photo from philadelphiaweekly.com by S. Victor Aaron One of Frank Zappa‘s latter day live documents is called Make A Jazz Noise Here. Anyone who’s followed Zappa knows that while Zappa rarely really played jazz as we tend to think of jazz, a lot of his music adopted the exacting, open-ended construction of jazz, especially avant-garde jazz. When you peel away [...]

by S. Victor Aaron It’s not a unique story when it’s about a 70s progressive rock that went through rapid lineup changes and ultimately broke apart after “artistic differences.” That’s essentially the narrative of the short-lived supergroup UK, which existed roughly from 1977 to 1980. It’s also not all that surprising that somehow in a group of uber talented musicians [...]

Spend enough time around rock music — or, at least, rock critics — and you’ll be convinced that any number of Seminal Works, Forgotten Gems and Timeless Standards are must-have items for your record collection. Even if they turn out to be, you know, retreads dressed up as brilliant pop redux (Gene Clark’s post-Byrds catalogue, many of Syd Barrett‘s solo [...]

by S. Victor Aaron Know any good music in Baltimore? I do. The city that has spawned or raised such diverse, quirky talents such as Cab Calloway, Frank Zappa and David Byrne is currently the home to a new one: Quartet Offensive. Formed just two years ago, Quartet Offensive plays music where crunchy rock, jazz and whack jazz intersect. It’s [...]