Maya Beiser | burning ambulance
Cellist Maya Beiser is a fascinating artist. She’s recorded close to 20 albums on her own, is a member of Bang On A Can, and has been a featured performer on a bunch of movie scores, collaborating …| burning ambulance
Bill Dixon was born October 5, 1925 in Nantucket, Massachusetts. He spoke with a strong New England accent and a Yankee’s disdain for pretense. He said what he meant and did not suffer fools. Two years before his death, I interviewed him for The Wire. It turned out to be his last major interview, and the first thing he said to me … Continue reading →| burning ambulance
This is a session diary from the recording of Bill Dixon‘s Tapestries For Small Orchestra, released in 2009 on Firehouse 12. Written by trumpeter Stephen Haynes, a collaborator of Dixon’s since the 1980s, it originally appeared in the first print edition of Burning Ambulance. WEAVING THE TAPESTRY: A BILL DIXON SESSION DIARY Introduction: Why the Orchestra? From the outset of his … Continue reading →| burning ambulance
Cellist Maya Beiser is a fascinating artist. She’s recorded close to 20 albums on her own, is a member of Bang On A Can, and has been a featured performer on a bunch of movie scores, collaborating …| burning ambulance
I tried to interview Pharoah Sanders for The Wire in 2014. It didn’t go well. He didn’t like talking about his music — something Rob Mazurek warned me about, before giving me Sanders’ phone number — so when we connected, he was gentle and polite, but any direct question I asked was met with a blank wall of indifference. After about 10 minutes, I gave up … Continue reading →| burning ambulance
On the fourth Friday of each month, we review five new albums, sometimes focusing on a single genre and other times grabbing whatever’s been sounding good. This month, we’re dealing with metal. More specifically, death metal, because as summer comes to an end, it’s time for downtuned riffs and guttural roars. So let’s get in the pit! Alto saxophonist Charles McPherson once … Continue reading →| burning ambulance
Ramleh arose out of the early ’80s UK industrial/noise scene that also produced Whitehouse and Sutcliffe Jugend, and like those acts, they seemed like the next step after T…| burning ambulance
Jayne Cortez was born on a US military base in 1934. That wasn’t her name then, but what matters is who we are when we’re making art, so Jayne Cortez she is. She grew up in Los Angeles, steeped in music and art, particularly jazz; she said in an interview, “When a new Charlie Parker record came out, I had … Continue reading →| burning ambulance
I saw James Brown live once. It was in early 1994, at Radio City Music Hall. My father took my wife and me. This was a surprise, because my father was not a big live-music guy (he took me…| burning ambulance
Meshuggah are not an easy band to love. Their music is extremely heavy, discordant and often punishing to listen to. They rarely pursue the easy catharsis of a bluesy riff or a syncopated rhythm. Their guitar riffs sound like a hydraulic press slamming shut over and over again, and their drum patterns are hyper-intricate, but mechanistic, only occasionally syncing up with the guitars. … Continue reading →| burning ambulance
Violinist Darragh Morgan’s work has fascinated me for years. I first connected with him in 2017, when he released For Violin And Electronics, an album featuring six pieces that were, in o…| burning ambulance
One of the great tragedies of the early days of punk was the death of Minutemen guitarist and vocalist D. Boon, who died in an automobile accident in 1985. Minutemen sounded like no one else in the scene; their intelligent lyrics and unusual musical approach set them apart from their contemporaries and set the stage for the wider inclusion of … Continue reading →| burning ambulance
Every fourth Tuesday of a given month, I’ll be reviewing five new albums, sometimes focusing on a single genre and other times grabbing whatever sounds good. This week, we’re all about classical. W…| burning ambulance
