Boston Globe, July 28, 2006 In the beginning there was a rhythm. It crossed the Atlantic with the slave trade and came to thrive in Cuba. About 70 years ago, it found its way back to Congo (etched into the grooves of Cuban 78s), where most of the Cuban slaves had come from in the […]
Tag: boston globe
The beats of their hearts
Boston Globe, July 14, 2006 There’s a little-known law in the music business that says that every few years, an anointed world music act seeps into the mainstream, where it becomes soundtrack material for coffee shop speed-dating events or grad-student dinner parties. Quality and shelf-life vary. The Cape Verdean doyenne Cesaria Evora, for much of […]
For Pyeng Threadgill, freedom to experiment
Boston Globe, June 25, 2006 The shimmering new album by singer Pyeng Threadgill, “Of the Air,” features eight original songs and two covers that, it’s safe to say, had never been juxtaposed before. One is “Close to Me ” by the Cure; the other, Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz.” They may seem like strange bedfellows, drawn […]
An original sound keeps evolving
Boston Globe, June 23, 2006 Calexico is coming home. Since the late 1990s, the Tucson, Ariz., band has forged its own brand of music, a sometimes ramshackle, always exhilarating affair full of Mexican trumpets and plaintive country melodies. It has drawn inspiration, too, from traditional and pop music of Europe, where it frequently performs and […]
He’s busy representing
Boston Globe, June 2, 2006 CAMBRIDGE—It’s been a busy season for MC Kabir. The local hip- hop stalwart has just released his third album, “Peaceful Solutions.” He earned an item in last week’s New Yorker, and MTV’s South Asian channel has asked him to guest VJ. He’s about to get married. And, of no less […]
Epicenter of soul
Boston Globe, May 28, 2006 LOS ANGELES—Of all the neighborhoods in this vast entertainment capital, the yuppie haven of Santa Monica is one of the last ones where you’d go in search of cutting-edge anything. Much less anything to do with soul music and the black experience. Yet if there’s a secret laboratory where the […]
Ghostface has style and substance
Boston Globe, April 15, 2006 Not long after Ghostface Killah hit the stage Thursday night at the Paradise, someone in front reached up to hand the rapper a box. It contained a pair of sky-blue Wallabies, his fetish throwback footwear, and he beamed as he tried them on, the color enriching an already fruity outfit […]
Turning Bollywood pop into global art
Boston Globe, April 8, 2006 A signature of Bollywood is its music: “Filmi” songs, by turns gaudy and graceful, have dominated Indian pop culture for a half- century. And of the great “playback singers,” so called because actors lip-synch to their songs, few others are as influential and none as adventurous as Asha Bhosle, the […]
Evora delights with simplicity
Boston Globe, April 5, 2006 Cesaria Evora is an icon: Her gorgeous albums of Cape Verdean morna and other Afro-Atlantic sounds are part of today’s world- music canon. At 65, she has brought the sound and sentiment of her rocky archipelago into even the sparsest CD collections. Evora plays to full houses, as she did […]
By way of Russia, art-rock for art’s sake
Boston Globe, March 24, 2006 Ever wonder where art-rock went? Ambitious, literary rock music with an appetite for genre experimentation and an extroverted, theatrical stage personality? If you’re stuck in a rut, replaying your old Roxy Music or Talking Heads records, then you probably haven’t been looking to the east Eastern Europe, that is. Art-rock […]
On haphazard night, Cole barely bothers to show
Boston Globe, March 15, 2006 It was 1:30 a.m. when Keyshia Cole took the stage last Wednesday night at the Roxy, and the copious security presence made it clear that her set had zero chance of running past closing time. In any event, Cole, a popular choice for Next Big Thing in R&B on the […]
Mixing old songs and new, Fagen finds the groove
Boston Globe, March 13, 2006 No one has taken the place of Steely Dan. A generation ago, guitarist Walter Becker and singer-keyboardist Donald Fagen built an unmatched creative hub connecting rock, jazz, blues, and soul. Their taut sound, technical yet warm, and their lyrics, crucial vignettes of ’70s dystopia and Reagan-era dyspepsia, sped them into […]
A star in South Africa is ready for the world to listen
Boston Globe, March 12, 2006 “If a little tree grows under a baobab, it will die a sapling,” an African proverb says. Applied to the music world, it means that sometimes the greats are so great that their shadow leaves little room for new artists to emerge. That would seem to be the case for […]
