Jesse Stanek
Stories (7/0)
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio,
The sophomore studio effort from Seattle’s Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio is one of those fantastic records that manages to throwback just hard enough to take you there, also remaining fresh by mixing in modern touches and transforming a somewhat dated instrument and sound into a brand new amalgamation, a fresh energy for the ears. And I don’t mean to say organ music is dated, the instrument has never gone away and I’m well aware. What I’m getting at is those stellar late 60s, early 70s organ records made by guys like Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff, Rueben Wilson, and Jimmy McGriff (that quartet right there is probably responsible for at least 15% of Beastie Boy samples). Those albums fall effortlessly into either the jazz or soul sections on your record shelves, spinning that musical sweet spot where styles and genres meld into something greater than their parts. You could argue those albums birthed Funk.
By Jesse Stanek3 years ago in Beat
The O.G. Art-School Punks
The Talking Heads punk-rock street cred is undeniable. Sure they didn't dress like The Ramones or sound like Dead Boy. They weren't going to piss in your parent's houseplants but they weren't going to play it straight either. Started by three art school students fresh to the Big Apple by way of Rhode Island, Talking Heads came at an exciting time, CBGB was experiencing a golden moment, birthing America's response to the UK's Clash and Sex Pistols, music videos were coming soon and The Heads' snarky subversive, poly-rhythmic songs, flavored more by Fela Kuti than Sid Vicious were unlike anything at the time or prior.
By Jesse Stanek3 years ago in Beat
The Original Smooth Operator
Let your mind drift back to the times of Miami Vice (no, the TV show, not the movie). It was a time when men weren’t afraid to wear white suits with pink tee-shirts, every home had some form of neon lighting and cigarette boats were the preferred method of transport for interesting people on the go. Lying in bed, listening to Sweet 98 FM, Hot Scott dropping the dedications, cheap red boombox delivering the hits of the day . . . Then out of nowhere, the smoothest voice you’ve ever heard comes through the speakers, like clean linen in a soft breeze, “coast to coast, LA to Chicago,” . . . Sade’s “Smooth Operator” was like nothing else on the radio, then or now. The song can still fill the brain with visions of pink flamingos and steamy nights under palm trees, her voice calmly soaring up and down the scale, her cadence and delivery an unrivaled level of sultry sweet, an exotic voice on familiar airwaves, a transcendent listen every time she sings.
By Jesse Stanek3 years ago in Beat
The Belfast Cowboy
Van Morrison never set out to change the world or shed light on society's many ills . . . he just wants to rock your gypsy soul. He began performing in the later part of the 1950s and is still releasing some of the most soulful music you'll ever hear. Morrison is an ace with his phrasing, twisting and turning lyrics, always delivering a musical moment worth remembering. Despite the staggering amount of music he's released, Morrison doesn't do duds. Any song he touches with that old Irish Soul is better for the play, his voice lending an authenticity and soulfulness that hits the ears like fresh lemonade at your favorite childhood swimming hole.
By Jesse Stanek3 years ago in Beat
The Fathers of Newgrass
There was a time when Bluegrass music was solely played by old white men in matching suits and cowboy hats. Then along came a scraggly, rag-tag bunch of longhairs covering rock and reggae tunes with Bluegrass instrumentation. New Grass Revival (NGR) was founded in 1971, the brainchild of mandolin/fiddle ace Sam Bush, NGR featured a host of legendary players over the years: Courtney Johnson, Bela Fleck, John Cowan, Curtis Burch, Butch Robbins, Pat Flynn and others. The band had a 17 year run before dismantling in 1989, however the players who first made this band matter continue to play festivals and release records in various formations, birthing the Newgrass movement which has exploded beyond what any of the idiom's fathers could have hoped for or dreamed. Bands like String Cheese Incident, Yonder Mountain String Band, Railroad Earth, Trampled By Turtles, Old Crow Medicine Show and Leftover Salmon all borrowed liberally from NGR's picking-and-plucking bag-o-tricks. NGR's early records shattered genre expectations, the playing is as fierce and passionate as the music is daring and fresh. The band had commercial success towards the end of it's career, the music much poppier and easier to digest for mainstream country.
By Jesse Stanek3 years ago in Beat
That Big Easy Good Time Sound
New Orleans funk isn’t James Brown or George Clinton. N’awlins funk is The Neville Brothers, Wild Magnolias and The Meters. It’s less gimmicky and more textured, layers of percussion and counter-rhythms, the bass still out front and leading the charge but doing so in a more refined fashion. The brass-Jazz history of New Orleans plays a huge role, horns played with a graceful and subtle nuance as opposed to serving as musical exclamation points. The Cajun/Zydeco influence is always cooked into the stew one way or another, making it sound more like World music than R&B or Soul. N’awlins funk is World music, it’s bayou, gators and crawfish on a picnic table. Its’s brass bands marching down the street as part of a funeral procession. It’s funk fit for the swampiest of circumstances and nobody does it better than The Neville Brothers.
By Jesse Stanek3 years ago in Beat
Weights & Wind
It was a bluebird day, the kind where the Mountains look to be standing even taller, summits reflecting and shining in the alpine morning Sun, almost as if the whole range had gotten together for one of those posed group photos the Instagrammers love. Everybody living their best life for the 13 seconds it takes to snap the shot. We were in the midst of an unusually active avalanche season and the air held a nervous energy. Standing outside the shack in town with a cup of steaming Sumatran, I could almost make out the snow fields that’d give next, the peaceful white blankets of snow pregnant with a slippery, suffocating danger lurking under the uneven, seemingly stable shelves of pristine powder scattering the San Juan range. County Search and Rescue said they wouldn’t be blasting till the following morning.
By Jesse Stanek3 years ago in Humans