The is is the final day for the Set List on variety.com and I plan to re-start it elsewhere, though where that will be is unclear.
It has been an interesting ride, attempting to create original content and offer news and opinion that otherwise would not make it into the pages of Variety or the website. Some days it felt like a full-time job on its own and other times I was wondering if I would ever have anything interesting to write about again.
I am leaving Variety as a full-timer without bitterness or anger at management, just a frustration with American magazine and newspaper publishing. Music has become such a secondary concern that it has been relegated to the fringes in publications run by editors who do not possess the passion or knowledge of those who came before them. Sources for trustworthy information about music seem to dying constantly.
We're seeing an American press attempting to react to the Internet whereby all we see are personality stories about stars who appeal to teens. Look at Yahoo's entertainment news on almost any given day: the movie section is filled with reviews and interviews; the music sections are dominated by legal incidents, ringtone deals and superstar tours and release dates. The Daily Swarm does aggregation with passion and a sense of the bigger picture; elsewhere "music news" seems limited to items that attracts hits. That's discouraging to anyone who wants to write about music without using the words "Miley Cyrus nude."
I cringe every time read some snarky commentary trashing someone's plea to salvage newspapers and the traditional news-gathering system. Each time a newspaper shuts down or eliminates sections and staffs, a community loses a filter. And in the arts that is crucial. The lesser-known, more artistically sound acts still needthe press and whenever a band like the Fleet Foxes breaks through due to positive press, it helps validate the system. How the New York Times gets away with weekly reviews of often obscure records is beyond me - but I'm glad it's there.
Of course there's Pitchfork, a tremendous resource for independent music with outstanding Q&As, a solid news service and dubious reviews. It has a focus, but bizarrely does nothing to promote a community among its readers, writers and artists, something that Big Media attempts to do because some consultant told them they should. Too many sites feel unfiltered, which makes it hard for anything to take hold and matter. People who became intense music fans between the deaths of Buddy Holly and Kurt Cobain are more comfortable with curatorial efforts than peer-to-peer advice. 
Late last night, I was looking at amazon.com's list of best-sellers. 

U2 - No Line on the Horizon
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks Live
Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack
Plant & Krauss - Raising Sand
Chris Isaak - Mr Lucky
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Dark was the Night compilation
JJ Cale - Role On
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Diana Krall - Quiet Nights

Springsteen, Jason Mraz, Adele. Lily Allen, M. Ward and Kings of Leon were also in the top 25. The original "Astral Weeks" was No. 44.
It looks like no one under the age of 30 shops there, but these are acts the press writes about. There's still an audience out there looking for music that is more than love songs about jewelry and adventures that go beyond a night at the club. Tom Waits, Sun Ra, Muddy Waters, Elvis Costello and NRBQ are illustrtaing this post because I have an undying poassion for their music.  If no one is left to chronicle it, though, it will disappear. Just ask people who work in jazz. 

At the beginning of the year I expressed some concern over the concept of a “best of” list, suggesting that most should be classified as “best records I received and listened to in the last 12 months.” With that in mind, rather than pegging this as the best records of 2008, I prefer to view it as 50 albums released in ’08 that I am glad are in my collection. (One change made at 10:55 am Tuesday: I forgot Blitzen Trapper. This is Ivy League is now on a different list.)

1. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
2. TV on the Radio – Dear Science
3. Sigur Ros – Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum
4. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
6. Portishead – Third
7. John Mellencamp – Life, Death, Love and Freedom
8. Bob Dylan – Tell Tale Signs
9. William Parker Quartet – Petit Oiseau
10. Missy Higgins – On a  Clear Night
11. James Blackshaw – Litany of Echoes
12. Hays Carll – Trouble in Mind
13. Adele – 19
14. Randy Newman – Harps and Angels
15. Anthony Braxton - The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton
16. She & Him – Vol. 1
17. Santogold - Santogold
18. Anthony Hamilton – The Point of it All
19. DeVotchKa – A Mad and Faithful Telling
20. Conor Oberst – Conor Oberst
21. Duffy - Rockferry
22. Hold Steady – Stay Positive
23. Alice Russell – Pot of Gold
24. Al Green – Lay it Down
25. Why? - Alopecia
26. Brian Eno and David Byrne – Everything That Happens …
27. Laura Marling – Alas, I Cannot Swim
28. Johnny Flynn – A Larum
29. Delta Spirit – Ode to Sunshine
30. Beck – Modern Guilt
31. Break and Repair Method – Milk the Bee
32. John Pizzarelli – With a Song in My Heart
33. Freddie Stevenson – All My Strange Companions
34. Norma Winstone – Distances
35. Shelby Lynne – Just a Little Lovin’
36. Beach House – Devotion
37. Neil Young – Sugar Mountain – Live at Canterbury House 1968
38. Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet - Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet
39. Bodies of Water – A Certain Feeling
40. Various Artists –  Nigeria Special 1970-1976
41. Blltzen Trapper - Furr
42. Roy Harper – Counter Culture
43. Butch Walker – Sycamore Meadows
44. Dennis Wilson – Bambu (the unreleased half of the Pacific Ocean Blue reissue)
45. Priscilla Ahn – A Good Day
46. Peter Moren – The Last Tycoon
47. Mary Chapin Carpenter – Come Darkness, Come Light
48. Van Morrison – Keep it Simple
49. My Brightest Diamond – A Thousand Shark’s Teeth
50. Brad Mehldau Trio – Live

A few years ago, a wine purveyor friend of mine called to alert me that a wine I had been interested in was still in stock in his shop and that within a few days Wine Spectator would be naming it the wine of the year. He offered a few bottles to me at $29; after the magazine came out it would be $40.
I have yet to open the wine and last I checked there was not a strong market for it, though I could certainly get double the amount I spent. Once the Top 100 list came out, though, and I looked over the magazine's selections, I started to wonder if indeed the wine was indeed the year's best, seeing as how the list ultimately represents wines that, at one time or another, are readily available in the U.S.
Albums are a lot like wines that seem to hit the top 10 in various polls and year-end lists. The artists - or winemakers - are often stars who have met expectations or up-and-comers who have provided a new way to look at something established; when put side by side with their peers, they're often a bit showier.
Wines that score high ratings get them for several reasons, one of which is how well will it age. I'm not sure that that consideration is taken into account enough when albums are listed from No. 1 to whatever, but guessing whether a sound will endure is rather foolhardy.

Both lists, do, however, promote spending sprees. The days that follow the release of any best-of-the-year list mean endless phone calls at wine retailers. It's less so at music emporiums, though I have found that certain lists do drive the action at retail, especially in the classical world where Amazon's top-sellers at the end of the December will often include the choices of New York Times critics. (This year, when it came to albums, they went truly indie).
Last week we saw few sales bumps for albums on the lists of Rolling Stone, Spin, NPR and others; this week, perhaps a mention on Pitchfork's list will bolster sales, too. In my limited experience it already has.

The album that caught my fancy on this year's Pitchfork list was Air France, a band I know nothing about but, based on the review, I thought it would make a good purchase. At Amoeba on Friday it was sold out.
Had a similar experience a year ago with Jens Lekman and James Blackshaw, two artists I enjoy whose 2007 releases never came my way. The hunt for those lasted months.
What struck me this year about Pitchfork's lists - and this is where wine lists from publications such as Spectator come in - was the relative established reputations of the crowned winners. Fleet Foxes, TV on the Radio and M83 are bands paying to good-sized clubs, their albums are promoted online and in stores and a fair number of publications have written about them. Most years, Pitchfork's 100 best is stuffed with obscurities and albums from sub-sub-subgenres such as sitcom-inspired rappers' mixtapes. Not so much this year.
Wine Spectator's top 100 does not include those obscurities that make their critics see daylight in a way. It emphasizes wines that have distribution, showed well upon release and are still pleasant now. That's what Pitchfork's list feels like, too,this year at least.
Rolling Stone always has a safe list at year's end. Pitchfork is the one that goes to the edge, but with the marketplace so fractured, their take on indie rock in 2008 reflects how easily the indies are abutting up against the majors. Fleet Foxes, this year's winner, and Deerhunter, the No. 5 album, will continue to see bumps in sales and the next time they come to your town, odds are they will be performing at a venue that is double the size of the last place they played. Prior to March's SXSW, when something else will be declared the Next Big Thing That People Will Talk About, the Pitchfork Top 10 has a window to capitalize on critical goodwill and develop fan bases even further
The sad thing is, the achivement in '08 does not guarantee antcipation for the next record the way it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. Instead, it's like the wine reviews often state: Enjoy now.

The years concert tally has hit 98 shows and 254 acts and it might well end there, but maybe I'll find a way to sneak in a show or two by year's end.

Getting what we expect out of legends is a tough one to calculate. From my perspective, if they stay too familiar I get bored and too adventurous I wonder if they know why fans showed up in the first place.
Two extremely different crowds attended the L.A. shows of AC/DC and Wayne Shorter this week and both audiences were treated to two extremely different types of shows. AC/DC did what was expected of them. Shorter, whose concert was billed as a 75th birthday celebration, did a show that was like nothing else he had done before this year.
The New York Times weighed on both of these acts when they performed in New York, opining that any critical re-examination of the Aussie rockers is a futile exercise and that Shorter reinforces the notion that he as the greatest living composer and improviser in jazz.
The one bonding factor here, if you follow my logic, is the trademark sound: Angus Young's guitar and Shorter's tenor and soprano saxes. That's what the fans want to hear
I contend that if the musicians can express themselves in a way that's familiar and challenging, they succeed; if they do one or the other, only half the picture is painted and it's up to critics to fill in the thermometer chart on how well they presented themselves.
Next question: should both of these musicians be held to the same standard? I say yes. This where the division of music into good and bad comes in. Ardent supporters of these two styles lament the lack of a new wave of acts capable of displaying the power and mettle of these performers. It extends across the board: the musicianship, the songwriting, the stage presence and interplay among the band, which makes me believe there is common bar they should clear.
More than ever it feels as if the best of our living legends have ascended to a unique place due to the lack of performers doing what their predecessors did. It's why Prince, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan remain so vital: Energy and integrity are key components of every show and their audiences return time and time again for the performer to deliver a moment of truth that doesn't repeat what was said at an earlier show.
It's perfectly acceptable that AC/DC does the same show every night and Shorter repeated for L.A. an evening first staged at Carnegie Hall. They work as snapshots. They linger in the memory until the the next time they come around, at which point I hope changes are in store. That's what keeps music thriving. Acts that don't change and try to return to the same markets with the same show find themselves looking at empty seats. Wanting to deliver "hits" and nothing else results in audience fatigue.
Why was the Journey-Heart-Cheap Trick triple bill so successful this year? They were reaching for a brass ring while simultaneously delivering "Don't Stop Believin'" and  "Magic Man," performing as if there is more to come down the road. Just like Wayne Shorter, just like Angus and Malcolm Young.
Next up is Fleetwood Mac, which has reconvened sans Christine McVie as they did in 2003. (No word yet on whether they will again hire six musicians to fill out the sound).  That tour, though, was on the heels of the "Say You Will" album and nightly the Mac would perform between five and eight new tunes.
This tour, which only has East Coast dates announced, is already being pitched as a greatest hits revue. Christine's absence was viscerally felt on the last go-round; when the program is all hits, it seems like that void would only be magnified. An FM hit parade without "Little Lies," "Over My Head" and "Say You Love Me," in my book, can't be done. And at the same time, it needs to be different from the "say You Will" tour  - a different snapshot of a band in a different time. That way, those of us who attend the concert can hold onto our belief that Fleetwood Mac is one of the greatest rock bands ever, the same way AC/DC's fans must feel after this tour that integrates five new songs from "Black Ice" into the show.    

