Links to Good Reading & Listening

Owen McNally wrote an excellent piece on guitarist/composer fine new CD, "Old Tea", for this Sunday's Hartford Courant - read it here.

Following up on my trip to Chicago and seeing the Heath Brothers in concert, I am pleased to see "Destination OUT!" give its space over to pianist/blogger Ethan Iverson for a post celebrating Albert "Tootie" Heath (there's a link to Iverson's fine interview with the 75-year old master drummer.)  The post also includes 2 tracks from Heath's 1969 "Kawaida" Lp and 2 more from his 2010 trio gig at Small's with Iverson and bassist Ben Street.  "Kawaida" features Don Cherry, Herbie Hancock, Ed Blackwell, Buster Williams (who played magnificently this past weekend with Bennie Maupin at Wesleyan), Heath's nephew Mtume and brother Jimmy - some lineup!  It's well worth the time to check this out.  Do that here.

NewMusicBox published an print & video interview with pianist/composer Vijay Iyer in March of this year and I'm still attempting to absorb all the information.  Besides being a fine player, Iyer really is a student of creative music and talks easily about how music is always evolving.  See it and hear it here.

Got a bunch of reviews coming up later this week as well as a preview of the Dan Weiss Trio at Firehouse 12 this Friday (5/07.)