ALL BASES WERE COVERED AT JAZZ FEST
JAZZ FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS: During drummer Carl Allen’s Monday afternoon set with his new ensemble, the Carl Allen & Rodney Whitaker Project, at the 2007 Detroit International Jazz Festival, Allen told the audience that Detroit’s jazz festival is the hippest in the world. I took Allen’s pronouncement to heart. Who better than a world-class jazz musician to determine…
KEEPING THE PARTY GOIN’ AT JAZZ FEST
JAZZ FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS: A great day of music I kept wondering as I listened to the various acts Sunday at the Detroit International Jazz Festival if it were possible for the music get any better that it already was. I started the day at the Absopure Waterfront Stage, enjoying a fine duet between pianist…
THREE DETROITERS & THE OCTOGENARIAN
JAZZ FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS: Avant-garde It’s been nearly five years since avant-garde jazz has been featured predominantly at the Detroit International Jazz Festival. The festival organizers have never explained why they suddenly stopped booking the top players of this genre, replacing them in years past with non-jazz acts such as Dr. John, John Mayer and the…
HERBIE HANCOCK: NO MAIDEN VOYAGE
JAZZ FESTIVAL REVIEW: I had convinced myself that one day, jazz icon Herbie Hancock would return to making the kind of jazz music he made decades ago. I pictured him producing new classics in the vein of “Takin’ Off,” “My Point Of View,” “Maiden Voyage” and “Cantaloupe Island”. And on this cool Friday evening at…
THE MATURATION OF REGINA CARTER
JAZZ FESTIVAL REVIEW: A decade ago, violinist Regina Carter was one of the most fiery jazz soloist around, something I believed from the first time I heard her perform in 1997 at the Ford Montreux Detroit International Jazz Festival. She played with such unadulterated energy back then that I thought she was going to burst…
Freedom for Freeman?
Supporters are encouraged by the latest developments.
The Nanny Diaries
Despite a schizophrenically bouncy pop soundtrack and some slick daydream-fantasy sequences, Diaries isn’t the escapist fun it so desperately wants to be. There’s no real pleasure to be had in watching two aimless, unhappy women act out their insecurities on each other. The performers give it their best shot, though, and for a while, Diaries…
Sweet and Sassy! Bawdy and Blue!
When Maria Muldaur takes the stage at the Jazz Festival Monday afternoon, it will be the culminating moment of her recording career. Muldaur’s current album, Naughty, Bawdy & Blue (Stony Plain), essays songs associated with the classic female blues singers of the 1920s and ’30s, including Sippie Wallace, Victoria Spivey, Ma Rainey and others. She…
Earth to Laura
News columnist shocked by old news!
Belabor this!
Detroit Grand Prix, Hamtramck Labor Day Fest and Arts, Beats and Eats.
Adios, Alberto
What about the rest of the cabal?
Platinum Pussies and Iggy Trombones!
Shearing Pinx/Silver Daggers (split single) Arbor The Pinx’ “Gold Sleeper” is reminiscent of “Burning Spear”-era Sonic Youth, that is skronk with a steady badass bass groove. Danceteria, dub style. But “Baton” simply bides time until we get to the no wave killer “Slaughterhaus.” Silver Daggers, meanwhile, grace us with a forgettable live recording incorporating drum…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
In The Flesh
For better than 50 years, Detroit has given the world more great music than just about any other American city. So, how come the Go’s headlining performance in L.A. couldn’t draw more than 100 people? Well, the short answer is a whole lotta folks — based on their predilection for neo-retro rock ‘n’ roll —…
Herron’s Jazz Fest Picks
A festival, by definition, should be an excess of riches – including too much to do, too many things to see and maintain sanely. With so many obvious choices at the top of the marquee (three chances to see violin wiz Regina Carter, for instance; Kenny Garrett, Dave Brubeck), we thought we’d complicate your decision-making…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
KMFDM’s soundtrack to the holy wars continues.
Letters to the Editor
Double play Dear editor: In his recent letter (Letters to the Editor, Metro Times, Aug. 22), the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy’s Jeff Wattrick claims that Corktown supports the Conservancy’s proposal for Tiger Stadium and that the Tiger Stadium Fan Club supports only a plan involving independent league baseball. We find Mr. Wattrick’s criticism puzzling. In…
She’s got hell to raise
“The two other times I played the Jazz Festival.” says Bettye LaVette, whose new album, The Scene of the Crime, drops soon on punk imprint Anti- Records, “I was almost ‘just a singer,’ still trying to get a local gig. “Certainly there were people who knew me there — I was born in Muskegon, but…
Night and Day
Wednesday • 29 Rock the Bells HIP HOP RISES If you look at music in evolutionary terms, you see a split in the hip-hop phyla: Songs about the infamous B’s (bling, bitches, booty-shakers, blaaah) — and songs that are actually worth listening to. This branch’ll rap about life and strife, crafted with actual lyricism. In…
Shameless
Michael Vick is (sadly) a man of the times.
Jazzing Motown and pop
This year’s Detroit Jazz Fest has daily slots for Charlie Gabriel’s New Orleans Traditional Jazz Band to evoke some of the deepest roots of the genre. The band does the Second Line, a cross between a parade and a street dance that, for generations, has led New Orleans funeral mourners away from the grave and…
Ladies first
Troubled Tomboy’s trauma.