AC/DC and Shorter were concerts 95 and 96; cathing the Imani Winds takes me to 251 acts seen this year. Four shows to go to hit the goal.

So Celine Dion did not tack her new single onto the end of "At Seventeen" and rumors of Prince joining the Time at the Grammy afterparty at Club Nokia did not come true. All in all, Grammy nominations night was a pleasant exercise - a decent show, a good party and a fabulous museum to explore. Story about the nominations is here.
I had seen the museum before the artifacts were in place - vast majority of the displays were up and running - and it is a considerably different experience than what I first saw. A chilling moment occurred while I was reading a letter from Woody Guthrie regarding what he wanted to appear on the front page of his songbook. Behind me I heard a familiar soft-rock tune and I turned and saw a film of a thin bearded man and the inscription said 'Power." I immediately recognized it as John Hall's ode to solar energy and as the camera pulled back it revealed Jackson Browne and Bonne Raitt as his background singers and I immediately knew it was in Battery Park in New York City at the No Nukes concert. Through a series of flukes and my own anti-nuclear power activism I happened to be on the side of the stage that day. And somehow, in that moment, I became a conduit between Hall, Browne and Guthrie, the link that somehow was central, the audience member who respected and admired those performers. It was a striking 45 seconds late Wednesday night while I sat there and felt that connection, an event that would have never occurred had it not been for that museum exhibit.
I like to think that that visceral effect can be felt by many people who came of age prior to MTV's heyday as music connnected us with history. This was just the occasional reminder. Youths don't quite grasp how importnat musicians and their wrds were to us when we were in our teens and 20s and the access that seemed to randomly come around made those artists made tem that much more human. I rememebr that No Nukes concert fondly. I met Pete Seeger, Jackson Browne and Ralph Nader, played bodyguard for Jane Fonda and Bonnie Raitt and actually stood on the stage while Gil Scott-Heron performed. It was a hell of a day and the Grammy Museum reminded me of it. Thew new venue is already working well - and it does not open until Saturday.

The Time was 94th concert I have attended this year and, thanks to five acts at the Grammy show, the 248th act I have seen. The goal remains 100 shows/300 acts.

Column writing, for better or worse, means fitting your ideas into a single established space. In my case, the limit is 700 words. Since I started this a couple of months ago there has not been a column in which I was finished after 600 words; every one has required a trim before I turn it in.
Balancing pure opinion with interview pieces seems to be working out well although this week I hit a bit of a snag. The idea behind the piece was to explore how AEG Live had invested in concert tours of TV programs. As much as I attempt to get inside the music industry I did not have the space to get as deep as possible in this one and when it came time to reduce my word count, an explanation of how the shows get to the promoter was cut out.
There is a healthy food chain in the adaptation of TV shows as live entertainment. The creators/copyright holders are entities such as the BBC and Granada; they are then represented by talent agencies who approach a promoter such as AEG with a package deal. CAA handles "American Idol," ICM covers "Dancing With the Stars" for example.
If I were writing for the Internet those facts would have made it into the column as would an anecdote about music publishers who give an employee the single task of landing songs on "Idol" or "Dancing."
TV is what sells music these days and few shows have track records to equal these two. Let the TV people worry about the ratings - these shows are where stars go to sell records, often in some of the most fallow sales periods of the year.

I have made it to three more concerts - only eight to go to hit 100 for the year - one of which had almost as many acts as an edition of "American Idol." Somehow, I still need to catch 53 performers to hit 300.

Madonna fans in the expensive seats were climbing over chairs, security and other fans at Dodger Stadium Thursday with the hope of snapping a pic or two or eight of a celebrity taking their seat.
The area at the end of the catwalk that formed a 'T' off the mainstage was as well-stocked with talent as any Hollywood premiere - J. Lo, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu. Management, agents and Ryan Seacrest. Slide over a section and Heidi Klum, Fergie and Nicole Ritchie were garnering attention. Poor Jillian Michael, the trainer from NBC's "Biggest Loser": She was the first to arrive and the first to be ignored.
This was a bit astonishing though in L.A. where celebs are pointed at or waved to - their presence is just a fact of life. Perhaps it was the place or the performer, but this evening felt different from others. This is not bold-faced names cavorting with the hoi polloi. These people - the ones paying $350 for a seat or higher if they use a scalper, the ones who call in favors to secure the best seat possible - are apparently starved for a connection with fame. From a few rows away, it was palpable, that difference between Barrymore's nonchalance and Jennifer Lopez' glow.
Same difference in the area that held Klum and Fergie: Both are stars, but only one has that aura of distinctiveness. (This was one of those rare instances in which reviewers had obscenely good seats: If Madonna slips when she puts the body of her guitar into her crotch during "Borderline" and the instrument falls, I'm the one getting hit on the noggin).
Hardly surprising that the rich and famous want to see Madonna, the one star who presented personal and sexual evolution as art, who beguiles and mystifies consistently and who only disappoints when she becomes a stationary object. The celebs present - Barrymore being the exception - may well look on in awe and envy: Madge is expected to have no boundaries, while the others are boxed and ready for shipping. Change is good for her and it's evident in the colorful and high energy show; the new material is dance-floor ready, the older songs amped up and pushed toward rump shaking or Guitar Hero.
As a celebrity. Madonna dwarfed those in the audience. At 50, she may well be presenting the best show of her life - the set list was the same as New Jersey but with Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake as guests and a "Dress You Up" sing-along - and it may well be the first example of an artist taking Barack Obama's lead and going the extra mile to push themseleves toward excelllence rather than the status quo.

Over the last three weeks, I have had a fair number of conversations with major and indie label executives as well as concert promoters and music publishers. Bouncing between uptown HQs in New York and the Lower East Side during CMJ certainly brought out the dichotomy that makes the music industry so confusing these days.
And then Obama won the election. It brought out some clarity about what's so desperatley missing whether you're tryign to figure out how to pay the mortgage, get to the next gig or add to your collection of copyrights: The need, no matter what walk of life you are in, to have individuals to believe in.
The music industry is struggling to find those worthy individuals. Those tiny Gotham clubs were packed during CMJ with people praying they had found an artist who could lead.
But it's not just the fans. I swear you can tell the smart executives from the guys attracted to the perks just by talking about legends. I thik back on people I have been taking about in recent weeks - Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, Stax and Elektra in the '60s - subjects that bring out passion, knowledge and anecdotes among execs charged with finding a way to create new stars and new hits. It's not nostalgia on their part, just a sense that music and musicians once stood for something that has disappeared from the current landscape.
Obama arrives and I sense he will inspire a nation to take a look in the mirror. May they all realize how superficial our culture has become.

For the record, Madonna was the 89th concert I attended this year and I have now seen 238 acts this year. The goal is 100 shows/300 acts.

My column this week for Daily Variety concerns the CMJ Music Marathon in New York. Here are a few more thoughts from CMJ chief Bobby Habert, specifically on parties and last year's dust-up over whether some applicants were never listened to.
"We're dealing with 1,000 bands playing officially and 500 to 1,000 play unofficially, five or six gigs. Clearly there's a bit of anarchy but I don't discourage it.
"My only concern is when people who should participate choose not to. It's annoying when people appropriate the CMJ name but in New York there's no way to police it.
"The parties are a necessary evil. Bands can play outside of CMJ and from a consumer's point of view it's a 24/7 event for a week. The benefits outweigh the liabilities."
In regards to last year's complaints that bands were not being listened to: "There have been (no complaints) this year. We have used Sonic Bids as our technical partner for four years. Last year we saw simultaneously how wonderful and evil the Internet could be. "There's a streaming tool on Sonic Bids that chalks up the numbers of listeners. Some people decided we were rejecting bands without listening (based on no recorded streams). We download and audition.But the din was so loud (our response) fell on deaf ears."
From my perspective, Tuesday night's CMJ highlights are Bowery Ballroom with Lykke Li, Friendly Fires, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson and Micachu; Middle Distance Runner at Crash Mansion; Belleville Outift and Del McCoury Band at Highline Ballroom; Vivian Girls at Red Bull Space; and the bill at Union Pool of Phil and the Osophers, Army Navy and the Poison Control Center.
It has been almost a month since I did a concert tally and since then I have seen 27 acts at eight shows, leaving me with 20 concerts and 91 acts left to see to hit my goal of 100 shows/300 acts. 

The last several weeks have put me in small rooms with singer-songwriters performing for other invited guests, the ultimate goal being that someone takes note and when a record is released they will remember the beauty of the intimate performance.
These are showcases and not so much gigs, though occasionally they will be held in public places in the early evening, the audience might even include a few people who know the artists' work and do not have a business relationship with the performer.
Armed with my theory that the average newcomer in the singer-songwriter arena is going to need film and TV placement - no guarantee of a hit or stardom, just rent money - I find myself listening for those bits of songs that would be perfect for driving home a character's state of mind or songs with both mood and story. That filter in place, the results were a bit startling: The artist whose music I knew and liked best came off the worst; a female duo with good songs have created perfect, mad- for-TV blocks of 45 seconds in every tune; and the guy whose debut album is rumored to be overproduced has a satchel full of solid, honest songs filled with strong wordplay.

There are records from our youth that endure. Time can't tamper with them, changing tastes can't remove them from our hearts, our opinions of the creators might be altered but  our feelings for the work do not diminish. They are ours and ours alone. It's music that hits on a primal level and sticks, like our affection for some obscure second baseman  or the taste of particular hamburger. Only decades later, after revisiting childhood landmarks or looking in the record books, do we realize the truly personal aspect of that connection.
Only in art and music do we really have the opportunity to revisit those moments from our teen years and attempt to look, through adult eyes, at something we held dear logn ago. Is what I heard as an 11-year-old or saw as a ninth grader or experienced when I first climbed behind the wheel of the a car as good as I thought it was back then?
Graham Nash's debut solo album from 1971, "Songs for Beginners," has prompted this re-examination of the heart and memory. For me, it was a monumental effort, a musical manifestation of a crushed man attempting to find a light at the end of a tunnel, one of those first records to enter the collection and truly be affecting. Its not a stretch to say I memorized every aspect of this album when I was 13.  His voice, eloquent and pleading on "Crosby, Stills & Nash" and "Deja Vu," was the initial attraction; that he had so much to say about the human condition was the secondary appeal and ultimately the key to its staying power.
But when I purchased the Atlantic Records version on CD I wondered what the fuss was about. The sound was horrifying. It reduced what had been a rich and layered album to a one-dimensional, lifeless album that sounded more like a demo tape than a finished product. Significantly, Nash's voice no longer had rage or pain, that I heard loud and clear on my vinyl copy.
The Rhino reissue has remedied that. The new version, which comes out Tuesday and contains a CD and 5.1 DVD-A remastered at 48k/24 bit is a reminder of how alive this recording is.
This is an album of depth and truth. Fresh from a breakup with Joni Mitchell, it's Nash exposing his wounds in the lyrics, in the delivery, in the piercing cry of Jerry Garcia's pedal steel and even the gunshot quality of the drumming on the larger songs. It's pensive and quiet on numbers such as "Wounded Bird" and "Man in the Mirror," then turns majestic and determined on "I Used to be a King" and "There's Only One."
Living in  an age in which kids think that setting diary entries to music constitutes a song, here is the Rosetta Stone of emotional archaeology. Thankfully, its power has been fully restored.

I have reduced the rather clumsy title of this  (mostly) weekly column  that gets into the personal rather than the newsworthy. In the last week I have been to four concerts and seen five acts; to get to 100 concerts and 300 acts ina year, I have 30 shows and 123 acts to go.