A hot ticket but not the most exciting one
Boston Globe, February 15, 2006 When he’s not making music, Matisyahu, the Hasidic reggae singer from Brooklyn, spends most of his time in shul, contemplating the Almighty. So it would have taken far more than a snowstorm, a mere terrestrial impediment, to stop him from delivering his scheduled performance at Avalon Sunday night. It’s simply […]
It’s not for purists, but his flamenco is full of passion
Boston Globe, February 10, 2006 Vicente Amigo looks the part. With his long, dark hair, high forehead, and brooding gaze, the Spanish guitarist appears ideally suited to express the drama and heat of flamenco. Through five albums and many collaborations, the 38-year-old Amigo has become a key name in the genre, earning a Latin Grammy […]
Another Atlanta style shakes up the charts
Boston Globe, January 22, 2006 If you listen to urban music at all, chances are that you can’t get “Laffy Taffy” out of your head. With its goofy refrain (“Shake that laffy taffy”) and barely- there synthesized beats, the infectious first single from the album “Down for Life,” by Atlanta band D4L, is topping charts […]
Touré always has a new groove
Boston Globe, January 20, 2006 He’s been called an African Cat Stevens, which seems odd. For there’s little of the moody singer-songwriter in Daby Toure, the rising star from Mauritania who rocked Boston’s Bastille Day outdoor concert last July with a danceable, sweat-drenched set, and returns for a performance at the Somerville Theatre tonight. It’s […]
Spirited rock, fastidious alt-folk make uneasy match
Boston Globe, December 10, 2005 Calexico is one of America’s best rock bands, a crew out of Tucson that makes exuberant, textured music steeped in the border sensibility yet never derivative. Iron & Wine is Sam Beam, an alt- folk hero with hushed voice and husky beard whose songs straddle the line between haunting and […]
O’Connor’s reggae is righteous
Boston Globe, December 8, 2005 Sinead O’Connor doesn’t give a damn. At 39 and officially retired from the pop life, the stellar Irish singer has found a spiritual home in Rastafari and a renewed musical purpose in interpreting hallowed roots-reggae classics. Whether this personal evolution makes any sense to you is not her problem. And, […]
Jean Grae stays true to herself
Boston Globe, November 29, 2005 “My name is Jean, and I rap. And I try to be really honest about it.” That’s how Jean Grae introduces herself. Grae, a favorite of the hip-hop underground, has made honesty the north star of her journey to recognition and, she hopes, commercial success. But despite three albums and […]
The world according to Mike Ladd
Boston Globe, November 20, 2005 It’s a twisty road to pop success. All hard work and talent can promise is recognition by a few peers and a place in the purgatory called the “underground.” From then on, it’s usually about either “going commercial” or simply persisting. But Cambridge-raised poet and producer Mike Ladd has found […]
Jones’s soul revue is stuck in overdrive
Boston Globe, November 19, 2005 Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are immersed in ’60s soul, down to the band’s stage moves, retro hairstyles, and “young-fogey” outfits. They came to the Middle East Thursday to deliver an old-fashioned, gut-bucket, right-on soul revue. And they did, sort of. The Dap-Kings play crisp, rump-shaking funk in the spirit […]
Part urban, part traditional, completely contagious
Boston Globe, November 13, 2005 Cynics, begone! For all the depredations of commercial radio and the antics of add-water-and-stir instant celebrities, music still has the power to deliver the shock of the new. And every once in a while, a band comes along to prove it. The Congolese outfit Konono No. 1, which appears at […]
Rodrigues belts out a cultural slice of Brazil
Boston Globe, November 12, 2005 The Afro-Brazilian diva Virginia Rodrigues is known for investing the music of Salvador de Bahia, her native city, with a poise and poignancy that can evoke gospel or opera. She opened her weekend engagement at Regattabar last night with a charismatic performance that showcased these traits, with the layering and […]
They keep the Mississippi sound alive
Boston Globe, November 12, 2005 When you name your band after the place you call home, you’re making a statement. When the place is Mississippi, you’re also staking out spiritual ground, raising ghosts. Field hands birthing the blues in the ruthless Delta heat. The young Elvis Presley, cutting his teeth in Tupelo. Emmett Till, the […]
With carefree spirit, he raps on the high life
