Couple of RIPs: Delaney Bramlett and Freddie Hubbard

The legends just keep on croakin'...

I took a look over at Billboard.com today, as I usually do every day, and was sad to see that both guitarist Delaney Bramlett and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard have died.

Bramlett, you may recall, had a short-lived band with his first wife Bonnie (Delaney and Bonnie) that was flanked by some of rock's biggest stars, i.e. Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Dave Mason, etc. As it stands today, his best known work is probably what you've heard on Clapton's first solo album, including one of my personal Clapton favorites, "Let it Rain." Bramlett was 69.

Thanks to YouTube user "Morasch," we can relive the experience of hearing Delaney and Bonnie's "Only You Know and I Know" 45, in tribute. This Dave Mason composition was a top 20 hit for Delaney and Bonnie, and was also covered thereafter by both Eric Clapton and Badfinger:


Hubbard was known throughout the '60s as one of a group of jazz musicians often referred to then as the "young lions." His string of releases on the Blue Note, Atlantic and CTI labels are all held in high regard, and several are bona fide classics. At the turn of the decade, with the release of his 1970 masterpiece Red Clay, he was thought to be the next great trumpet legend in jazz, the heir apparent to Miles Davis. Unfortunately, things didn't quite turn out that way. Hubbard sank into contrived mediocrity in the mid to late '70s, and by the '80s, his artistry was at a low point as the next generation of "young lions" (Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Terrence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, et al) seized a golden opportunity to steer jazz back towards its roots.

While many of Hubbard's peers, like Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Ornette Coleman, and others, continued to have late-career successes, Hubbard remained sadly quiet and never did follow through on the promise of his early reputation. I've always considered it a tragedy that he wasn't out there cementing the legacy so many of us thought he deserved, and showing the younger generation just how great he could be. His health, unfortunately, was a factor in his absence, and his attempts to get back out on stage earlier this year yielded mixed results. But even as it stands today, his output from the '60s through the first half of the '70s will still secure his place in the pantheon of jazz greats. Hubbard was 70.

Here's Freddie while he was still at his peak and worthy of the Miles Davis comparisons, performing an awesome version of "Straight Life" at the 1975 Downbeat Awards (thanks to YouTube user "eatsleeptrumpet" for making this available):

R.I.P. Richard Wright, Pink Floyd keyboardist

I had no idea he was battling cancer. He sounded great on David Gilmour's solo tour a couple years back. Here's the story from the Associated Press:

Pink Floyd member Richard Wright dies age 65

By MEERA SELVA, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - Richard Wright, a founding member of the rock group Pink Floyd, died Monday. He was 65.

Pink Floyd's spokesman Doug Wright, who is not related to the artist, said Wright died after a battle with cancer at his home in Britain. He says the band member's family did not want to give more details about his death.

Wright met Pink Floyd members Roger Waters and Nick Mason in college and joined their early band, Sigma 6. Along with the late Syd Barrett, the four formed Pink Floyd in 1965.

The group's jazz-infused rock and drug-laced multimedia "happenings" made them darlings of the London psychedelic scene, and their 1967 album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," was a hit.

In the early days of Pink Floyd, Wright, along with Barrett, was seen as the group's dominant musical force. The London-born musician and son of a biochemist wrote songs and sang.

The band released a series of commercially and critically successful albums including 1973's "Dark Side of the Moon," which has sold more than 40 million copies. Wright wrote "The Great Gig In The Sky" and "Us And Them" for that album, and later worked on the group's epic compositions such as "Atom Heart Mother," "Echoes" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond."

But tensions grew between Waters, Wright and fellow band member David Gilmour. The tensions came to a head during the making of "The Wall" when Waters insisted Wright be fired. As a result, Wright was relegated to the status of session musician on the tour of "The Wall," and did not perform on Pink Floyd's 1983 album "The Final Cut."

Wright formed a new band Zee with Dave Harris, from the band Fashion, and released one album, "Identity," with Atlantic Records.

Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and Wright began recording with Mason and Gilmour again, releasing the albums "The Division Bell" and "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" as Pink Floyd. Wright also released the solo albums "Wet Dream" (1978) and "Broken China" (1996).

In July 2005, Wright, Waters, Mason and Gilmour reunited to perform at the "Live 8" charity concert in London — the first time in 25 years they had been onstage together.

Wright also worked on Gilmour's solo projects, most recently playing on the 2006 album "On An Island" and the accompanying world tour.

I am alive and well

Contrary to what any of you might have read in the Providence Journal's blog, a) I am not 19, b) I still live in San Francisco, c) I am very much alive and well. What's more, I am not related to the unfortunately deceased, as far as I know. My first name is quite common, though my last name is not, so any time somebody with my name dies, I hear about it. And it's only the second time, in recent memory...

Reviews update & a farewell

In the crazy hustle bustle hamster wheel that is 2008 Q1, some reviews have nearly slipped off the radar of this little web cubby. Rescued from the very recent past, here they are:


The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia

You read about them here, now read about them at Bullz-Eye and anywhere else that gives these guys some ink. Dulli and Lanegan have created a masterpiece. Lovers of darkly spiritual alt-rock, beware!



Kula Shaker - Strangefolk

Another one for Bullz-Eye. Maybe you remember these guys from 10 or so years ago, back when Brit-pop records were actually moving off shelves in the U.S. They're back, finally, with their third album, and not much has changed - the Eastern hippy-drippy psychedelia is still there, they still rock, and they still make uneven albums. But a good amount of the tunes are worth ripping and keeping.


More to come in the not too distant future...


P.S. - R.I.P. Teo Macero. You made Miles' records the events that they are!

Goodbye Joe

It was announced yesterday that jazz composer/bandleader/pianist/etc Joe Zawinul died at the age of 75 from a rare form of skin cancer. I saw the news and, just like every other time I hear of the death of a musician I admire, I groaned. Not another one!

Even before I recognized the size of his contributions, Zawinul's music drew me in and made me want to explore the sounds he created with Miles Davis and Weather Report. It was in high school when I bought my first copy of Miles' In A Silent Way, which Zawinul played on and composed the title track. Not long after that, a friend played me just enough of the first cut on Bitches Brew -- a Zawinul composition called "Pharaoh's Dance" -- to have me wondering what was happening. Bitches Brew, I had heard, was the beginning of jazz-rock fusion. I was expecting to hear loud, searing guitar work from John McLaughlin fighting for space with Miles' trumpet. Instead, I was hearing this light, slightly funky back beat with some bass, bass clarinet, and the mysterious tinkling electric piano of Joe Zawinul. I didn't quite know what to make of it, but in a year or so, I'd be playing Bitches Brew constantly in my dorm, loving every second of it, not yet knowing that Zawinul was playing electric piano with Cannonball Adderley before the innovative Miles Davis had even thought of going electric with his music.

Zawinul formed Weather Report with fellow Davis sideman Wayne Shorter in '71. This group, like Zawinul's contributions to Bitches Brew, had a strange appeal to it, with its multi-cultural sounds and many different keyboard textures. The absence of guitar (which would have balanced the keyboard-heavy proceedings) on most of their recordings initially made me reluctant to explore their catalog. But then, upon scoring used LPs of Sweetnighter and Mysterious Traveler (their third and fourth albums), I was hooked. The two records were released in 1973 and 1974, respectively, and were as different as night and day. Sweetnighter mostly mined dance grooves, beats which sounded quite ahead of their time for '73. The drum patterns actually weren't all that different from what Tony Williams was playing on In A Silent Way. And yet, Zawinul found new rhythms in his keyboard riffs that changed the way an old drum beat sounded. The acoustic bass was retained, which kept the sound otherworldly -- old rhythmic approach plus new rhythmic approach equaled something unusual. On Mysterious Traveler, the group transitioned to even funkier sounds as Alphonso Johnson joined on electric bass. But still, there were eerie mood pieces present like Wayne Shorter's "Scarlet Woman," and a playful acoustic duet between Zawinul and Shorter on "Blackthorn Rose."

