Greg Burk

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Heart and Lungs

Greg Burk
Lungs Damn, I forgot to breathe again. Sometimes I’ll realize it’s been a month since a proper gulp of O puffed my lower alveoli, then something like the new live album Sangam (ECM) by Charles Lloyd, Zakir Hussain and Eric Harland lays hands on my corporeal meat bag, and systems......

The Avant Guardian

Greg Burk
He doesn’t look scary. But look again: Jeff Gauthier (“goaty-AY”) is a Secret Agent for Musical Revolution. Watch him, stroking his violin with his band Goatette or a dozen other post-jazz groups, eyes closed as if he’s dreaming of celestial pastures. All the while, the war against mediocrity and megapop......

Sure Thing

Greg Burk
“The best live music goes completely unnoticed,” says Rocco Somazzi about L.A. Sure, there are plenty of good sounds here that exist for worthy purposes of relaxation, meditation, hormonal agitation or release of aggression, but the Swiss-Italian clubman is talking about music-music, the evolutionary expressions fueled by originality, skill and......
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Industrial Jazz Group

Greg Burk
It’s a circus, and it’s totally fun. So Andrew Durkin, who leads Industrial Jazz Group, risks not being taken seriously, risks getting his cleverness mistaken for shallowness. Avoid that error. Watch chrome-domed Durkin, flailing his arms in a generally successful effort to get 17 excellent local musicians (Kris Tiner, Rob......
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God of Pestilence

Greg Burk
{mosimage} I tell Nergal, of the Polish black/death-metal band Behemoth, that his music reminds me of jazz. And over the cell phone in his tour bus, I hear him chuckle. Growing up amid post-Commie nothingness, he had little musical training; it was even hard to get a decent amp. So......
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Wind From Strange Seas

Greg Burk
VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE at REDCAT, April 1 What a beautiful storm. It’s been obvious for ages that, though swaths of jazz improvisation sweep through the music of Vinny Golia’s Large Ensemble, it deserves the same cash & bash underwriting as modern classical symphonic blowharderie. Now Golia’s big machine has......
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Sanity: Curse or Affliction?

Greg Burk
Sanity: ?Curse or Affliction? Insanity is the only artistic quality bassist Christian McBride lacks. He can deal with the deficit; it doesn’t stop him from posing hairy questions like “What Is Jazz?,” as he’s titled the current tour featuring his quartet, Charlie Hunter’s trio, Bobby Previte and DJ Logic, which......
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Japanese Metal (It's Aaaall Fuuucked Uuuppp!)

Greg Burk
DIR EN GREY, OPIATE FOR THE MASSES at the Wiltern LG, March 23 It was about time Japanese rock got some new hype, and a dressed-up, dressed-down mob of fans and trendies, moms and daughters, Asians and Anglos raised their devil horns to augment the shrieking gale that’s been driving......
Happy Meal

Trouble Man

Greg Burk
Don’t avoid The Devil and Daniel Johnston just ’cause it’s another damned documentary about a troubled musician. Yes, other recent docs have told us that Metallica’s James Hetfield is troubled; Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe is troubled; the Dolls’ Arthur Kane was troubled (though at least he’s now safe in......
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The Vinny Golia Tabloid Interview

Greg Burk
The Vinny Golia?Tabloid Interview Vinny Golia is a menace. For too long, the not-really-jazz man has unsettled L.A.’s musical firmament with extreme turbulence via the numerous wind instruments he inflates, the avant-plus Nine Winds record label he masterminds, and the hordes of combos he leads and mans. Worst, this corrupter......