It's always a treat when an artist sends you back into the library to pull out old vinyl or CDs that you have not thought about for awhile. Kurt Elling, the jazz singer, and the saxophonist Ernie Watts are touring with a tribute to "John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman," the album of duets they recorded on March 7, 1963. The album  is one of those distinctly beautiful and romantic albums that any jazz fan would hold onto it with a hope to someday share it; it's jazz at its most sensual and inviting.
Hartman's baritone, Trane's tenor sax and McCoy Tyner's supple piano take the album's six ballads at a relaxed pace, each note articulated with warmth and belying the fact that there was little, if any, rehearsal for the work. It reflected Coltrane's mood at the time, his most recent recordings being the equally sensitive "Ballads" and his collaboration with Duke Ellington. (Their "Prelude to a Kiss" still sends shivers).
Elling and Watts, whose best known work has been with Charlie Haden's Quartet West, add a string quartet and take their program into more upbeat terrain. Thursday at USC's Bing Theater, "Coltrane and Hartman" was a starting point - two of the album's cuts, "Lush Life" and "Autumn Serenade," went into a medley with "What's New" and  "My One and Only Love" was partnered "Nancy (With the Laughing  Face)." The emphasis was Coltrane, with Elling using his voice in the styles of both Hartman and Trane. He connected in the baritone with the singer, using flourishes, some of them wordless, to channel a Coltrane improvisation.
Watts has a tone substantially  different from Coltrane. Trane's playing at the time was moans, caresses and hallelujahs; Watts opts for pleas, promises and linear thought. Pianist Laurence Hobgood, who has been with Elling for 15 years, combined Tyner's romanticism with some of Bill Evans'' pensiveness in addition to writing the arrangements for the evening.
There are no plans at this time to record the program, which also includes Coltrane versions of "Bessie's Blues," "All of Nothing at All and "Say It (Over and Over Again)."   Elling, who now records for Concord after a decade with Blue Note, is in the early stages of selecting songs with producer Don Was for his next album.   
On a side note, Elling has one of the most interesting collection of links I have ever seen on a website.

For the record, my quest to attend 100 shows and see 300 acts this year is down to  34 shows and 128 acts to go.

The tough call in reviewing is almost always how much of curve is one willing to grade on when it comes to a legend.
Recently, Glen Campbell, Solomon Burke and Steely Dan made it easy. Campbell, for example,showed up with a big band of ace rock and country musicians capable of re-creating his current album and his hits from the '60s. The others were impeccable.
Some acts you go in knowing it might be  a struggle. Crosby, Stills and Nash can't find a note to save their lives on some nights, but if they don't embarrass themselves or tarnish their legacy they get the benefit of the doubt. Al Green is chief among the artists whose careers began in the '60s and '50s who always gives a good show yet rarely a great one.
Then there's Bob Dylan, the ultimate iconoclast. How in the world does one judge one of his performances without basing the quality of the show on the critic's experiences? Can a show's greatness be determined by a setlist? Can the abilities of the backing band scale the bar that separates good from great? Can exuberance in Bob's vocals make up for problems in pitch?
It seems like anyone seeing Dylan for the first times, whether they are a critic or an observer making a post on a website, cut considerable slack for Bob and his crusty vocal delivery. For those of us who see nearly every show on every tour, a line has to be drawn between nitpicking and deciding whether he is as good as he could be on any given night. I gave a thumbs down to Wednesday night's show, one of the last concerts on his North America trek, even though he thrilled another critic or two.
In this case it's personal. My odyssey with Dylan recordings began when I was 10 and I acquired Dylan's "Greatest Hits." "Positively Fourth Street" hit like few other songs; "Blowin' in the Wind" felt like it was 100 years old. I kept buying more records until the Dylan section was the largest in my collection. That occurred when I was in high school and remained true for a decade after college. "Blood on the Tracks," released when I was 15,was one of those life-changing records, music that makes you see the world through a different set of eyes.
As far as concerts go, my first  came in 1978, when Dylan was wearing the clear mask and traveling with a good-sized band, many of the musicians carrying over from the Rolling Thunder Revue that never got closer than 1,500 miles to my home.
But over the years I never got that great Dylan show, regardless of whether I was seeing him in New York, Philly, Boston or L.A. A Hollywood Bowl show came close, but it was not until the December 1997 run at the El Rey that I finally saw a great one, a concert worthy of his stature that made the songs all magical. Night one of the El Rey stand was my 14th Dylan concert, bringing about a monumental shift in my desire to see him every time he visits.
That run from 1997 to 2002 really spoiled us, and for a good three or four years after that it was quite easy to cut him a break, especially when he was moving between piano and guitar. Wednesday night it felt like Bob forced my critical and fan sides into a corner, making it hard to defend his 100 minutes onstage. He's still the greatest, he just does not look it.

One of the most common questions I am asked regards rights, as in "who gave the Democrats the rights to use that awful song after Barack Obama's excellent speech last night?" It evolves into a discussion about the difference between synch/mechanical rights and a writer's copyright, which is not even clear when the all-sample work of Girls Talk is explained by someone who might understand the issue and still draws no distinction between a recording and a copyright.
Using a performer's recording, like John Williams' Olympics themes, can be a big payday for the writer, but a writer needs to make sure that when their songs are covered, they are still credited. Like the people who may or may not have written the Elmore James hit "Done Somebody Wrong," perhaps best known  by the Allman Brothers Band's cover.
I had been looking at a few of their set lists since the Allmans resumed touring on the heels of Gregg Allman's recovery from hepatitis C. One of my favorite bands ever and an addiction I have never been able to shake, I was jonesing for a little Duane Allman and Dickey Betts interplay so I threw on disc 2 of the 2006 edition of "Eat a Peach."
Scanning the liner notes, I noticed "Done Somebody Wrong" was credited to James, Clarence L. Lewis and everybody's favorite white bluesman in a business suit with mob ties, Morris Levy. For some reason, I had never noticed Levy's name in the credits for the song and wondered if it had always been an oversight on my part.
On the original vinyl of "Live at the Fillmore East," which is the first place most of us ever heard the tune, lists the songwriting credit as Lewis, James, David C. Thomas and Morgan Robinson. Lewis and Robinson were something of a team, writing songs such as Lee Dorsey's "Ya-Ya" with their "co-writer" Levy. Who Thomas is remains a mystery.
In 1992, Polygram issued a complete, two-CD edition of the Fillmore East recordings from 1971 and credited "Done Somebody Wrong"to the team of Lewis, James and Levy. But when it came time for Universal to issue a version of the album - in 2003 through its Mercury Chronicles unit - the writing credit was changed to just Elmore James.
Perhaps not too oddly, James gets the lone credit on the song Rhino Records' "Very Best Of" issued in 2000.
A significant reason I lament the digital migration of music to Internet services such as iTunes is the absence of this arcana - the list of musicians on tracks, songwriting and producing credits, recording dates, etc. So many of my peers grew up not just on the albums, but the information held within and these days listeners who limit their purchases to Apple do not even get the benefit of having the label listed. "Live at Fillmore East" brought a fair number of new names to my world as a 13-year-old - specifically James, Willie McTell and T-Bone Walker - that exposed me to a world I did not know existed, and I have long credited the combination of credits on records and curiosity for my insatiable desire to consume as much music as possible. (Last weekend my soundtrack while I was cooking was Mosaic Records' T-Bone Walker set; that stuff has an enduring appeal even if many of the songs are structured exactly the same way).
There's no way to know how many other tunes fit the example of "Done Somebody Wrong" and one wonders how vigilant an heir needs to be to ensure that money from their ancestors' work is going to the right places and is in the right amount. Technology may short change a good number of artists down the road as all it will take is the wrong information being printed once and then repeated; it's bad enough that "American idol" does not require that songwriters be properly credited when the contestants give the wrong name before a song. It's small, but it's one more step toward crushing our musical heritage and the writers upon whose work the American songbook is built. And in the case of Levy, the business executives who stole from the creatives.

As I continue my quest to get to 100 shows and see 300 acts this year, I have slipped a bit lately, making it to two only three shows in the last two weeks and seen six acts. I have 41/136 to go.

Used to be that the music played over the PA before the headliner came out was handpicked by the artist and even if it was incongruous with the act, it somehow connected with the overall statement. The Beach Boys’ collection of instrumentals “Stack-O-Tracks” was played before every show on Neil Young’s”Rust Never Sleeps” tour; once music by the Beatles or John Lennon was heard at a U2 show, the audience would get restless as it was a sign Bono and the guys would be onstage soon; Tom Waits has long played music that sounds like it was recorded decades before he was born.
The other night, though, was absolutely magical. Three songs played in the lead-up to Inara George’s show with Van Dyke Parks at Largo were astounding revelations: Mixed together, they were essentially the sound, atmosphere and attitude of the entire George-Parks show. Elaine Stritch singing “Ladies Who Lunch” from “Company,” an Edith Piaf tune and Caetano Veloso’s Tropicalia tune “Maria Bethania” — toss ‘em in a blender and you have a complete idea of what the night was like – minus the French, of course. I wish every show was like this.
Nothing is worse than pre-concert music that has absolutely nothing in common with the artist about to take the stage – rap before a country act, for example – and it stuns me that an artist’s management would tolerate it. Off the mark, too, is playing music by the artist that will soon take the stage. I am finding that to be a regular occurrence in the hallways and box office area at Staples Center in L.A. It does no favors to the act or their fans. Maybe the recording being played is no longer in the set or radically altered - why remind the patron of a recording's sound co close to curtain?
You need something like the vintage blues and country that played before John Mellencamp’s recent show at the Greek Theatre. The music itself probably does not appeal to his fan base but it shares tone and texture with Mellencamp’s latest CD. I’m guessing John’s guys handled the music; if left up to the promoter or venue operator, they’d probably opt for some sort of “classic rock ‘80s mix” featuring Rod Stewart and Bob Seger.
Sure it’s speculation, but I figure the more performers think about the environment their fans are in – from the time the doors open until the house lights go on after the encores – the more the act will be appreciated.
In my quest to get to 100 concerts and see 300 acts this year, I am now have  44 shows and 142 performers to go.

Bob Belden, a fine producer, selected five neglected jazz masterpieces and came up with an intriguing list that covers a pretty broad spectrum and includes one of my favorite woodwind players, Bennie Maupin.
It's a lists that makes a critic believe there are other people out there with questions rattling around their brains about the endurance of art and music. "What's new that I should be listening to?" is the a common question, I would imagine for any critic but I invariably want to talk about music that they should have been listening to over the last 10-20-30 years.
(That's the beauty of reissues: They have the ability to get people talking about great music that disappears. Jeff Beck performed at a recent tribute to George Martin here in L.A., sparking talk about his greatness and how to go about collecting Beck's work. Thankfully, the early stuff received some nice reissues two years ago.)
But back to jazz. Belden’s got a fine list, but once again it positions jazz as strictly a catalog art form. Obviously, it’s tough to pick out “masterpieces” while they are still fresh, but Belden's list got me to thinking what are the jazz albums that dazzled me upon release that did not receive canonization down the road and yet remain vital.
A line had to be drawn somewhere  somewhere in the late 1980s, when the Wynton Marsalis effect has resuscitated and pigeonholed jazz at the same time. My choices are a bit freer than Belden's and four of the five picks are from pianists, which I did not set out to do although I will admit that I consider the 1990s a golden age for the piano trio.
A highly personal list of five overlooked jazz gems from the last 20 years, in alphabetical order:
Orrin Evans – “Meant to Shine” (Palmetto, 2002) A hard bop pianist from Philadelphia whose imagination seems endless, “meant to Shine” succeeds in moving the mind and the soul. Earlier albums “Captain Black” exposed him as a fine composer and “Grown Folk Bizness” displayed his interpretive skills; “Meant to Shine” cemented all the praise he had received as a  talent to watch.

