Email Author Brick Wahl

2011 Stories by Brick Wahl

• Brick's Picks: Just Like It Was in the '30s

  published July 28, 2011

  The 16th annual Central Avenue Jazz Festival is our fave local jazz fest, and it happens this weekend. Saturday highlights... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Tale of the Whale

  published July 21, 2011

  TALE OF THE WHALE We are writing this during Carmageddon weekend, and we planned a whole bit about being trapped on the Glendale... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Great Sax

  published July 14, 2011

  Since we gave baritone saxist Dale Fielder an over-the-top plus last week, we should, out of fairness to this town's three or... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Fast and Furious

  published July 7, 2011

  Let's take off at a gallop, since there's a lot of it, beginning with veteran drummer Clayton Cameron's sextet at LACMA on... More >>

• Red, White and Blue Notes

  published June 30, 2011

  It's hard to imagine a more patriotic bunch than jazz musicians. There ain't one that doesn't fly the flag from his pad every day, and come... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Scare the Bejesus Out of Everybody!

  published June 23, 2011

  They didn't pop out of an egg or anything, so you may not have noticed that the Spanish Harlem Orchestra won a Grammy this... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Smooth Jazz Fist Fight

  published June 16, 2011

  We had a helluva weekend at the Playboy Jazz Festival. There was some great jazz and killer funk, and Eddie Palmieri was so freaking great he blew... More >>

• Hell No, We Won't Go: Musicians Protest Grammy Decision to Eliminate Latin Jazz Category

  published Jun 10, 2011

  ​Things have been rough at NARAS, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. You probably couldn't tell, not with their two big buildings and a brand new museum and certainly the Award More >>

• Brick's Picks: We Go to Playboy Jazz Festival for the Music

  published June 9, 2011

  The Gerald Wilson Orchestra is at Catalina on Sunday. We raved about his show there last time, but it was actually better than... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Wild, Moaning, Screeching Jazz

  published June 2, 2011

  Eric Dolphy is just too wild. That sound of his is just too intense for most jazz listeners, let alone anyone... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Size Doesn't Matter; Big Bands Small and Large

  published May 26, 2011

  Ken Poston likes his jazz Big Band big. He seems to have a dozen of them on hand at any time, tight, exciting musicians... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Big Bands Blowin'

  published May 19, 2011

  Hope you got some bread, jazz fans. Lots of great stuff this week, but some will cost ya a little. LACMA on Friday night is always free, and... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Honking and Skronking

  published May 12, 2011

  Let's start with the weird: San Francisco's Rova Saxophone Quartet are at the Blue Whale on Saturday. Formed back in the late... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Osama's Dead, but Jazz Goes On

  published May 5, 2011

  So last Sunday night we're writing this column, snickering, feeling pretty good. We flip on the TV and some newscaster's babbling, just beside... More >>

• Brick's Picks: You Cannot Change the Laws of Physics, Laws of Physics, Brick

  published April 21, 2011

  Don't you just hate Fridays like this? Easily half a dozen great gigs the same night and, corporeal existence being what it is, you can only be... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Jazz Friends With Benefits

  published April 14, 2011

  The many, worthy benefits for victims of the cataclysm in Japan reminded us that jazz itself needs funds. We're not talking about tip jars and... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold

  published April 7, 2011

  We talk a lot of jazz concerts and festivals and happenings and whatever, but, when you get down to it, that’s not what we think jazz is... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Full-Frontal Jazz

  published March 31, 2011

  When you think about jazz, you just don't think about naked women. Well, drummers might, but everyone else is way too busy reading the charts.... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Jazz for Japan

  published March 24, 2011

  Japan's been awful good for jazz. Not Smoke on the Water good maybe, but it's been a steady gig, a source of albums and kids who come... More >>

• Brick's Picks: F***ing Pianos, How Do They Work?

  published March 17, 2011

  We still haven’t the vaguest idea how a piano works. Well, we know how it works, literally. You press a key and a little hammer plunks... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Gerald Wilson Lives Up to the Hype ... and Then Some

  published March 10, 2011

  You write a few hundred picks columns and you know you've blown it a few times. You raved about some upcoming show that was so bad people... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Come On and Hear, It's the Best Band in the Land

  published March 3, 2011

  The Gerald Wilson Orchestra is perhaps this town's signature big band. Wilson has that direct... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Esperanza's Victory Lap

  published February 24, 2011

  Esperanza Spalding got the kind of publicity this past week that rarely comes to a jazz musician. A lot of it wasn't exactly... More >>

• Brick's Picks: Esperanza, the Upsetter

  published February 17, 2011

  So Esperanza Spalding won the Best New Artist Grammy. And not the Jazz Grammy either, the real Grammy. The big... More >>

• Why Esperanza Spalding Matters (Sorry, Justin Bieber Fanatics--She Does)

  published Feb 15, 2011

  ​ [Here at LA Weekly, we're honored to count with the services of LA's Top Jazz Journalist, the inimitable Brick Wahl. We asked Brick to weigh in on the Esperanza Spalding Grammy upset. Brick h More >>