Mike Stevens is Still Burning
I dropped by Mike Stevens’s website today, and heard a cut from his new duet album with Matt Andersen, “Piggyback.” The cut is called “Devil’s Bride,” and to say that Stevens burns a hole through the CD on this cut is putting it mildly. He’s…
Video of the day 9 February 2012: Climb Jacob’s Ladder, “Everything and Nothing”
Video of the day 1 February 2012: Brendan Power “Jasmine Flower” live in Shanghai
Video of the Day 7 January 2012: Maria Joao Mendes with Wim Dijkgraaf
Wim Dijkgraaf is the Dutch-born jazz chromatic harmonica virtuoso behind the Effortless Harmonica Blog. He’s also a key member of Portuguese jazz singer Mario Joao Mendes’s topnotch Brazilian jazz band. This video is a promo for Mendes’s new CD; Wim’s harmonica kicks in at about…
Video of the Day 31 Dec 2011: Climb Jacob’s Ladder, “Do the Funky White Boy”
This isn’t the first time I’ve featured a video from Climb Jacob’s Ladder, Paul Messinger’s killer band from North Carolina. This tune has a humorous lyric, but there’s nothing whimsical about the harp. Messinger uses at least three different sounds on this piece: he starts…
Video of the Day 8 December 2011: Climb Jacob’s Ladder
Climb Jacob’s Ladder is a North Carolina band that does a hot mix of rock, reggae, and world music. Harp player Paul Messinger is up front and center, and he sounds killer with this crew on both acoustic and electric harp. You can hear his…
Videos of the Day 3 December 2011: Huey Lewis and the News
I loved Huey Lewis and the News for their hard-rockin’ precision and their joy. Huey’s a great front man and solid harp player, and Johnny Cola knocks me out with this band each and every time he puts the sax to his lips–his ideas and…
Video of the Day 25 Novermber 2011: PT Gazell and Shine
This is a recent performance by PT Gazell with Shine in Barcelona. PT starts by playing the melody in his easygoing style, then ramps up the heat as he goes along. PT’s smoothly swinging approach to jazz on the diatonic harp is unlike anyone else’s,…
Video of the Day 6 November 2011: Larry Adler and Oleta Adams, “Embraceable You”
Larry Adler had a strong affinity for George Gershwin’s music–they were young virtuosos in the same time and place, New York in the 1930s, making big waves in the world, and quintessentially American in their music and their bouyant, self-confident optimism. This piece was recorded…
Waka Waka Waka Waka: Sunset Sam
“Cruisin’ (Sunset Sam)” was written by Michael Nesmith of the Monkees, who also wrote “Mary Mary,” which Paul Butterfield covered on his amazing record “East/West” in the late 1960s. The piece has a head-bobbing groove that I’ve loved since I first saw the video in…
