. The former frontman for England’s Bauhaus (the standard-bearer for the early Eighties gothic movement), Murphy has a reputation as a pretentious vampire wannabe preying on legions of ever-younger enthusiasts, but his activities of late belie…