Boston Globe, November 5, 2005 For years Houston has boasted as vibrant and creative a scene as exists anywhere in hip-hop. The Boston audience has been slow to catch on, however, whether because of the overweening influence of New York styles or because the viscous beats of the Texas metropolis are alien to listeners deadened […]
Singer Pontes proves eclectic and electric
Boston Globe, October 31, 2005 Portuguese singer Dulce Pontes has constructed her musical identity from a combination of rock ballads, variety pop, and traditional folk music, all infused with fado, the music of melancholy that the late Amalia Rodrigues introduced to international ears. Making her Boston debut Saturday at Berklee, Pontes worked the range of […]
Soul mates
Boston Globe, October 23, 2005 Every Sunday morning from midnight to 2 a.m., sweet soul music seeps from an MIT campus basement into the city’s bedrooms, taxicabs, and prison cells, in a ritual of black Boston life that has gone on for years, even generations. The songs are pure ballads, lush and syrupy as they […]
Not your ordinary 70s soul group
Boston Globe, October 23, 2005 Amid the pantheon of musicians who took soul music to its creative peak in the 1970s sits the Average White Band, a bunch of white guys from Scotland who made their mark on the genre behind classics such as “Pick up the Pieces,” “Schoolboy Crush,” and “A Love of Your […]
Gangbe’s fascinating rhythms
Boston Globe, October 21, 2005 Although a few ubiquitous artists dominate the “world music” canon and the racks of your favorite CD megachain, African music isn’t standing still. Across the continent, young musicians are experimenting with electronica, hip-hop, reggae, jazz, and new takes on traditional forms. Just a fraction of this creative ferment finds its […]
Zap Mama: often path-breaking, always funky
Boston Globe, October 5, 2005 World-music tastemakers are divided on Zap Mama. The Afro-funk outfit, led by Belgian-Congolese singer Marie Daulne, broke out in the early 1990s with a roots a cappella sound before throwing off the shackles of ethnic categorization with more international pop and funk efforts. While the pundits debate authenticity, the band […]
Music, daughters motivate Shankar
Boston Globe, October 2, 2005 Sitar master Ravi Shankar is a legend of Indian music at home and abroad. The era when he taught the Beatles and resisted the overtures of the hippie movement is long gone. More recent disciples include many young Indian virtuosos and Shankar’s daughter Anoushka, who excels in traditional ragas and […]
Coltrane tribute is a love supreme
Boston Globe, September 30, 2005 The commemoration of John Coltrane is never a casual matter. The saxophone titan, who died in 1967, left not only a body of work unequaled in creativity and technique but a legacy of constant spiritual exploration. The 1965 album “A Love Supreme” is the best known but far from only […]
Hathaway returns home in triumph
Boston Globe, September 26, 2005 She is blessed with what may be the most perfect voice in R&B and soul today, yet singer Lalah Hathaway has appeared far more often on other people’s records than she has under her own name. Three albums in 15 years does not a major-label, commercial career make. Hathaway’s quiet […]
A living legend nurtures his roots
Boston Globe, September 21, 2005 African music trends come and go. Nigerian Afrobeat and Congolese soukous, lively at home, are currently quiet on the world scene, but Senegalese hip-hop and coupe-decale from Ivory Coast are rising. Yet amid the flux, the music of Mali never goes out of style. The landlocked nation is home to […]
An heirloom rice returns
Boston Globe, September 21, 2005 CHARLESTON, S.C.—In the Colonial era, this elegant seaport was the richest city in the New World, thanks to an exquisite variety of rice known as Carolina Gold prized as far away as China that blanketed the lowlands of the coastal era. The hallowed grains are on the rise again. Carolina […]
Alluring Lura goes all out
Boston Globe, September 14, 2005 Bostonians whose awareness of Cape Verdean music begins and ends with Cesaria Evora had the chance to expand their horizons Saturday evening when singer Lura, the rocky archipelago’s current chart- topping sensation, visited the Berklee Performance Center. Hers was a total performance. She covered styles ranging from ballads and batuku, […]
Hip-hop fest breaks through
Boston Globe, August 4, 2005 The year was 1989, and in the cities of the East Coast, hip-hop was happening. MCs squared off on street and stage, mixing wisecracks and social critique to the cutting and scratching of DJs and acrobatic moves of breakdancers in matching outfits and high- top fades. Countless records on fledgling […]
