Music
Roy Nathanson: THE GUY TO LOOK AT ON THE SUBWAY
By Kurt GottschalkOn a Sunday night in July, saxophonist Roy Nathanson was speaking from what might be called the stage—actually more like the corner—of the basement room at the Sycamore Club, a small, friendly bar near his home in the Midwood section of Brooklyn.
VALUE ADDED
By Brandon KreitlerThis spring Animal Collective released its latest offering, the three-LP Animal Crack Box. The collection of mostly early studio jams and odds ’n’ ends retails for a killer $92 a box—or I should say retailed for $92, since the thousand-unit limited-edition pressing sold out within the first day or two of availability.
MICHAEL DAVES: Renegade Traditionalist
By Spencer WoodmanAbout a year ago, people began sending me a David Letterman clip in which Steve Martin, who also plays banjo, performs a bluegrass tune alongside world-famous Béla Fleck and a guitarist named Michael Daves, who I had never heard of. Daves looked odd next to his sleekly dressed stage partners.
FARSI POETRY + CHAMBER JAZZ = CYMINOLOGY
By Alessandro CassinCyminology is an acoustic-jazz chamber ensemble whose first ECM recording, As Ney, has the hypnotic qualities of a dream. The disc takes us on a journey which has for its compass an ever-shifting definition of song.
THIS WAS POP
By George GrellaEvery generation claims that the pop music it heard when young was classic, and the stuff kids listen to nowadays is crap. Pure crankiness? Well, in the case of pop music of the last forty years, it may be true.
