May 2013
4 posts
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 50
I’m a bit of a #jazz grump this week. So many grumbles, which one to start with?
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 3.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0.
Ooh, pretty - 1
Oh, pretty poor - 0
Floating around in the middle ground - 2.
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 49
The Album Of The Week harks back almost 100 years. Just sayin’…
Album reviews submitted – 1.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 2.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0.
Red Hot - 1
Red flag - 1
Floating around in the middle ground - 0.
4 tags
Led Bib Goes Kickstarting
Crowdfunding seems to be quite the new thing these days. Led Bib is the latest combo to use Kickstarter to attract album funding and the band seems worthy of support. The guys are offering some quite intriguing rewards too. Check out the band’s Kickstarter page.
5 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 48
The human voice is dead good at singing words. So why waste time going all flutey or soprano saxy? Seriously, why? Just buy an instrument people.
Album reviews submitted – 3.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 10.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0. There’s always next week…
Groovy Baby - 7
Burpy baby - 1
Floating around in the...
April 2013
4 posts
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 47
360gms of celebration…
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 5.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 1 -and it’s a DOUBLE ALBUM!!!
Positively charged - 2
Negatively charged - 1
Floating around in the middle ground - 3.
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 46
Not the finest #jazz week of the year so far. Hey ho.
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 10 .
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Hey Yeh! - 3
Hey No! - 4
Floating around in the middle ground - 3.
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 45
The Middle Ground is a lonely place for #jazz these days.
Album reviews submitted – 0. Inertia, that’s why.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 2.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Rather groovy - 1
Rather not - 1
Floating around in the middle ground - 0.
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 44
“You must believe in Spring” or so the song says. It won’t make it any warmer though. Thermal undergarments remain key to personal comfort.
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 4.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Chilled - 3
Bloody freezin’ - 1
Floating around in the middle ground - 0.
March 2013
6 posts
6 tags
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 43
Dear #jazz lawyer. If I get on up when I should have been getting down and jiggy, resulting in a minor back injury, can I make a claim?
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 3.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0
I Feel Good - 3
My sex machne has failed - 0
Floating around in the middle ground - 0.
5 tags
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 42
Seriously folks, it’s only jazz. Sometimes, it’s barely #jazz. Occasionally it clearly isn’t either…
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 8.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Faith and Hope - 3
Faith No More - 3
Floating around in the middle ground - 2.
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 41
It’s been a busy week for Pope selectors, but not, seemingly, for #jazz album marketing executives.
Album reviews submitted – 3.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 2.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Quality, not width - 2
Width, not quality - 0
Floating around in the middle ground - 0.
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 40
The Voices Let Me Down Again - I think my entire socio-cultural #jazz paradigm is slipping out of alignment. Bah!. On the other hand, accordions have been in good supply…
Album reviews submitted – 1.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 7.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 1. Yahoo!
Cool Cats - 3
hotdogs - 1
Floating around in the middle ground -...
February 2013
5 posts
5 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 39
Went to see #Lincoln this week. What a con - no sign of the Cathedral and no mention of the Imp. Lots of American accents too… Still, there’s always #jazz
Album reviews submitted – 3.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 6.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0.
Daniel Day Lewis - 5
Jerry Lewis - 1
Floating around in the middle ground...
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 38
Scotland’s claim to be the world’s centre of #jazz continues to gather pace this week - thanks, it must be said, to a far-from-Scottish jazz giant. And, of course, Alex Salmond has never made such a claim, really, ever, so it probably won’t be part of the 2014 referendum. It would be great if it was though…
Album reviews submitted – 3. 1 in 1 out again.
Stacked Up In A...
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 37
They say the CD is dead - the bodies seem to be getting buried in my letter box…
Album reviews submitted – 4. Rather like pulling teeth this week, for whatever reason.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 10.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0.
Good bodies - 4
Bad bodies - 0
Floating around in the middle ground - 6.
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 36
No downloads this week - the Interweb could just be doomed to failure as a means of mass communication.
Album reviews submitted – 1.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 7.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0.
Albums on Vinyl – 0.
So good - 4
So not so good - 2
Floating around in the middle ground - 1.
4 tags
A reviewer's Life - Week 35
A veritable flood of downloads this week - the Interweb could just be the international communication system of the future.
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 6.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 8.
Albums on Vinyl – 0.
Worth It - 7
Harry Worth - 1
Floating around in the middle ground - 6.
January 2013
6 posts
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 34
“Thank Goodness for the Human Voice” I wrote. Hah! how wrong. “You can rely on the Human Voice. It never lets you down” I opined. Hah! Sometimes the human voice can turn round and bite you in the bum.
Album reviews submitted – 4.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 6.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 2. I realise that I have tended to ignore such...
7 tags
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 33
Thank Goodness for the Human Voice. You can rely on the Human Voice. It never lets you down.
Album reviews submitted – 1.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 3.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Singing In The Snow - 3
Bah Humbug! - 0
Floating around in the middle ground - 0.
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 32
Bit of a disappointment this week. Ho Hum. And too many jazzers seem to think that repeating the same musical ‘joke’ over and over again makes it even funnier. It don’t.
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 6.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Thank Goodness - 1
Goodness has nothing to do with it - 3
...
Jazz article: “Bruce Lindsay's Best Releases of... →
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Weeks 30-31
Can we all get back to normal now please?
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 3.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Just the thing to get started with a swing - 1
I Can’t Get Started - 0
Floating around in the middle ground - 2.
December 2012
12 posts
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 29
Jingle bells, jingle bells, etc, etc, etc….