Benny Green – “Testifyin’” (Blue Note, 1992) A live trio recording with Green on piano, Christian McBride on bass and Carl Allen on drums. Original compositions are stellar; the communication between the three is on a level rarely heard; and the concept of presenting the trio as a single unit, rather than a combination of solos and support work, is consistently apparent.

Cooper-Moore “The Beautiful” (Aum, 2005) Avant-garde pianist Cooper-Moore leads a trio that is precise in its knowledge of when to shake up the music to keep it from settling in and becoming comfortable. Not a moment is truly jarring; every idea gets played out as even the craziness ultimately makes sense.

Tomasz Stanko – “Suspended Night” (ECM, 2004) An absolutely gorgeous album from the Polish trumpeter who finally made some inroads in the States after working for 40 years in Europe. His band had been together for almost 10 years at the point this was recorded and none of his sidemen had entered their 30s. Balladry is Stanko’s strong suit and as long as the listener is willing to go with him on the ride, the journey is quite fruitful.

Randy Weston - “Spirits of Our Ancestors” (Antilles, 1991)  The bop-oriented pianist had been recording for 35 years when he ventured into a string of three albums under the aegis of portraits. First two, devoted to the music of Ellington and Monk, were winners that re-solidified him as a significant contributor. He followed that trio with “Spirits,” an album that reconnected him with the arranger Melba Liston. A 12-piece group that included Dewey Redman, Pharaoh Sanders and Dizzy Gillespie made this one of the best efforts connecting Africa with American jazz.
Unfortunately, I did not get to hear any live jazz last week, but I did attend five concerts and see nine acts, among them the Hold Steady and Gnarls Barkley,  to make it 47 shows and 147 performers to go in my quest to hit 100/300.

Q: Comic-Con is all anyone is talking about this week. Why is there no Music-Con?
A: Would that not be wonderful - music fans given the opportunity to interact with the musicians who are important to them and labels providing sneak peeks into what will be coming out over the next several months. But here's the reality: The people who travel to Comic-Con - regardless of whether they are dressed in costume - have a vested interest in character, a story, an artist, etc. It's not all that different than the L.A. Times Book Fair at which zillions of authors display their wares and make contact with readers. The music industry has always enjoyed a buffer between the public and the artist whether it be radio or retail, allowing those gatekeepers to handle the introductions between the creators and those who adore them. Just as the majors have been slow to grasp how to deal with the change in the retail landscape, so, too, have they been slow to to embrace the new generation of third parties who can provide artist access in conunction with their operations.
There is really only one place where passionate music fans can connect with artists in convention setting and that's Fan Fair in Nashville which, like Comic-Con, has grown enormous and been turned into CMA Fest.
The fan-boys have all of their paraphernalia and want to collect more; last I checked, no one has been able to sign a download - and that's the one product labels are most interested in selling. A Music-Con, one that would bring together new and established artists, producers and others who could tell stories - and not just pitch a product or look at a crowd with disdain, would be a welcome addition to the fan world.

Q: If someone is going to a local festival, any idea who they are likley to see?
A: Certainly. After charting out about six festivals occurring between now and the end of Labor Day weekend, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are the act most likely to appear at a festival.Black Keys are also a popular booking on the fest circuit.

Q: When Danger Mouse made the "Gray Album" he was considered something of a genius. When "Crazy" was played every hour on every radio station in America he became a bona-fide genius and Cee-Lo was working his way up the genius ladder, too. Now they're starting a U.S. tour and nobody's talking about them. Why?
A: Danger Mouse - Brian Burton - has become the Eric Mangini of pop music. A year with a winning record and the New York Jets coach is a genius  and making a cameo on "The Sopranos"; the next year he can only win 25% of the games and he's lucky to be the stiff in the first reel on "Law & Order." So Mouse, or Mr. Burton as the New York Times likes to write, is doing things like producing Beck's album and making sure he something to fall back on if the Gnarls thing does not rebound.
Truth be told, in the fickle world of pop music, the Downtown/Atlantic Records team stuck with making "Crazy" the song that everyone everywhere heard and delayed the release of second, third and even fourth singles. They got a little traction with "Gone Baby Gone," but nothing to signal that it was still worth working the first album. Second album gets released and there's no "Crazy," or even a reasonable facsimile. Gnarls Barkley gets labeled a one-song band and is busy playing the Slow Food Nation Festival and being referred to as  "the guys who sing 'Crazy'" rather than a serious band that delivers a fine concert.

Q: What's the deal with the Mr. Burton thing in the New York Times. Why do they always have to use the real names of hip-hop artists?
A: That issue was raised in a rather interesting story by the Columbia Journalism Review. What is more intriguing is that soon after this was written, the Times did a profile of Beck Hansen in which he is never referred to as Mr. Hansen. he is Beck. Nowhere else in the paper is anyone referred to by their first name. Brian Burton is, of course, Mr. Burton; the Ramones were always treated as if that's what it says on their birth certificates.

Q: You are tracking the number of concerts you attend in 2008. What's that number up to?
A: Counting tonight's Diana Ross show at the Hollywood Bowl I will have 52 shows and 156 acts left to see in my quest to hit 100 concerts/300 acts in the year.

On the face of it, Rick Rubin's idea to have Crosby, Stills & Nash do an album of covers sounds like an "American Idol" for the AARP crowd.
The members of this trio are first and foremost songwriters, and one has to wonder how they might come up with a collection of tunes that won't make them sound like Johnny-Cash-come-latelys.
CSN -and the guy known as Y - were an important act to me in my formative years, so when this news broke I have to admit to being keenly interested. David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills qualify for Social Security right now so I am guessing they want to mix the old with the new, displaying how older material can be relevant and how the old guys can interpret the new stuff. All the songs are by well-known acts they have said.
Their unreleased version of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin" made it onto the reissue of their debut album so I am guessing that's out for the Rubin album. Otherwise the songs I'd like to see them tackle are:

Coldplay "Yellow"
Los Lobos - "Angels With Dirty Faces"
Bob Dylan - "Simple Twist of Fate"/"Mr. Tambourine Man"/"The Mighty Quinn"
Tom Petty - "Crawling Back to You"/"Mary Jane's Last Dance"
Elton John - "Come Down in Time"
John Legend - "Save Me"
Bruce Springsteen - "If I Should Fall Behind"
Oasis - "Wonderwall"
Jayhawks - "Blue"/"Waiting for the Sun"
Pink Floyd - "Wish You Were Here"
Paul Simon - "Old Friends"/"Graceland"
U2 - "Where the Streets Have No Name"
Ryan Adams - "When the Stars Go Blue"
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Dani California"
Buddy Holly -"Everyday"

Only made it out see three shows last week taking my quest to hit 100 shows and see 300 artists in 2008 down to 59 and 165.
Meanwhile, on the stereo
Home: Jason Reeves "The Magnificent Adventures of Heartache"; the Moody Blues; "Elton John"; Benji Hughes "A Love Extreme"; John Mellencamp "Life, Death, Love and Freedom"; Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis "Two Men With the Blues; Phil Ochs' "I Ain't Marching Anymore"
Car: Peter Salett "In the Ocean of the Stars"; Eric Hutchinson; the Moody Blues' "Days of Future Passed"

The front row - not the place Bob Uecker used to sit in his Miller Lite ads but the chair that puts the patron against the stage with no one other than the occasional security guard or photographer to get in the way.
Despite having been to at least a thousand concerts, the shows at which I had front row seats are easy to tally. There have been five of them: Rickie Lee Jones at the Tower in Philadelphia in 1979; Lucero, the singer from Mexico, at Universal Amphitheater in 1996; Tom Waits at the Wiltern in '99; Bruce Springsteen at Pantages on the "Devils & Dust" tour; and American Idols Live at Staples Center last week.
Great as it was to see Springsteen and Waits in that proximity, it's an odd sensation sitting that close, craning your neck and trying to digest all the activity, especially at a show that iinvolves a fari amount of movement. It's better than being at the back of the arena  - I know from experience - but neither position makes it easy to properly critique a show. With the 10 "AI" finalists pacing back and forth across the stage, my view was either so close I could read brand names on their jeans or else partially blocked and half a basketball court away disconnecting our micro-section from the rest of the show. The good news was that it was never very loud though I was rather shocked the audience felt little need to get out of their seats.
Not to complain about a frotn row ticket but placement of critics, one would think, would be important to artists, labels and promoters -  and there are plenty who understand that. (As a person who also covers legit theater, I am almost always placed in the same seats every time I go see a musical, play or opera. That sort of consistency is almost unheard of in the concert industry).
Since there are venues that consistently place critics within the first 20 rows and on aisles, it's bizarre to be placed in a seat with neither good sound nor sight lines; if one is in a row with a group of critics it's easy to shrug your shoulders and figure that's what management wanted. When you're alone, though, you half wonder what you have done wrong to deserve this sort of treatment.
Anyone who is interested in doing the job just wants to be treated consistently. I admit that my appreciation of the Greek, Royce Hall at UCLA and the new Nokia come from being seated in spots where the sound is great; while I am never extremely close at the Hollywood Bowl or Walt Disney Concert Hall, I am always close enough to get a good sense of how an act sounds. Other venues are a crap shoot.   
People complain that the media gets the best seats but that's a bit of hogwash: Agents and managers and their friends are in the best seats in the house - ANY house.
The front row was interesting for a night, but I long to be back on the side, one section removed from the lip of the stags, about half way up from the floor. That's a dream seat in an arena - and there's probably agent sitting in it.

Only made it out see the Idol show this week taking my quest to hit 100 shows and see 300 artists in 2008 down to 62 and 169.
Meanwhile, on the stereo
At home: David Bowie "Live Sana Monica '72"; Wynton Marsalis & Willie Nelson "Two Men With the Blues"; Various artists "Nuggets"; Baseball Project "Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails"; Princeton "Bloomsbury"; Bob James "Explosions"; Los Lonely Boys "Fragile"; Roedelius "Inlandish"; Graham Nash "Songs for Beginners"; Kluster "Volcano"; Jenny Scheinman; Holy Modal Rounders "Indian War Whoop"; John Martyn "Live at Leeds and More"; Thelonious Monk "Mulligan Meets Monk"
In the car: Beck "Modern Guilt"; "The Dark Knight" original score; John Mellencamp "Life Death Love and Freedom"; Henry Grimes "The Call"

