Greg Burk

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Duke and Duck

Greg Burk
Duke and Duck They’ve got a lot of perverts in Holland. Quite a few geniuses, too, and it can be hard to tell the difference. Sort it out Friday, when Instant Composers Pool Orchestra visits. The leading pervs of the 10-member ensemble are pianist Misha Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink......
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I Got Riddim

Greg Burk
I Got Riddim A Rasta once described dub to me as “the reggae wing of jazz.” That should’ve hit me before — how dub’s spacy cut-ups are mainly instrumental; how its mixes leap from the unrepeatable moment; how its first Jah-makin’ session players were jazz disciples. Most every other form......
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My Spirits, My Cravings, My Garden, My Spring!

Greg Burk
Transcendent sound is the rarest kind. Dedicated musicians are always striving to get past the body, above the mud, and have a cup of tea with the infinite. But transcendence doesn’t come cheap. First you need something to transcend. Pain, that is. Like John Coltrane, playing through rotted teeth and......
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Bondage and Multidiscipline

Greg Burk
{mosimage} Used to be you could sneak into an art gallery or a museum or a car wash and seldom worry your head about eye things colliding with ear things. Huh. Well, our whole brave world is e-volving into a surround-sound cinespectickle, and it’s about damn time. Last year, MOCA......

House of Sugared Meats

Greg Burk
“A steak, please.” “We serve an excellent sliced asada in maize-syrup mole.” “No thank you. Just grilled, medium.” “How would you like that sugared?” “I don’t want it sugared.” “Honey-barbecue brushed or mandarin-orange marinated?” “Neither. And please bring some salt and pepper.” “Of course. Sweet Samoan napu-pepper garnish . . .” “Black......
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That Beatnik Shit

Greg Burk
That Beatnik Shit Someone’s gotta keep that beatnik shit going. You know: A poet raves prophetic visions while boho chums instrumentalize outside the confines of rhythm, rhyme and reason. Sure, it’s unwanted. Possibly nobody hears it but God. But that’s the point: The poet rite is the tender string, and......
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Let It Be

Greg Burk
Let It Be People used to get pissed at Alice Coltrane. Perceived as the proto-Yoko who wrecked John Coltrane’s classic quartet, she arrived in the mid-’60s as Trane’s spouse and keyswoman, and pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones hit the road. Coltrane offered some of his most formless explosions......
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Jazz Odyssey

Greg Burk
A place for jazz & metal ?(but generally, very little?jazz-blues). — ed. Jazz Odyssey (no puppet show) Each generation gotta have its own jazz. And not repackaged/reworked olde jazz to make a kid feel all historically k’nektid — thanks for the underwear, too, Mama — but new jazz, the way......
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Apocalypse Purple

Greg Burk
A new column. Mostly jazz, some metal; all Burk — ed. APOCALYPSE PURPLE Waiting, waiting, and now it’s here. Few artifacts really snag one of those exciting, weird musical moments that make unpatchable cracks in “reality,” and this does. Insanity, spontaneity, spectacle. Dangerous, then and now. What: Deep Purple’s outdoor......
Cover drawing Gary Panter 2005

Fucked-up and Vine

Greg Burk
What are you supposed to do with this “novel” except read it and laugh? You’ll laugh ha-ha, not in derision, glad to cop a dirt-stylish experience of absurd and stupid lowlife without acquiring the crab lice and track marks that always spoil the jollies. It helps if you hung around......