 Q-tip and the Cool Kids
November 22th, 2008 |House of Blues
 |
|
 Tenor Saxophonist Jimmy Carpenter has created a CD of great music that showcases the many styles he enjoys playing, and also, surprisingly enough to those that have never heard him sing, his fantastic voice. Jimmy sings on most of the tracks, and it truly is a treat to hear him. His saxophone playing is, as always, right on the money but it is his singing that really stands out here. The songwriting is intimate and personal and you get a feeling after listening to this CD that you understand his life over the last 10 years, the period over which these songs were written. All of the side musicians on this disc contribute well executed tracks that add to the feeling of the songs. Overall, a good listen that takes you on a journey through the life of a musician with a lot to say.
~Kevin O'Day
|
|
 The New Record from Quintron and Miss Pussycat is truly insane. From the first look at the album cover, which features Quintron and model Geannie Thomas both sporting vampire fangs, an enormous boa constrictor, and what appears to be a frozen margarita, I knew that this was going to be, as John Cleese would say "something completely different."
I was not disappointed.
I must mention here that the format that they have chosen for the release of this new record is as cool as it gets. The album is out on vinyl and CD, but when you purchase the vinyl release, you get a coupon that allows the download of the entire record in mp3 format. This is fantastic because it allows the music lover to have the superior quality format of 33 1/3 LP with the ability to burn multiple CD's to take out in the car and to store the mp3's in an iPod.
|
 Moodoo, the new album from Porter Batiste Stoltz, brings members of the Funky Meters - minus, Art, of course - together with a jam band man: Page McConnell, the keyboardist of Phish, who may or may not have gone their separate ways again or planned a reunion tour, depending on when you're reading this. The album is actually a live recording from Club Metronome in Burlington, Vt., which is perfect for the improvisational style to which all of these musicians gravitate. It just can't be reproduced in the studio.
No song on the album, with the exception of the introduction, runs less than six minutes. This means, of course, that the repetitious beats will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day, maybe the week, but you'll definitely be dancing along with it.
|
 In my very first "Everything on the One" article back in the beginning of June, I told you about the trio of Walter, Joe, and Russell at the Maple Leaf on Sundays. The band is still kicking it every week, and now we have their first recorded effort as a band, this CD tracked live over two days in the middle of June. Recorded by Misha Kachkachishvili from Axis Studios, the disc is sonically perfect. Joe's organ sounds like a small symphony, and Walter's voice just oozes soul and feeling. His singing on "What's Going On" rivals that of Donny Hathaway from his famous live version of the tune.
Russell's drums and cymbals are fat and funky, sounding better that most of the studio records he is on, and his background vocals, enhanced by a digital harmonizer, are dead on. The original tunes by Russell and Joe that the band does are some of the strongest material of the CD, and Walter's arrangements of Bill Withers' "Use Me" and Johnny "Guitar" Watson's "You Can Stay but That Noise Got to Go" are instant classics. It says a lot that I have not been able to take this disc out of my car's CD player for the last few days. I have been listening to it non stop. My suggestion: go to the Maple Leaf on a Sunday, dig the band, and pick up a copy of the CD...you won't regret it.
~Kevin O'Day |
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 1 of 6 |
|
|