Give Arthur Lee credit for keeping his stories straight. The late legendary leader of Love was a voracious storyteller, the sort of man who could tell you three different tales in three days – all of them plausible – and ultimately only repeat the one that most closely resembled the truth.
It dawned on me while watching “Love Story,” a film Chris Hall and Mike Kerry that makes its DVD debut on July 29. Here was Arthur tooling around L.A. talking about walking from Dorsey High to the Capitol Records tower to deliver a demo tape; Bryan Maclean providing an anecdote about the Ben Frank’s diner; and orchestrator David Angel talking about Lee’s ability to verbalize how strings should sound despite his ignorance regarding musical notation. And then there’s the issue about the band members being underage when they signed their contracts and the day the session musicians showed up at a studio to replace the band.
The stories all align with anecdotes Lee gave me when I profiled him for LA Weekly and then wrote liner notes for Rhino’s Love boxed set. For a guy whose mind was allegedly messed up by copious drug use, when he stayed focused he had a remarkable ability to deliver specific details, often quite colorfully.
The Love DVD is part of a July deluge of documentaries on fascinating rock n’ rollers: Kerri O’Kane’s “The Gits” comes out July 8 on the heels of a theatrical release in several cities; the Joe Strummer film “The Future is Unwritten” is released the same day; and "CSNY: Deja Vu" hits theaters July 25.
All four films admirably cover their subjects; while “Love” and “Future” are purely musical, “Gits” chronicles a band and examines the murder of singer Mia Zapata and “Déjà Vu” weighs heavily toward anti-Iraq War efforts in the U.S., a number of which involve Neil Young and Stephen Stills.
The Love and the Gits movies concern possibilities more than celebrate achievement. Conversely, the Strummer and CSNY movies explore the adverse effects of success, from the sense of loss and isolation as fame creeps in and the expectations of fans.  Strummer is a mess once the Clash conquer America; he gets worse in the years after the band imploded. CSNY evolves, during a tour that finds many of its performances critically maligned, from a confused and bloated lot to a band unified around a concept and a leader. The reviews get better as the band takes greater control of the material and the message.
The eras covered tap recent history without slipping into the “Behind the Music” formula. The “redemption” chapter of “BTMs” would have some shifting definitions in these four pics. Lee’s incarceration in the 1990s is not mentioned so his return to the concert stage to celebrate “Forever Changes” is not as dramatic as it could have been. Zapata’s bandmates and family get a taste of closure when her murder is sentenced but the coda is not celebratory. The Strummer doc is remarkably invigorating — the sadness is his death at 50. By the end of “Déjà Vu,” on the other hand, the first three letters in CSNY are not in Young’s ballpark musically, a gap that does not close enough between the film’s beginning and conclusion.
All four of the films concerned eras of interest that have occurred during my lifetime. Naturally, I wish I had been a L.A. teenager in Love’s heyday; “Déjà Vu” and “Future is Unwritten” touch nerves that fuse the musical and the political as well provide nostalgia trips to my teen years; the Gits emerged at a time when those of us obsessed with rock ‘n’ roll were turning over every stone to find the next great American band. Each of them are inspiring in their own way: Artists who blaze their own paths wind up being the leaders who become memorialized. And it can still be done today.

Album list is getting too numerous due to a week's vacation. Concert list, however, is now at 63/179 in my quest to hit 100 concerts/300 acts.

Soon after "The Sopranos" debuted, HBO held a symposium with the creators and talent that was, needless to say, jam-packed. James Gandolfini, aka Tony Sorpano, talked about his own Italian-American upbringing, remarking "I was taught to judge people based on their shoes."
Call me naive, but when my Midwestern-Jewish wife heard the comment, she thought it was hysterical and absurd. I, the son of a New York Italian mother raised in L.A.'s suburbs, thought it was generational rather than an ethnic tick. Besides, I was also taught to look at the watch, too.
The same holds true for Louis Prima. When the film "Big Night"; was released in 1998, any number of people - even those who loved the film - responded, "who's Louis Prima" or questioned how big a deal Prima might be.
Seeing as how Prima was one of the single biggest-selling artists of the pre-rock 'n' roll era, one would think that his name would flow off the tongue as easily as the names Sinatra and Bennett. In truth, though, Sinatra's fans were the youths of the '30s and '40s; Bennett's name held forth in the trinity in Astoria, Queens, in the 1950s and then North Beach come 1962 but nothign like he has enjoyed over the last decade and a half. It was Prima, though, who united the generations - and he kicked his career into second gear at time when Mussolini was the most famous Italian name in the world.
The reintroduction of Prima to American culture - via David Lee Roth, Brian Setzer and the Gap - has always felt steps away from the depth of his artistry. Keely Smith restored some of that spirit in a recent album that took her back to Las Vegas in 1958 and re-created their shows of the time. The substance there, however, related to Keely as she was coming into her own, drawing raves for her singing and comedic timing. She and Prima would be among the winners at the first-ever Grammy Awards at the time.
The spirit of Smith and Prima is on display in a delightful show receiving its world premiere at L.A.'s Sacred Fools Theater. I think it has tremendous potential; the LA Weekly thinks it's great as is.
Anyone who sees it - provided they entered as a fan of the singers - should see that this is an era of multiple untold stories: The effect of rock 'n' roll on anyone who made a living playing music prior to its arrival, specifically the jazz players stuck in a post-big band, post-bebop world in desperate need of visionaries. The pop and country worlds, too, were fraying and R&B, beyond Ray Charles, was in a transition from the big voices to the smooth harmonies. It's much like today: stars of a decade ago are no longer employable at their star levels and modern pop music is driven by songs rather than artists.
Prima stood tall in that era and he got there through perseverance and dedication to both craft; and his audience as "Louis and Keely Live at the Sahara"; Keely revisited the era with her "Vegas '58 - Today"; album in 2005 - she is now working on an album of duets - and Prima's work gets in due in sots through reissues of the earliest jazz work, the Capitol years and the later records. Those are strong bodies of work, it's not just "Jump, Jive and Wail."
That was a tough time that history has treated as some sort of paranoid wasteland. WWII ends and over time they become the greatest generation; JFK, the Beatles, the Pill and protests define the next set.
Pop culture, meanwhile, locks in the artists from the years between V-Day and Elvis's initial hits in iconographic poses that represent a single trait. Marlon Brando, the picture of toughness, gets reduced to shouting "Stella" in a sweat-stained T-shirt and complaining about his lack of a boxing career; Jackie Gleason, the Great One, is stuck in a loop of a wordless stammer; James Dean is commercialized cool, celebrated for the way he stood rather than his acting talent. Too often they are used strictly as symbols of a time or a mood - Chet Baker, anyone? - and not given their due as artists. Count Prima in that class.
The amount of dissertation spent on the artistry of the late 1940s/early '50s; pales in comparison to all the nooks and crannies of WWII and the '60s that have been explored. The retelling of history of that period has never thoroughly come down from the top shelf of Sinatra, Brando, Ed Sullivan, Walt Disney, Ike, Charlie Parker and Brother Ray. We're stuck looking at that period through mythology, the "Happy Days" and "American Hot Wax"; versions. It makes show like "Louis & Keely" that much more important.

Went to three concerts and saw six acts to take the year's tally to 66/183 in my quest to hit 100 concerts/300 acts.

Chicago and the Doobie Brothers perform two shows this week at the Gibson Amphitheatre, yet another summer tour double bill that has made Chicago one of the strongest B.O. attractions at amphitheaters over the last several years.
Previous years have featured Earth, Wind & Fire, America and Huey Lewis & the News, but this year's trek will bring Chicago fans in contact with a set of fans who have something in common: An feeling that their band is being unfairly snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Well one side is right, despite there being a number of striking parallels. Both acts came of age in the early 1970s playing distinctive music that had only a modicum of a link to a 1960s sound; both had minor hits with covers, Chicago doing Spencer Davis Group's "I'm a Man" and the Doobies with the Byrds' "Jesus is Just All Right"; they had success using different vocalists; and their signature sound at the end of the decade bore little resemblance to the sound they started with. At various times in the 1970s, they were among the five most popular bands in the U.S.
The Doobies, out of San Jose in Northern California, delivered magical harmonies and a blueprint for rock music that drew on a range of elements; few acts fused hard rock and boogie with a front porch sensibility so convincingly; you can't tell me that the Dave Matthews Band does not rely on a similar formula.
Chicago, on the other hand, were revolutionaries. "CTA," "Chicago," "III," "V," "VI" and "XI" pushed the limits on conceptual boundaries and displayed superb musicianship. And they had hits, which has somehow been labeled as a sin over time.

It would not surprise me if many people who went to their first concerts in the 1970s or earlier remember being taken aback the first time they saw a corporate sponsor on a bill. Case in point: the Who on their alleged final trek under the sponsorship banner of Schlitz. It was not the quality of the product that troubled music fans, it was the idea that an entity not in the business of concert promotion was now involved in a show, forcing its agenda, possibly stealth-like, and somehow tampering with the fans’ altruistic idea of the performer.
Twenty five years later and distrust out the door: We’re shocked when there is not a sponsor listed on the ticket along side the name of the promoter. Oddly enough, this week saw two events that may well become new models for the concert business and I’m not sure if the one that involves just the standard promoter is the safer bet for consumers.
First, Alicia Keys came to Los Angeles on a tour overseen by Lexus. Not Lexus and a promoter, just the car company. Call it subliminal propositional marketing: You came for a concert, but you need a car and if you can afford these tickets, you might well soon want a bit of affordable luxury in your next vehicle. Care to test drive an ES or IS?
On Thursday Madonna announced her first tour with Live Nation under her 10-year, $100 million pact with the concert promoter. The dates themselves were of paramount concern, but deep in the details on the trek was a note that can be translated thusly: In Europe, Madonna and Live Nation are in bed with a company that facilitates the resale of concert tickets, aka, the secondary marketplace. It’s not scalping per se, just a facilitator of the resale of tickets, most likely at a price significantly above face value.

Absence can be a tricky gambit in music, one taken in the past week by Portishead, Tom Petty’s first significant band and Steve Winwood. All three released impressive albums on April 29 with different attitudes toward past lives: Winwood is reconciling ‘70s and ‘80s personae; Mudcrutch reflects Petty’s take on a 1971-72 milieu; and Portishead discards its own history to create a take on the Nico-Dagmar Krause aesthetic with abundant industrial textures.
Portishead’s “Third,” the Brit trio’s first album in more than 10 years, is not only the most daring of the three, it may well be the most adventurous major label release of the year. Thematically dramatic and dark, with the enthralling Beth Gibbons singing about self-doubt and romance with an overriding sense of vulnerability, Portishead leaves its past in the dust. “Third” is a reinvention of a band, a second phase that occurred organically and was not forced to happen as the first phase lost artistic  or commercial currency.
That dilemma reached up and bit Winwood after his 1982-1990 reinvention as a purveyor of contemporary British blue-eyed soul and, whether planned or not, made his albums few and far between: “Nine Lives” is only his third album in 17 years, but the first to honestly connect Spencer Davis Group and Traffic with the more polished solo artist.
Winwood returned to his spot behind the keyboard after the release of 1997’s “Junction Seven.” Six years later, when String Cheese Incident’s label released his “About Time” album, which Sony later picked up, Winwood was positioned as a patriarch of the jam band scene. His handful of recent shows with Eric Clapton reconnected with the initial incarnation of the jam band universe, Blind Faith, again raising hope that Winwood connect the dots between past and present.
“Nine Lives” could use a little more organ and a couple of sax solos veer too close to smooth jazz, but otherwise the collection is full of smart, potent and forcefully delivered tracks. The presence of Clapton as a soloist suggests that relationship has the ability to still bear fruit and as white-boy funk goes, Winwood remains a master. Released by Columbia, it is a far better sounding record and more focused effort than “About Time,” the result of time and money.
Those two attributes are in evidence on the debut album of “Mudcrutch,” recorded in 10 days about 32 years after the band broke up. Mudcrutch features Heartbreakers Petty on bass, Mike Campbell on guitar and Benmont Tench on keyboards along with Tom Leadon on guitar and Randall Marsh on drums. They recorded a single for Asylum after moving to L.A. from Gainesville, Fla., that went nowhere; the band never got to release its version of “Don’t Do Me Like That.”
Beyond a reunion, Mudcrutch gave Petty a chance to experiment with doing things the old-fashioned way – write tunes in a hurry, record songs in a single take and do everything live. The procedure yielded a nine-minute Allmans-esque jam, Crystal River, about a half-dozen twists on the Flying Burrito Brothers including the bluegrass-inspired flatpicking on “June Apple” and a pop tune, “Oh Maria,” that could be part of the Heartbreakers’ arsenal.
Live, Mudcrutch and Portishead re-produced their records. Mudcrutch, at the Troubadour, was a tight country-rock band with a few fun covers (Dylan, the Killer), while Portishead was impressive in each individual performance but has yet to figure out a way to smoothly segue from their past to their present. Winwood will be opening shows this summer for Petty & the Heartbreakers; it may well be the season’s most interesting rock timeline on display.
Of the three albums, Portishead is the likely top-seller with predictions hovering around 50,000. Mudcrutch should do about half of that.