Listen. And learn
Boston Globe, July 31, 2005 At the close of a night of underground DJ performances at the Middle East in Cambridge, Paul Irish sidled up to the turntablist Diplo with something more important to tell him than a fan’s usual post-gig thanks. “I downloaded your music online,” Irish said. “So here’s 20 bucks.” In the […]
Still ubiquitous
Boston Globe, July 29, 2005 Roy Ayers is happy. At 64, the vibraphonist, singer, and jazzy soul pioneer is still at the top of his game. His mallets, as they stride across the vibes, conjure openness and possibility, with a dash of insouciance. His voice infuses the uplifting themes of his songs with an undercurrent […]
Raging at injustice, he rocks the Casbah and beyond
Boston Globe, July 3, 2005 “Tekitoi?” Couched in the truncated urban French of text messages, police stops, and ghetto posturing, the title of singer Rachid Taha’s barnstorming new album poses an urgent existential challenge: “Who the hell are you?” In-your-face exhortation comes naturally to the Paris-based Taha, who brings his six-piece Arabic rock band to […]
Ndegeocello puts the groove front and center
Boston Globe, June 27, 2005 At this moment in her career, Meshell Ndegeocello is not a singer. She’s an expert electric bass player whose sense of groove and sonic construction sustains an all-star ensemble she calls Spirit Music Jamia, assembled from across the jazz, Latin, and R&B scenes. Her voice, however, is limited to introducing […]
Like his genre-bending music, pianist knows no borders
Boston Globe, June 26, 2005 If there is a jazz musician of the moment, Vijay Iyer may well be it. The Indian-American pianist has gone in the past year from underground favorite to emerging mainstream sensation with a gripping, thought-provoking sound and a body of work that includes straight-ahead post-bop efforts, avant-garde collective improvisation, and […]
When he conducts, the electricity flows
Boston Globe, June 12, 2005 NEW YORK—It’s a raw, damp Monday night in the midst of a miserly spring, yet inside Nublu, an East Village club devoted to edgy music, all is hipness and heat. Baton in hand, Lawrence “Butch” Morris is leading a 10-piece ensemble in collective improvisation, using the ambitious, unusual technique that […]
Bilal is back, mixing jazz and soul playfully
Boston Globe, May 14, 2005 For the hybrid genre called “neo-soul,” 2001 was an exceptionally strong vintage, with Erykah Badu’s second album and debut efforts from Alicia Keys, Jill Scott, India.Arie, and Musiq released in the space of a few months. Somewhat lost in the shuffle was the young Philadelphia singer Bilal, whose witty, groovy […]
Metheny’s fare satisfies many tastes
Boston Globe, March 29, 2005 Like all artists, musicians are best approached on their own terms. Anyone who took in the Pat Metheny Group at the Orpheum Saturday night with the goal of answering the eternal question that bedevils the group “But is it jazz?” received their just comeuppance. For close to three hours, Metheny […]
Exhilarating jazz, spoken word take off in airport setting
Boston Globe, March 28, 2005 AMHERST—For all the talk about the emergence of global culture, art that successfully explores the emotional content of globalization remains rare. “In What Language?,” a project of jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and writer, producer, and performer Mike Ladd, is a triumph of a genre that doesn’t yet exist. The 80-minute […]
Restless
Boston Globe, January 28, 2005 To a younger generation of music fans, the rootsy multi- instrumentalist Olu Dara is better known for his progeny than for his output. The father of acclaimed rapper Nas, he has appeared several times on his son’s records, most recently on “Bridging the Gap,” an enthusiastic genre-crossing duet that vaulted […]
Michel performs with polish and power
Boston Globe, December 4, 2004 SOMERVILLE – “I don’t know how I became a diaspora,” the Haitian roots diva Emeline Michel musedonstage, her novel use of the collective concept somehow sounding just right. “It seemed to happen all of a sudden.” Many in the enthusiastic, largely Haitian crowd gathered at Johnny D’s on Thursday night […]
Sax Greats Heat Up Regattabar Crowd
Boston Globe, November 30, 2004 The legacy of John Coltrane contains multitudes, and when two of his devotees take the stage together, there is no predicting how their musical approaches will meld. The prospect of this creative interplay drew a sellout crowd to the Regattabar Friday night to watch saxophone masters of two generations, Pharoah […]
Siddhartha Mitter 