From here, I had to hear it all. Actually, I never did pick up the last two Weather Report studio albums (1985's Sportin' Life and 1986's This Is This), but I explored enough to know that this was one hell of a group. In fact, on my jazz radio show during college, I would start the last hour of music I played with a Weather Report tune, after reading the day's weather forecast (cheesy, I know, but it was fun). I did this every week without fail, except for one special all-Miles edition. But even then, Zawinul was in there in somewhere.

Probably the most surprising fact I had learned about Joe Zawinul's music career centers around the 1967 pop hit "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." I knew the song via the Buckinghams' hit, which used to be played on oldies stations back when they still played songs recorded prior to 1970. It had become fashionable in the late '60s for jazz artists to record instrumental covers of pop hits -- Wes Montgomery did this quite a bit with songs like Roger Miller's "King Of The Road" and the Beatles' "A Day In the Life," among many others. Hank Mobley covered the Four Tops' "Reach Out (I'll Be There)," George Benson recorded a version of the Monkees' "Last Train To Clarksville," you get the picture. It happened a lot. So when I heard Zawinul playing electric piano on Cannonball Adderley's version of that Buckinghams' hit, I was shocked when I looked at the credits -- Zawinul wrote it! And it was recorded the year before the Buckinghams' version hit the charts. Come to find out, this was a rare case of a pop group covering a jazz artist's tune, adding lyrics, and suddenly the cover becomes the hit. It would happen to Zawinul again in the late '70s, when the Manhattan Transfer won the 1980 Grammy for Best Jazz/Fusion Performance for their vocalese cover of Weather Report's 1977 hit "Birdland."

I never did get to see Zawinul perform live with his band the Zawinul Syndicate, which he formed after dissolving Weather Report. I have yet to even explore that section of his catalog. Fortunately, there are many recordings out there, both audio and video.

Check this video out -- it's vintage Weather Report, pre-superstar era, pre-Jaco, pre-"Birdland"... performing a version of "Directions" that is cut from the same cloth as Bitches Brew. It's one of my favorite Zawinul tunes -- open-ended, not too pretty, and ripe for jamming every time. It was the kind of thing Miles Davis loved to play. In fact, Miles used this tune as his set opener for at least a couple of years, albeit in a much different arrangement.


Thanks for the music, Joe. It's been a trip!

A tribute to a man who fed an addiction

(A scan of an actual 45 from Will Auger's jukebox that managed to survive my rough handling as a child.)


On Sunday, April 1, 2007, Will Auger died in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Though his age is not given in this obituary, he had to have been in his mid to late 50s.

Most people don't know this, but Will was a very important person in my early development. Many people gave me records as a child when it became clear that I loved music. But it was Will who cemented my love of the 45 RPM record.

Will was an old friend of my father's. He sustained an injury in the Vietnam War that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He was perhaps the first paraplegic I ever knew. After the war, he opened up a bar in Warwick, Rhode Island, called (what else?) Will's Place. My father would stop at Will's bar on the way home from work to visit his old friend during my early years. Knowing that I liked music, Will would recycle the played-out hit records in his bar's jukebox by giving them to my father during his occasional visits. My father would then come home with these 45s and give them to me. It was one of my greatest joys to receive these records as a young child who could barely talk.

Though I was so young then, I can still remember specific records that Will gave to me. For instance, there was Pink Floyd's "Run Like Hell," which I believe was my earliest exposure to Floyd. And there was my favorite Police single, "Spirits In The Material World." Dr. Hook was still kind of popular when Will gave me the 45 of "When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman." "We Don't Talk Anymore" by Cliff Richard was another big favorite, one that I still enjoy to this day, and one that I have sung at the local karaoke bar as recently as last September. My parents claim that one of my biggest favorites was a record by Peabo Bryson, though I must have had it before my brain was developed enough to file this memory away because I cannot remember ever hearing a Peabo Bryson song until his hit duet with Roberta Flack, "Tonight I Celebrate My Love." By the time that one came out, my brain could remember these kinds of moments. I had already finished kindergarten and was bold enough to ask my parents to buy me my favorite hit records when I heard them on the radio.