Since the last post, I have attended four concerts and seen 28 acts leaving me with 72 concerts and 184 acts to go on the path to 100/300.
On the stereo:
Car: Daniella Cotton “Rock N Soul”; Esperanza Spalding; Cinematic Orchestra “Live at the Royal Albert Hall”; Duffy “Rockferry”; Scarlett Johansson “Anywhere I Lay My Head”; Hayes Carll “Trouble in Mind”
Home: Jacob Young “Sideways”; Raconteurs “Consolers of the Lonely”; David Grisman Quintet “DGQ-20” (disc 2); Steve Miller Band box set (disc 2); Billy Bragg “Mr. Love & Justice”

If an artist cements a moment in time for the collective memory, does it make the creator a lifetime artist or the creation a masterpiece?
With Carole King, it appears to be both.
List the songs most commonly associated with Carole King and it's a reasonable suggestion that the list will be dominated by tracks on "Tapestry." "So Far Away." "You've Got a Friend," "Smackwater Jack." "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow." "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman." "Where You Lead." And the album's biggest single, "It's Too Late."
That 1971 release - a declaration from a woman known for writing singles presenting herself as an album artist - was a landmark album artistically, socially and economically. It demonstrated that a songwriter, even those with significant '60s legacies, could be a performer who provides sincere interpretations of their work; it cemented music's creative epicenter in Los Angeles instead of New York; and it convinced the biz that well-crafted albums of powerful, confessional material cane be accepted by the masses.
At the time, it was perceived as Carole King taking control. With Epic Legacys release of an expanded edition of the album, with a bonus CD of live solo takes recorded in '73 and '76, it becomes evident how much "Tapestry" was just as much the work of a producer as it was the artist.
Lou Adler's angle when he entered the studio with King, was a demo-tape feel enhanced at times by a small string section, according to Harvey Kubernik's liner notes. A central influence was June Christy's "Something Cool," specifically the manner in which the sequencing of tunes creates an emotional ride. (In  the realm of demo tape performances, few top Christy's "Cry me a River" with only Barney Kessel's guitar behind her).
In this deluxe edition presentation, however, it is the live recordings that have a demo tape feel; there's a distinct contrast between the way Adler effectively positioned King's voice against the music vs. the way King performs the tunes. (Solo, she enhances the rasp, eases up on the emotion and gets a little wobbly in her pitch). By the time the mid-'70s rolled around, though, it was pretty clear she was performing James Taylor's interpretation of "You've Got a Friend" rather than her more emotionally raw recording. Live tracks show limits in her voice that "Tapestry" conceals.
"Tapestry" achieved its landmark status about two years after its release. It spent 15 weeks at No. 1 - and would not leave the charts for six years - sold 24 million copies worldwide and led to King taking home four major Grammy Awards. And the music from the album felt fresh and inviting when King performed late last year with Taylor to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Troubadour.
King released another nine albums in the 1970s to bring her total for the decade to an astounding 11 yet none of the others captured an audience the way "Tapestry" did. I remember attending a King concert at Pauley Pavilion after the release of "Wrap Around Joy" - she let Waddy Wachtel handle every solo - and the L.A. Times review bemoaned the fact that the program was brought down by the abundance of "Tapestry" material. Obviously, it did not bother the audience.
Yet due to "Tapestry," King has a solid and unthreatened position in the rock canon. Consider it against modern female singers. Norah Jones will always have her "Tapestry" moment thanks to "Come Away With Me" and Madonna will have her hitmaking, culture-shaping legacy, but the woman who now sits at the top of pop singles chart history, Mariah Carey, has suddenly become a punching bag for reaching No. 1 more than any other solo artist.
It comes down to the fact that she has not created her own "Tapestry." Beyond her debut with the stunning "Vision of Love," Carey lacks a watershed moment or album; for all her success, she has not galvanized a nation except for her moments of bizarre behavior. And during her years of working with a Svengali-mogul who became her husband, many believed she was being given an unfair advantage.
Facts are facts though. She hit No. 1 seven times in 1990 and '91 and  2005 was dominated by "We Belong Together." Of her 18 hits though, only nine are remembered by the masses; two of those, "I'll Be There" and "Without You," have the benefit of being covers of hit songs; and another, "Fantasy," was sung over the melody of pre-existing record (Tom-Tom Club's "Genius of Love"). It practically reduces her career to "Emotions," "Always Be My Baby,"  "Visions of Love" and "We Belong Together" - an unfair reduction, certainly, as she has made some impressive records that did not hit No. 1. Down the road, though, will she be remembered for statistics, recovery or artistry, for integrating club and hip-hop techniques into pop music or public breakdowns?
She is the latest in a string of pop/R&B/rock artists who adapt with changing times and even forge new ground within a commercial realm. Chicago, Hall & Oates and others did that, too,  but longevity is written in scarlet at places such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Carole King is a survivor who has made bank on a 37-year-old collection of 12 songs and is cherished for never straying from the roots she planted a decade after being a central figure in Brill Building songwriting. Mariah Carey is a wanderer, whose music is just as crafted as "Tapestry" yet rarely comes across as the voice or inner thoughts of a single human.
And when it comes down to music that endures - and this is as true of Frank Sinatra, who never wrote a hit in his life, as it is of Kurt Cobain - it's the songs that emerge from the artists we believe are telling the truth. Mariah may have the records ... but she has yet to deliver "The Record."

In the week and a half prior to Coachella weekend,  I have caught a musical, a play, a baseball game, a dinner with seven Barolos but only one show with one performer, Placido Domingo, leaving me with 76 concerts and 212 acts to go on the path to 100/300.
On the stereo  (for clarification, this is music I enjoy)
Car: Minus the Bear "Menos el Oso"; Carole King "Tapestry - Live"; Debashish Bhattacharya "Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide Guitar Odyssey";  Beatles - "Anthology II," "Second Album";  John Mayall with Eric Clapton "Bluesbreakers";  Jimmy Cliff "The Harder They Come";  Apples in Stereo "Electronic Projects for Musicians"
Home: The Kooks "Konk"; Apples in Stereo "Tone Soul Evolution"; She & Him "Volume One";
Warren Zevon "Stand in the Fire"

Give musicians a bit of annuity by including their names in the music publishing, says Jackson Browne, who is looking for a new vehicle to financially reward band members who make crucial contributions to recordings.
Arrangers from the decades prior to Browne's arrival would have loved to hear that way of thinking, too: Then as now, studio wizards get paid by the job and don't share in the wealth generated when a record becomes a hit. Browne was sharing thoughts on composing, collaborators, revisiting the past and the effects of technology on albums during an interview at ASCAP's I Create Music conference in Hollywood. I was the lucky journalist interviewing him.
I say lucky and honestly mean it: my high school years were filled with endless playings of Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks," Neil Young's "Zuma," Bruce Springsteen's "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" and Browne's "Late for the Sky." Those albums felt like novels alerting me to adulthood; tough to understand as a 15-year-old, "Late for the Sky" was obviously the most personal and yet it felt simultaneously the most universal. For that reason alone, I felt honored to be the one nervously asking the questions in front of several hundred people.
By focusing on the questions, I didn't get to concentrate on scribbling the answers. And Jackson was great at answering everything and anything in an open and frank manner.
One honest admission: The learning curve involved in becoming a producer meant some of his records - especially those from the 1980s - now sound dated and it can be something as simple as the way the drum is recorded. His piano style, especially on "Doctor My Eyes," is so rudimentary that when a trained pianist attempts to perform it, they find it difficult to re-create the mistakes and absence of learned technique. The studio is foremost a workshop and he has never started an album with completed songs. Of all of the people he's tossed around ideas on songwriting with, he seems to be most affected by the influence of the late Lowell George of Little Feat, who was great at guiding a songwriter as they crafted a song, but the composer had to be willing to let George interrupt and toss out ideas when they came to him. ( He said he asks other songwriters how they work and has found that the arrive-fully-prepared methods of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen will not work for him).
The good side of technology - specifically when Nakamichi invented a high quality cassette  recorder in the late '70s - spawned the ideas that would manifest themselves in "Running on Empty," his one mega-hit. Technology, too, allows him to easily record his solo acoustic shows - he has released two volumes to date - and rather than just re-visit the popular songs, he has included numbers that were released as recently as 2002 on "The Naked Ride Home," a superb album that he says nobody heard.
The solo shows - tour winds up with two Northern California dates this week  - are done with no set list, no written introductions to the songs and a risk that shouted requests will piss him off. At their core, he says, the shows are "about revealing the architecture of a song."
A  new album with his band is being recorded, which has him thinking about how to get musicians such as keyboardist Jeff Young compensated down the road. He calls it a "classic American rock sound - like the way Dylan or Booker T. & the MG's would make a record in the '60s" - with just guitar, keyboards, bass and drums. Two things I didn't get to say - and maybe it's better that way. Proof of  bias at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which does not care for artists from the early '70s nor non-New Yorkers: The number of Southern California singer-songwriter inductees who were never in a band is two, Browne and Ricky Nelson.
On a more personal note, during my college days, I played bass - an upright formerly owned by L.A.'s finest, Lee Sklar - in a Delta blues duo that specialized in the songs of Rev. Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt. Naturally, some of our versions were third-hand - we did "Death Don't Have No Mercy" Hot Tuna-style and  regularly referenced Dave Van Ronk and Doc Watson. When Browne released his acoustic version of "Cocaine" we naively thought, "hey with Jackson exposing people to this music, maybe we'll get some better bookings." Yea right. All it meant was that during every gig someone would yell "Play 'Cocaine'." I understand why he doesn't like song titles being shouted at him.

This week, two shows, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Bon Jovi, leaving me with 77 concerts and 213 acts to go on the path to 100/300.
On the stereo:
Car: "The Very Best of Jackson Browne"; The Wood Brothers "Loaded"; Justin Currie "What is Love For"; Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet; "The Harder They Come" soundtrack
Home: Otis Redding "Sings Soul/Otis Blue"; Jackson Browne "Solo Acoustic Vol. 1, " Vol. 2" and "Late for the Sky"; Alton Ellis "I'm Still in Love With You"; Louis Armstrong "The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings" (disc four)

A funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse ... or should I more accurately way on the way home.
It was Friday and after nine days of jury service and listening to brain numbing testimony about construction change orders, work delays and storm drains, I found myself with a chunk of time on my hands I had not anticipated. Plan for the night was dinner and a Los Angeles Philharmonic concert with Leila Josefowicz; a release from the courtroom around 4:15 would give me an hour to spend on email and work, along with creating a calendar of concerts for Variety to review.
But we were let out early, the Blackberry was not working in a timely manner and testimony had turned the organizational side of my brain to mush. Why not read the rest of my book, an advance copy of "The Soloist," the story of a Juilliard student whose mental illness lead to homelessness and how he reconnects with the classical music world through the efforts L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez. (A movie is in production: Jaime Foxx plays the musician; Robert Downey Jr. will portray Lopez).
Rarely does one read a  non-fiction book in the neighborhood in which the action takes place. I can see, just on my lunch strolls, buildings and intersections that play roles; a bit of driving around before heading home have taken me to L.A.'s worst neighborhood, Skid Row. Equally rare is the opportunity to read while free of distraction.

