The Lounge Lizards - Big Heart: Live in Tokyo

One day, while poking around in a friend's record collection, I stumbled across the Lounge Lizards. I'm always up for something new so I popped this one on the turntable. The Lounge Lizards sound like a crazy combination of jazz and blues, but somehow influenced by the great Beat writers (even though Kerouac played no instrument, I imagine him playing with this band). What makes the music so different is the angular, skronky guitar work of Arto Lindsay. For some reason I've always been drawn to unlikely juxtapositions of sound. In this case it was a 'normal' jazz band paired with a guitarist who sounds like he's on the verge of insanity. My taste for the bizarre definitely began here.

Greg Brown - Live at Fat Freddy's. Derry, NH

One big guy, guitar, sunglasses. Out of him comes the deepest voice I've ever heard (ok, not counting Barry White, who's off the low end of the chart!) And the voice growls out an ode to being alone...and enjoying it - Just By Myself. It was like he was channeling my thoughts. It made the hair stand up on my neck.

Joe Jackson - Live at the Orpheum. Boston, MA

This was hot! No, I mean it: it was over 100 degrees outside. The Orpheum's lack of air conditioning (just what the fuck have they been doing with that damn 'restoration fee' anyway?) turned the space into an oven. But the music transcended the heat. The high point came during a smoking cover of the old Fleetwood Mac tune 'Oh Well'...which they managed to use as a segue into 'Nineteen Forever'. I remember thinking that people who judge Joe solely on the merits of 'Steppin Out' are missing most of the story. This guy is able to squeeze every last bit of emotion out of a song and direct it straight into the crowd. I left the Orpheum elated, exhausted (and soaking wet...blech!).

Ornette Coleman & Prime Time. Live at the Berklee Performance Center. Boston,MA

Ornette is a giant of the jazz world (unless you're a fan of Kenny G). His show at Berklee opened my mind to the infinite possibilities of improvisation. In most traditional (or mainstream) jazz the improviser uses this harmonic bed (a set of chord changes played by the rest of the group) as a lunching point. Ornette's music rejects this approach in favor of something he calls Harmolodics. What this means is that there is no key center. Group members may pick improvise over the music of any other player in the group. And the improvisation may be based on either the melody or the rhythm. What does this sound like? I've got a close friend who would say that there's a good reason that Harmolodics begins with the letters 'harm'...but to me this form of group improvisation takes on a life of its own...it's almost like what a Mandelbrot set would sound like. It was most amazing during the show to see the group go off on what sounded like an uncontrolled tangent, only to stop on a dime and then veer off in a completely different direction. Ornette is surely an underrated musician - but in this WonderBread world that doesn't surprise me.