On the cover of his first and so far only CD, Soul Serenade, Jesse Jones, Jr., is pictured gazing intently into the distance, clutching his alto saxophone to his chest as if it were a newborn child, an irreplaceable part of himself. The photograph may make Jones look maniacally possessive,…
Long before the hipsters of Manhattan began lining up to see the venerable elders of the Buena Vista Social Club, country boys Nicholas Woloschuck and Aaron Halva were scraping together a meager living playing traditional Cuban son in New York City’s subways. Oregon-born Woloschuck and Iowa native Halva formed the…
Various Artists Viva CuBop! Jazz the Afro-Cuban Way (CuBop) The fact that CuBop, the Latin jazz arm of the independent label Ubiquity, has released twenty-two records in three years is proof enough that something is going right with “the little Latin jazz label that could.” The label’s first compilation, Viva…
It’s hard to top the mammoth anniversary party with George Clinton, but Tobacco Road (626 S. Miami Ave.) is trying with three consecutive nights of national blues talent. Old-time master blues interpreter John Hammond, Jr., returns to the Road on Thursday for two shows, at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. Hammond,…
The Drepung Gomang college earned its name a little differently than most Western centers of learning. The Tibetan word gomang literally means “many doors,” and the story is that spiritually advanced monks of Drepung Monastery were able to walk through the college’s solid stone walls without the need for doors…
Anyone looking for yet more signs of Lincoln Road’s devolution from bohemian enclave to tourist-overrun strip mall should consider Miami Beach’s new open-air music policy. As part of the city’s attempt to fine tune its vision for the street, it has decided to sanitize the sound along the promenade’s public…
Yellow bandannas with black letters bearing the Western Union logo graced nearly every head, neck, or waist at Rasin ’99, held early this November at Bayfront Park. The fans of Haitian roots music — a music based on the rhythms and traditional refrains of Haitian vodou — wore the sponsor’s…
Dan “The Automator” Nakamura laughs when he recalls how his DJ career ended before it really began. Fifteen years ago, as a high school student, DJing was all Nakamura wanted to do. He was learning how to spin records and make his own pause tapes and drum-machine beats, the kind…
It’s the age of cultural mixing, and one of the best examples of mutual musical understanding anywhere is found on Kulanjan, the recorded encounter between Taj Mahal and Mali’s Toumani Diabaté. A more natural pairing for cultural collision could hardly be imagined. Taj Mahal’s rootsy blues have always resonated with…
In the waning years of the ’70s, Arto Lindsay “sang” and “played guitar” for DNA, and his musicianship deserved the quotes. Emerging in the wide-open aftermath of punk rock, DNA was part of what was dubbed the New York “No Wave,” a movement of bands whose music was belligerently chaotic…
In this season of thanks, forget about the food and think about the dance floor. If the Pilgrims had had a plethora of nightclubs that stayed open late and housed glorious debauchery, we might all be tossing back cocktails and gobbling down rolls (not the dough variety) instead of turkey…
The room is filled with screaming skulls, fiendishly grinning jack-o’-lanterns, skeletons hanging from the ceiling, and several Puppet Master dolls, which, even standing at a mere six inches tall, manage to evoke that cult splatter flick’s sense of dread. “Cemeteries, the full moon: I’ve just always loved stuff that’s creepy,”…
In 1975 George Clinton made the album he still considers to be his career breakthrough: Chocolate City, with his band Parliament. Chocolate City’s classic title song was not only an obvious precursor to hip-hop (with Clinton smoothly talking over a repetitive rhythm track), but it also was an alternative state-of-the-union…
Sizzla Be I Strong (VP) That Sizzla can lick a riddim like no one else was evident as early as 1994’s Black and Comely, his first album that saw him do lyrical battle alongside singer Mikey General. Turning out the biblically weighted “Song of Solomon” with the coarse, spine-tingling chant…
One of South Beach’s prime spots for clublife will finally see some action in the form of Level (1235 Washington Ave., Miami Beach). But don’t worry: Just because the massive joint is partly owned by the same folks who run Fort Lauderdale’s World Mardi Gras, it doesn’t mean every Billy…
Watching as the imbroglio surrounding Los Van Van’s Miami concert played out on local television last month, Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba felt as though he had tuned in to a rerun of old news. “I feel sorry that they had to have that disagreeable experience,” sighs Rubalcaba, who was performing…
Two years ago the career of rapper Eve Jihan Jeffers appeared to be on the cusp of something great. Jeffers, now age twenty, started performing when she was still a teenager; she had put in her time competing in high school talent shows, and was paying her dues playing local…
Major record labels are still pissed off about digital distribution. The concern that free, nearly perfect copies of songs would be scattered all over the world led to a concerted effort this past summer by the Big Five record companies, audio conglomerates, and electronics firms to make music “secure.” The…
Handsome Boy Modeling School So … How’s Your Girl? (Tommy Boy) Bring it on, man. All you gotta do in true-blue hip-hop circles is utter the sequined names Prince Paul and Dan the Automator in the same sentence and you’ll get some wide-eyed gawkers going giddy. Were it only for…
Three years is a pretty good run for a club in transient South Beach, especially if the club features live music. That’s what Jazid (1342 Washington Ave., Miami Beach) does, and that’s how long the place has been at it. And it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. Every…
The only way a guy as ugly as Blaine Cartwright could get two women to kiss each other in front of him every night is by paying for it — or by being a rock star. He’s the latter, at least according to patrons of juke joints across the United…