It was actually a week spent on jury duty, which kept me away from the computer and weighing in on the Tupac forgery fiasco, Dolly Parton's "9 to 5: The Musical" and Dr. Pepper's pitch for Axl Rose. Away from L.A.'s Superior Court, though, I was able to make it to two shows (80 to go) and see 10 acts (216 to go) on the path to 100/300; catch "American Idol" saying goodbye to yet another male R&B crooner and  weigh in on "Top Chef."
Most important, though, was cooking a birthday dinner for my wife and some friends. The menu and the wines:

Assorted cured meats
Laurent-Perrier Grand Siecle Champagne

Mackeral with White-Bean Bruschetta
Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose Champagne

Diver Scallops with Fresh English Peas and Asparagus
2000 Rochioli Sauvignon Blanc

Cornucopie con quattro funghi freschi (A pasta from Puglia in a fresh mushroom cream sauce)
2000 Williams Selyem Mendocino Pinot Noir
2000 Castello di Volpaia Chianti Classico Riserva

Piemontese Short Ribs  in Silky Rhone Sauce
1998 Sori' Paitin Barbaresco 

Fromage
(Sottocenre; Fleur de Alps; Humboldt Fog; Cantallet Cantorel)
2004 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel

Chocolate Cake
Moscato d'Asti

The travel back and forth to court certainly increases the listening in the car. On the stereo:
Car: Lionel Loueke "Karibu"; Dolly Parton "Backwoods Barbie"; Counting Crows "Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings"
Home: Brad Mehldau Trio "Live"; R.E.M. "Accelerate"

During a drive to work this week, attempting to wrap up opinions of an exhausting SXSW, it dawned on me that a number of people had gone into this year's event wondering who will emerge as the next Amy Winehouse rather than wonder what's at the core of the indie music scene. And I'm sure that when attention is focused on the Cannes Film Festival come May, the theme will play out again: Where's the next "No Country for Old Men."
Festivals, no matter what the art form, nearly always operate away from the machinery of the industry, although the industries do like to occasionally dabble. Last year saw the majors at about a medium level - airport security would probably label it yellow - at SXSW and Cannes, and the two fests were responsible for the unveiling of the works that became the year's most honored by peer groups, "No Country" getting the picture and director Oscars, Winehouse winning five Grammys.
"No Country" was not in distribution long enough to start feeling a public backlash the way "Juno" or Winehouse's "Back to Black" did; the good news is that the wins have ramped up the anticipation for the next works from Winehouse and the Coen brothers. Can quirkiness and commercial viability actually marry?
Both the music and film industries are struggling to find those artists that the public will follow for the merits of their work rather than the tabloid value of their antics. Sure, Winehouse is in both camps, there's a sense that she's ascending.
It's fool-hearty to suggest that the phenomenon would be repeated this year, even by one of the festivals. Musically, Duffy is the closest SXSW came to a Winehouse repeat and her album won't hit here until May, though it will arrive like Winehouse's album did with reams of positive notices from overseas. Cannes, of course, is always a crapshoot and so, too, this year was SXSW, which only served to enhance its value.
Since I last wrote this column I have attended two more concerts (Van Morrison and Kate Walsh/Freddie Stevenson), making it 82 to go, and have seen 37 more acts (226 to go).
On the stereo:
Home: Sons & Daughters' "This Gift";  Ana Egge "Lazy Days";  Sonny Simmons' "Last Man Standing"; Freddie Stevenson "All My Strange Companions" (advance); Why? "Alopecia" 
Car: Jackie Greene "Giving Up the Ghost"; Simon & Garfunkel "Live 1969"; Fleetwood Mac "English Rose"   

When announcing his final season as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa Pekka Salonen was about his taste in pop music, which has been well documented during his time on the podium though remains relatively unchanged. His taste has led to numerous bookings involving alternative rock bands and the L.A Phil, most recently Grizzly Bear.
"My knowledge of pop music is not very deep," he said, more as fact than apology. "The greatest, the freshest, are the ones we don't know about yet, those under the radar. The pop artists I can relate to -- Bjork, Radiohead, Sigur Ros - are not the leading innovators today.
"It would be biologically wrong to be an innovator (at this age. We start gravitating toward preserving."
It was interesting that he didn't necessarily specify if that was how he felt as an artist or a fan, whether the taste of a professional or an amateur differ or even if the way one feels about pop music translates to other realms as well.
Salonen has been  a programming innovator during his 16 season in L.A. and his compositions are nearly all extraordinarily affecting. So I'm not truly ready to put him strictly in the collector category - he still shows signs of being a hunter.
But in a varied week for myself - listening to Salonen speak, hearing Bill Cosby defend Herbie Hancock's significant Grammy win at the Playboy Jazz Fest announcement, seeing Bette Midler perform in Las Vegas, and watching Kasper Collin's insightful documentary on the free jazz   giant Albert Ayler - I started to realize how we all fall into a role of collector and defender.  Missy Higgins gave a wonderful performance last week that cast a fine light on her impressive songwriting, but I have faith that there's enough of a machine behind her to cultivate an audience.
Ayler, known for dramatic honks and squeaks on the tenor saxophone in the 1960s, is revealed as an artist of the highest degree, the rare musician whose playing reflected his soul. "My Name is Albert Ayler" reveals the unique manner with which he expressed himself and the humanity that went into his improvisations. It's a gorgeous portrait; as a fan, it's heartwarming to know a powerful document like this exists.
Ayler, obviously, is a preservation act, but at the same time there is tremendous room for increased exposure, and proselytizing for a man who has been dead for more than 37 years feels as natural as trying to promote a young musician early in their carer, like Nik Bartsch, Freddie Stevenson, Jens Lekman and Ben Allison.
Took in two shows last week (Higgins and Midler) to get the year's total to 16 (84 show and 263 acts to go to meet my goal).
On the stereo:
Home: Lizz Wright "The Orchard"; Joe Ely & Joel Guzman "Live Cactus" (advance); 
DeVotchKa "A Mad and Faithful Telling"
Car: Ray Davies "Workingman's Cafe"; John Lennon "Rock 'n' Roll"; Kathleen Edwards "Asking for Flowers"; Gary Louris "Vagabonds"; Grateful Dead "Road Trips Vol. 1 No. 2"

In this weekly attempt to delve into the critical mind, I could be lamenting how Eddie Vedder has been short-changed by the Oscars, how overrated the new L.A. bistro Comme Ca is or the excitement of the words "pitchers and catchers report." Instead, I'm going with seven observations of a week that I spent mostly with the flu and a gout attack.

THE OVERHYPED
"American Idol" elimination rounds. Four singers get the boot and the show's entertainment remains those four singers and the performances deemed not worthy. Has a first four ever sounded worse than Thursday's group? Horrendous.

The video for Randy Jackson-Paula Abdul's "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow."  It has now aired on two of the biggest TV shows in the country - the Super Bowl and "American Idol" - and no one is talking about it. As in - "I can't wait to buy the album" water cooler conversation that the video is supposed t generate. The song is mediocre, Abdul's performance  is so computer-tweaked it belongs in the sequel to the Al Pacino film "S1mOne" and one has to wonder how much more of this disc will be shoved in front of America. Randy may have a real dog on his hands.

Spoken interludes on Janet Jackson albums. For the fifth straight disc, Jackson places nonsense dialog between the tracks, chattering in the bathroom and even introducing a robot named Kyoko on "Discipline," which hits stores Tuesday. The big revelation of these 20-second time waters? Janet thinks roller coasters go in circles, you know, like love. Yikes.

One quote serves all. The latest victim is Duffy, a cute and seemingly affable Brit,  the latest in the line of singers influenced by soul, hip-hop and Jamaica who sings with some appealing grit in her voice. Obviously, her true predecessors are Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen. The quote used to hype her March debut from Island: "The female Otis Redding." Well, not quite.
The quote comes from an L.A. Times article by the fine London writer Phil Sutcliffe who sat down with manager Marty Diamond and went through the list of hot U.K. acts to figure out who might break through in the U.S. this year. Duffy was in the top five, to which Sutcliffe wrote: "Female Otis Redding anyone?" He does not say she is, nor does he suggest that she has the ability to match the greatest Southern soul singer ever. The hype is a bit unfair to her.      

THE DESERVING
Gonzalo Rubalcaba's 13th album in the 17 years since departing Cuba may well be his best. The music on "Avatar" is vivacious and layered, worthy of contemplation and rocking in your seat. His technical skills have overridden his communicative skills at times, which I find frustrating; his admirable attempts to create something wholly new from a  Cuban jazz cloth have often left me cold even when they impressed. The seven-song program includes three from saxophonist Yosvany Terry and one from bassist Matt Brewer, whose father gives Amazon audiences his seal of approval on the superb quality of this music.

The Cowboy Junkies made a landmark album in  a Toronto church 20 years ago. They have never topped it or even escaped its shadow. Their shows in support of "The Trinity Sessions" were astonishing: Margo Timmons had one of the most important voices in rock 'n' roll for a very short while in 1988, the band had a command of slowness in a tempo that was as unique in concert as it was on record and the band stood isolated from all other music at the time. I drove 90 miles to see them play a club in Cambridge, Mass. Packed to the gills, the audience was so silent you half wondered if some folks had stopped breathing. But in celebrating the 20th anniversary, they have made a misstep.

8 p.m. slots at SXSW. For the last few years, finding an established or buzz-worthy act to start the night has been a struggle at the Austin music festival. Presumably, acts figure that club-goers are getting rid of beer buzz from the day parties or still waiting for a table at a BBQ joint. This year is blissfully changed.
Among those playing at 8 on Wednesday are Jessica Hoop and Jonathan Rice. Thursday: Eleni Mandell, Amy Lavere, Spoon, Islands, Susan Cowsill, the Voom Blooms, Lobi Traore, Colin Gilmore, Cliff Eberhardt.
Friday: The Golden Dogs, Ryan Bingham, Eldar, Katy Perry. Saturday: Ian McLagan and the Bump Band, Ferras, Bobby Whitlock, Tift Merritt, Jacob Golden.   