Usually my father would bring home stacks of 45s, but one night he walked in the door with only one. I was already learning how to be greedy at this point, and pouted with disappointment when all I got was "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes. Boo! Not a bad record, I did enjoy it. But 3 or 4 others to go with it was what I had been expecting, and there's no pleasing a 4 year old who knows what he wants.

AND -- where's that Dexy's Midnight Runners 45 I was promised??? Still waiting!

One of the funniest memories I have attached to a record from Will's jukebox was the time he sent my father home with a Rod Stewart 45 containing a b-side called "Ain't Love A Bitch." My mother freaked at the idea of me reading a swear word on a record, as I had been using records as my way of learning to read before I started kindergarten. So she put scotch tape over the title!

All these years, Will has never left my mind. I wonder if he realized just what he did by giving me all those records, if he knew that he was feeding an addiction that, as I would tell my mother, kept me from the evils of drugs and alcohol. That was always a sure point to win an argument with my mother whenever she'd complain that I spent too much time or money on music. "Would you rather I be spending my time and money smoking cigarettes or shooting up heroin?" Case closed.

Rest in peace, Will, and thanks for the music!

So long, Brad Delp

I almost always do a little something to commemorate the musicians I admire when they die, and I finally got around to doing just that for Brad Delp.

I had this gut feeling that his death might have been a suicide. I found out when I was on the phone with my mother. She had the TV on, and she asked me, "how do I know the name Brad Delp?" I told her that he is the lead singer of the group Boston, and that he also sang in that Beatles tribute band called Beatle Juice who played an opening set in the movie theatre where we had seen the re-release of "A Hard Day's Night" back in, oh, I don't know... '99 maybe? Can't remember, too lazy to look it up. Anyway, she then remembered and said, "he was found dead in his apartment!"

It was a shock, being that he was so young -- the same age as my mother, only 55 years old. He was still active with both Beatle Juice and Boston. And who could fault that soaring voice of his? There have been other singers in Boston besides Brad, most notably Fran Cosmo, who came close to mimicking Brad but never quite made it. But Brad will always be the voice of Boston.

I remember being struck at how much he held back his distinctive wail when singing Beatles songs with Beatle Juice. The band didn't dress like the Beatles, or attempt to get the accents just right. They just played the music straight, and Brad sang to the songs, rather than injecting himself into the music. It was a breath of fresh air hearing such a personal yet respectful take on the music of the Beatles, and I wish I could have heard more than just that one short set.

I never did see a live Boston concert, due to Tom Scholz canceling the tour I had planned on checking out back when I was still in high school. Had to have been '94 or '95, after Walk On was released. It was to be a joint tour with Cheap Trick, and even though Brad didn't sing on the Walk On album, he was to be singing alongside Fran Cosmo on the tour, which to me was a very exciting prospect. Brad, Fran, Tom and Cheap Trick all in the same night! It was not to be. I remember the official explanation being that Tom had broken his hand, so since he couldn't play guitar with a broken hand, the tour was canceled. I'm pretty sure there was another explanation that was more truthful (again, too lazy to look it up -- help please?).

Anyway, last night I finally got around to spinning the first two Boston LPs, and maybe later I'll end the 'mourning period' with Third Stage. Brad had a couple of great tunes he wrote that appeared with Scholz's songs on those first two albums -- "Let Me Take You Home Tonight" on the first album, and "Used To Bad News" on Don't Look Back. Dig those out and give 'em a listen. Also, do yourself a favor and seek out Barry Goudreau's self-titled solo album, which has a hilarious tune called "Mean Woman Blues," in which Brad sings of being abused by a paranoid psycho bitch who believes her man is messing around when all he's doing is innocently walkin' around to get some air. She beats him senseless with tables and chairs, as well as her bare hands, saying, "in this house, female brutality has become a reality!" Ouch!

So long, Brad, and thanks for the music.



(NOTE: Reposted from my old myspace blog)