Album reviews submitted – 3.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 7.
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Christmas cheer - 2
Christmas dreer - 0
Floating around in the middle ground - 5.
5 tags
The Gilded Butterfly #Jazz Awards
6. The Giant Steps 37.6 Minutes Award for the Perfect Album Running Time goes to …….
37.6 minutes.
Weirdly, albums less than 40 minutes long get referred to these days as ‘mini-albums’. Why? In the Good Old Days albums over 45 minutes in length were DOUBLES! And often a waste of space. Who listens to that much music in one go? Not me: poached eggs don’t poach...
4 tags
The Gilded Butterfly #Jazz Awards
5. The Instrument Of The Year Award goes to…………………..The Human Voice
The Voting Panel loves the Human Voice. ‘The best of all possible voices’. The human voice is great for singing, especially lyrics. It could almost have been made for singing words. The Human Voice - a magnificent and well-deserved winner. Except, of course, when it scats....
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 28
2012 is still hanging about, but the 2013 New Releases are already droping on the reviewer’s doormat.
Album reviews submitted – 2.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 12. One for each Day Of Christmas, mayhap?
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Brighten your life - 2
Blight on your life - 1
Floating around in the middle ground - 9. The middle...
6 tags
4 tags
The Gilded Butterfly #Jazz Awards
4. The Emperor Nero Award For Fiddling While Rome Burns goes to…
Everyone who’s spent any time at all in 2012 blathering on about how jazz is a) dead; b) dying c) looking a bit poorly d) not really jazz at all e) most appropriately referred to by another name which tells us even less about its musical content and renders it even less commercially viable than it actually is [see a), b)...
4 tags
The Gilded Butterfly #Jazz Awards
3. The MAMMI - Most Amusingly Mispronounced Musical Instrument. There can only be one winner - The Saxumaphone.
5 tags
The Gilded Butterfly #Jazz Awards
2. The ‘We Accept You’ Tod Browning Memorial Award for New Jazz Standard goes to Tom Waits’ gorgeous “Take It With Me.”
The Voting Panel have heard enough interpretations of this song from within the jazz vocalist community to feel that it warants becoming the only actual, real,thingto win a 2012 Gilded Butterfly Award. If there was a real, actual Gilded Butterfly...
4 tags
The Gilded Butterfly #Jazz Awards
1. Band Or Ensemble Of The Year. And the winner is… The ‘jazz band and fiddles type of group”.
OK - the Voting Panel didn’t really know what to call this particular type of ensemble, but it seems that the combination of a few jazz players and a bunch of proper musicians with violins and cellos has become quite the thing in 2012. Not just rather trendy and cool, but...
Voll-Damm Festival Internacional de Jazz de... →
My first ever interview by the Catalan press - El Punt Avui to be precise.
6 tags
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 27
The reviewer has returned.
The Christmas Spirit has arrived. Mostly Ho Ho Ho, but the occasional Bah, Humbug! seems prudent.
Album reviews submitted – 1. It takes time to get the wheels back in gear…
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 8
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Seasonal Good Cheer - 5
Seasonal Good Grief! - 1
Floating around in the...
November 2012
10 posts
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 26
The reviewer is in Barcelona, doing live gig stuff, so has no idea how many electronic thingies, bits of vinyl or CDs have appeared in his mailbox. Such joys await his return…
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 25
Oh, I dunno. #Jazz, innit.
Album reviews submitted – 3.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 1
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
It’s alright, this - 1
Leave it aaaaart - 0
Floating around in the middle ground - 0
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 24
So, Rhett. Is it JAZZ? Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a Damn. Wise words, I feel…
Album reviews submitted – 1. That’s better.
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 4
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Up wth the lark - 0
Gone with the wind - 0
Floating around in the middle ground - 4
7 tags
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 23
Oh, I am not a fan of the Christmas Album. But this week I am changing my mind.
Album reviews submitted – 5. FIVE! Did I REALLY do 5 reviews this week?
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 3
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Things I Like - 1 - Bah, Humbug…
Things I Didn’t - 1
Floating around in the middle ground - 1
9 tags
Gilded Butterfly #Jazz Awards
Biased, subjective, ill-informed and ultimately pointless. More importantly - they’re Soon To Be Announced. How exciting…
5 tags
The Gilded Butterfly #Jazz Awards
6. The Giant Steps 37.6 Minutes Award. It’s the final category in this year’s awards, folks. Winners announced soon.
6 tags
4 tags
A Reviewer's Life - Week 22
Two re-releases this week, plus a jazz trio playing lots of fairly contemporary rock a boogie tunes. All very jolly and life-affirming. Hurrah!
Album reviews submitted – 2
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 3
Electronically downloaded thingies – 0
Albums on Vinyl – 0
Things I Like - 3 - a 100% success rate!
Things I Didn’t - 0
Floating around in the middle ground -...
October 2012
14 posts
4 tags
A Reviewer’s Life - Week 21
Twenty-one today, Twenty-one today. I’ve got the key of the door, never been 21 before. Ahh. If only they wrote them like that these days. Young whippersnappers faffing about with time signatures and electricality - what’s wrong with a decent tune and a witty lyric? Eh? Eh?
Album reviews submitted – 4. FOUR!
Stacked Up In A Pile:
CDs through the letter box – 3
Electronically...
5 tags
5 tags
The Gilded Butterfly #Jazz Awards
Category #5 - Instrument Of The Year. Could it be the Bass Clarinet, the Marimba, the Stylophone? Only the Voting Panel knows for sure…