No shows this past week so my tally stays at 86 shows to go/265 acts left to see.
On the stereo
Home: Ray Davies "Working Man's Cafe"; Gary Louiris "Vagabonds"; Simon & Garfunkel - "Old Friends" (disc 3); Missy Higgins "On a Clear Night"; copious amounts of Aretha Franklin

Heard Liam Finn's "Better to Be" on the car radio this morning and was struck by the gorgeous suppleness of the recording, the craftsmanship of each individual element and how a lack of a layer of polish  kept an edge in the performance. Add to that the fact it was the record I had been listening to prior to leaving the house for work - which made me like his music even more.
Finn's album, "I'll Be Lightning," is a fine melodic pop record, dubbed "dazzling" by Paste and leading Rolling Stone to dub him an artist to watch. Pitchfork raved.
But the album bears little resemblance to his stage show. 
Few artists differ as wildly between performance and recording as Liam Finn, the New Zealand indie rocker taking his electric guitar, recorded loops and infectious energy on a tour of the U.S. that starts Saturday at L.A.'s Spaceland.
And after a week of Grammys and slick performances, Finn is not only an antidote to the overly buffed, but a bright light for anyone who takes their pop music seriously, fans who want to music as a living breathing entity. Finn is a prophet for this stuff.   
"The more shows I did with foot pedals, the more complex it became," Finn said over a lunch late last year after he had done a few showcases in the States. "I do more and more loops and then I play drums and just go nuts. It's indulgent in a good way. The restrictions open a lot of (sonic) doors."
Ultimately, he contends the loops are even "more punk than having a band."
Impetus came from seeing Jon Brion work with loops at the L.A. club Largo, where his father Neil of Crowded House has been known to hang out.
If I had met Liam months earlier he would been known as the kid playing in dad's band. Here he was a musician operating on his own terms, brimming with confidence and humor, the proverbial "guy you'd want to have a beer with."
"I'm not sure my music appeals to the Crowded House fan base. In Australia and New Zealand, it was a pretty big deal when I started, but eventually it all evened out.The last thing I want is to live off my father's merits."
There's no getting around dad's influence, but he succeeds on his own terms. There's a greater elasticity in Liam's music than Tim's, a bit of looseness that we don't usually find in a Crowded House record - owing, he says, to a comfort level with who he is. And right now he looks like a career artist.
Liam's U.S. tour runs through April 13.
CONCERTS: Grammy Week was a crazy one for my running tally, so I'll list the benefit MusiCares as a concert and list the acts who played two or more songs at Clive Davis' party to make it 86 shows and 265 acts to go in my goal of 100 concerts/300 acts in one year. During the week, I also took in Geno Delafose, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Roddie Romero and the Hub City All Stars.
ON THE STEREO
Home: Jens Lekman - "Night Falls Over Kortedala," Otis Taylor - "Recapturing the Banjo,"  The Outsiders' "Strange Things are Happening - Complete Singles 1965-1969" and, of course, Liam Finn - "I'll Be Lightning"
Car: Joe Jackson - "Rain," Jim Bianco - "Sing" (advance), Freddie Stevenson - "All My Strange Companions" (advance), John Lennon - "Rock n Roll"       

Amy Winehouse will indeed perform at Sunday's Grammys -  via satellite from a London studio. But the wait continues for any word on Michael Jackson's participation.
Kanye West has been confirmed for the telecast, as is John Mayer, but in the list of performers there is not the knockout punch for the opening of the program. The Foo Fighters performing outdoors is OK; the Fogerty-Little Richard-the Killer lineup probably skews too old.
That leaves the elephant in the room, Jackson's "Thriller," which turns 25 this year and will be re-released Tuesday. A tribute led by West and Chris Brown would make the most sense, but Brown dropped out as a performer due to throat problems. (Doesn't mean he can't moonwalk).
The last several Grammys have seen their most spectacular moments occur at the top of the show - the reunions of the Police and Simon & Garfunkel, the union of Prince and Beyonce - and for the 50th edition of the awards, they need something monumental.
Nostalgia has become a key part of Grammy telecasts and the Recording Academy always walks a tightrope between the recent and the deep past - and for many of the gray-hairs in the acad, "Thriller" feels like just yesterday.
That sucker, though,  was a one of a kind commercial success then and the sort of musical behemoth that only appears in dreams nowadays. Remember, it was the biggest seller of 1983 AND 1984; it had seven No. 1 singles and a video that was almost a half-hour long. And people couldn't get enough.
Right now, the music business is recovering from a year in which a Christmas CD was the top seller. The biz is stuck in its very own Neverland Ranch.   
The Grammy lineup now looks like this:
The paired performers: Beyoncé and Tina Turner; Keely Smith and Kid Rock; Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban;  Fergie and John Legend; John Fogerty  with Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard; Foo Fighters (with special  guest conductor John Paul Jones); Herbie Hancock and Lang Lang (conducted  by famed maestro John Mauceri);  Aretha Franklin with the Clark Sisters, Israel And New Breed, and Trin-I-Tee 5:7; the casts of "The Beatles LOVE by  Cirque du Soleil" and "Across The Universe";  and Rihanna with the reunited the Time.
Not sure what they're performing: Eldar; Feist; Alicia Keys; Dave Koz; Brad  Paisley;  Carrie Underwood.
Presenters:  Dierks Bentley,  Cuba Gooding Jr.,  Carole King,  Roselyn Sanchez,  Usher,  will.i.am,  Akon, Jason Bateman,  Tony Bennett, Chris Brown, Cher, Natalie Cole, Miley Cyrus, Nelly Furtado,  Tom Hanks, Quincy Jones, Juanes, Solange Knowles, Cyndi Lauper, George  Lopez, Ludacris, Joe Mantegna, Prince, Bonnie Raitt, Ringo Starr, Dave  Stewart, Taylor Swift and Stevie Wonder.

While brushing up on my Grammy trivia and attending one event after another, in the week that just passed, I caught three acts, Los Lobos, McCoy Tyner and Sara Bareilles, in two concerts. (88 shows and 274 acts to go).
On the stereo:         
Home: Pat Metheny - "Day Trip,"  Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani - "The Third Man," Sheryl Crow - "Detours," Diane Cluck - "Oh Vanille," Hot Chip - "Made in the Dark," Missy Higgins - "On a  Clear Night" (advance), Aretha Franklin - "Complete Live at the Fillmore West" (disc four), Foo Fighters - "Echoes, Patience, Silence & Grace," Elvis Costello - "Armed Forces" (side one)
Car: Otis Taylor - "Recapturing the Banjo," Gonzalo Rubalcaba - "Avatar," Biirdie - "Catherine Avenue," Los Lobos - "Chuy's Tape Box Vol. 1"

Quick observations on the week based on listening and viewing experiences:
1) Even superstar shows in arenas in which every moment is scripted can vary in quality night after night. As much as it seems like we get artists performing at about 75% effort most of the time, Garth Brooks made it clear during his five show run exactly how different - and more worthwhile - each show can be when a performer is giving their all.
2) When major labels were actually interested in supporting jazz divisions  in the late '80s-early '90s, they were guilty of falling into the trap of pushing musicians only if they were under the age of 25 or over 65. It left an awful lot of guys who landed in the middle scrambling to find gigs as sidemen. Now that the majors have shuttered or reduced jazz rosters, those cats who were making their debuts at the age of 24 are entering their 40s and scrambling for work. The fine trumpeter Marcus Printup, now 41 and a full-time member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, appears to playing it right, working with Wynton's big band and recording as a leader for the indie Steeplechase. But there's no sexy story here, just musicianship, and sadly not enough people are listening.
3) Having spent the weekend listening to a lot of free jazz, it seems startling that this subgenre has not found a way to become bigger players on the Internet.
4) Sunday is the biggest gambling day of the year and I have absolutely no confidence in either team covering. The over/under of 54 seems a bit high so if I were making small wager it would be on the under.
5) Peter Bogdanovich's 4 hour, 30 minute documentary on Tom Petty was so captivating I was sorry it ended. Perhaps he could make a film on Tom Waits. I have faith that Petty will be as good as Prince and part of that owes to the great Heartbreakers. Mike Campbell is as important to that band as Keith Richards is to his, but he just doesn't get enough acclaim.
In the week that just passed, I caught two acts, Garth Brooks and Ryan Adams, in three concerts. (90 shows and 277 acts to go).
On the stereo:         
Home: Spirit - "Clear," Jens Lenkman -"Oh You're So Silent Jens," Matthew Shipp & William Parker - "Free Zen Society," Sunny Murray Trio - "Live at Moers Festival," Art Ensemble of Chicago - "Urban Bushmen" disc 2, Imaad Wasif with Two Part Beast/Strange Hexes, Sara Bareilles - "Little Voice," Incredible String Band's first album, Super Furry Animals - "Hey Venus"
Car: Ryan Adams - "Easy Tiger," Shelby Lynne - "A Little Lovin'," Dusty Springfield - "Dusty in London"; Steve Jones' extensive interview with British graffiti artist Nick Walker

Monday night at the congenial L.A. club the Mint, the merchandise saleswoman abruptly left her table of CDs, DVDs, hats, jewelry and books, all related to Fred Eaglesmith, and seemingly disappeared. It seemed odd.
She reappeared minutes later. Behind the drums. Another slice of the unrelenting life below the music industry radar.
Eaglesmith, a Canadian singer-songwriter with a dark and dry - make that extra dry - sense of humor, has been making a music career far below the mainstream radar for nearly 30 years now. He books his own shows and is never tethered to a record label; he certainly has a little bit more cash in his pocket these days from Toby Keith recording his tune "White Rose." (Eaglesmith now has a gold record).
People looking to compare him to someone else often mention Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits, but that only confuses things; the three men certainly draw on recordings from the late 1950s for some of their inspiration, but Eaglesmith goes for the more rural and more unrefined. The three possess a gruff voice and he has a gruff exterior to match, lending an extra helping of credence to a  perspective drawn from the isolation of his homeland and the isolation involved in escaping that home.
"Tinderbox" is the name of his next album, his 15th in 28 years on 11 different labels, and it's due in March. It's a stylistic evolution from his previous work. He calls "alt-gospel" - and judging from the songs he performed at the Mint the chords, the choruses and the enthusiasm are drawn from the church. His distinction in the language: he will never be heard uttering the words  "Jesus" or "lord." With banjo or keyboards, drums and stand-u bass behind him and his hollow-body electric guitar, they make for an impressive sound, big on reverb, Bo Diddley and boisterousness.

Right after Christmas, I dropped some cash on a box set I did not think would ever exist: The complete Detroit Jazz Centre Residency (Dec. 26, 1980-Jan. 1, 1981) of Sun Ra and the Omniverse Jet Set Arkestra. It's 28 CD-Rs featuring more than 26 hours of music.
It sits atop a pile of advances and CDs from last year that maybe someday I'll get to, all music that, to my way of thinking, is inferior to the work of the late Sun Ra. Since I have a framed poster announcing the Detroit residency in my music room, this is a bit of a holy grail.
Now, though, I'm reminded of quote Warren Zevon relates in the fine documentary "Keep Me In Your Heart": We give people books as presents because we think we are also giving them the time to read them. Would that not be wonderful if it were reality?
I'll get to the Ra disc. And maybe at some point I'll even be able to draw a distinction between music performed in an afternoon set vs. a 3 a.m. show. But before I discover 26 free hours in a week to relive a piece of history, a lot more time will be spent listening just to keep up with the immediate future.
The goal this year is to attend 100 shows and see at least 300 bands. This week we added three (Idina Menzel, Kate Nash and DeVotchKa) making 95 concerts and 282 acts to go. 
Music being played in the house: Kate Nash "Made of Bricks," Corey Harris "Zion Crossroads," American Music Club "Everclear."
In the car: Black Mountain “In the Future”; the gorgeous sound of Led Zeppelin  “Mothership” (Ann Powers' essay on the band was brilliant); Patty Larkin "Watch the Sky"; Fleshtones "Take a Good Look"

No sure who to blame - Panda Bear seems like an easy target but it could just as easily be baseball's steroids scandal, the presidential election or the WGA strike - but the Internet age is fostering too much distrust. 
Not that this is revelations, but I start to wonder about honesty, heroes and villains, deception and undeserved credibility. That extends from Internet gossip about rock stars to over-hyped records to Roger Clemens' denials about steroids. (Could Mike Wallace not bring himself  to ask why the Rocket threw a splintered bat at Mike Piazza - an act that now looks like a clear case of 'roid rage?)
And when the year-end lists emerged, and Idolator did a great job tracking and analyzing them, it seemed impossible to find a source to trust. Not that any of them are wrong-headed, but there seems to be no criterion, no gold standard for recorded music.
Critical top 10 in music, as opposed to film, means "top 10 records I received and listened to or realize that I should have." Panda Bear, who topped Pitchfork's list, made an album that contains a couple of genius tracks, "Bros" and "Comfy in Nautica," but the year's best? Not sure why.
The guitarist James Blackshaw, whose records I have purchased and enjoyed immensely, released an album in the middle of the year that I never heard about until it made Pitchfork's list. I seemingly was not alone: The New York Times just reviewed it.
It's a splintered world out there and I'm guessing it will only become more-so and as we in the so-called Big Media attempt to keep up with every major indie band and find time to analyze the Janet Jacksons of the world, too, it seems like its time to add more transparency to the critical process.