Lip service
Brigitte Bardot Collection Lion’s Gate In the late 1950s and 1960s, Brigitte Bardot was a definitive sex symbol, her popularity spanning all cultures and media. In the film world, she’s known primarily for two roles, both available on excellent Criterion transfers: … And God Created Woman, which made her an icon, and Contempt, which subverted…
Bettye’s best
I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise (Anti-, 2005) Soulfully sung, super-solid set of songs by contemporary female songwriters, highlighted by Dolly Parton’s"Little Sparrow" and a jaw-dropping a cappella rendition of Sinead O’ Connor’s "I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got." Child of the Seventies (Rhino Handmade, 2006) Sold online only, this limited-edition disc…
Staying Power
How do you explain the staying power of the exceedingly plain Troy establishment at the corner of John R and Wattles? It may have something to do with the deep-dish pizza, commendable burgers, and 16 sides from the deep fryer. As one would expect in a bar and grill, the Gathering Place features an array…
Primary concerns
A big mess and a possible solution.
Art is everywhere
Forget the mural of musicians blowing a colorful breeze and take a peek at what’s stenciled in white paint on the door of the Lafayette Building on Michigan Ave., downtown: one bad-ass mamma jamma in pearls and an Afro with “sho’ ‘nuff gettin’ attention,” as the song goes. She pours Coke from the bottle into…
Trick or treat?
Certain things are sacred, no? So one might wonder what the hell rock ‘n’ roll horror director Rob Zombie was thinking when he agreed to direct a remake of the 1978 horror classic Halloween. Fans, friends and filmmakers asked Zombie the same thing. He’d tell you, “I never really thought about it, truthfully,” or at…
Good show
In a brisk opening sequence set in rainy London, Mr. Bean wins a trip to the sunny French Riviera in a church raffle. Director Steve Bendelack (The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse) knows how to make slapstick that’s not slapdash, and hits on all the essential Beanisms — from his affection for his vintage Mini to…
Lighting the way
I only met her once, but that single encounter was enough to make the news of Marilynn Rosenthal’s death feel like a personal loss. Some people can have that kind of effect. It was almost exactly a year ago that I sat down with Rosenthal for an afternoon in her Ann Arbor home to talk…
Rocket Science
Moving on from the hit doc Spell Bound, filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz has found an equally dorky backdrop for his first narrative feature; the high-stakes world of high school debate. The queen of this nerdy kingdom is Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick), a chatterbox powerhouse with the same laser-beam intensity as Election’s Tracy Flick; she recruits terminally…
Fox on the run
If no news is good news, what are we to make of three newscasts at 11 o’clock at night? Is this a case of back to the future, or forward to more media muddle? On Monday, Sept. 24, the fall TV season will include the premiere of a new half-hour, 11 p.m. newscast on Detroit’s…
September Dawn
Voight is a sinister Mormon bishop who deeply distrusts the wagon train of Arkansas cattlemen who’re passing through his land en route to California. These humble Christian wanderers are cast in waves of holy light, though they commit unspeakable transgressions such as breeding race horses and allowing some women (welcome back Lolita Davidovitch) to wear…
Motor City Cribs
Molly-Jean Schoen’s inner Beatlemania.
Resurrecting the Champ
This is the true story of Denver Times sportswriter Erik Kernan (Josh Hartnett), who, in a career slump, finds his golden ticket in the form of a pitiful homeless man (Samuel L. Jackson) who claims to be a formerly high-ranking boxing champion. Kernan gets the story he wants, impressing his Times editor (Alan Alda) and…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
2 Days in Paris
Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg play a couple at the tail end of a European vacation trying to survive a few days in her old Paris stomping grounds, which overflow with her ex-boyfriends and countless one-time flings. Despite some first-time director jitters, 2 Days in Paris is a tiny, fleeting delight, a scenic gem filled…
SLAMMIN’ TRACKS
Ryan Barouch, (aka Trackslammers), a hip-hop producer from West Bloomfield, is one of three finalists in VH1’s The Score Contest for up-and-coming hip-hop producers. Over 8,000 songs were submitted to the music network for the contest. Music producers were asked to submit 60-second clips of original instrumental music, with a panel of experts judging the entries. Prizes…
DARK SIDE OF THE KIELBASA!
The ever-popular Polish Muslims will be one of the headliners at this weekend’s 27th annual Hamtramck Festival, which kicks off Friday night at 6 p.m. and runs through Labor Day until 10 p.m., and will spotlight an assortment of music on two separate stages. The last time the Muslims performed, several weeks ago in Oakland…
MICHIGAN-CENTRIC
The popular Just Haircuts and Jackets site, a blog that predominantly spotlights Michigan bands, will be celebrating its first year of blogging with a showcase of some of the site’s favorite bands at the Elbow Room in Ypsilanti on Saturday, September 22nd. The headlining act is Detroit’s own Zoos of Berlin, along with Starling Electric…
BOSS DETROIT DATE ANNOUNCED
It’s official. Bruce Springsteen’s first tour with the E Street Band since 2003 kicks off October 2nd in Hartford, Connecticutt. The tour will hit the Detroit area on November 5th, with a show at the Palace in Auburn Hills. Tickets go on sale September 21st. As previously reported here, the group’s new album, Magic, Springsteen’s first…
