Greg Burk

Scott Morrow, 1958–2005

Greg Burk
Photo by Ivy NoyScott Morrow used to write about music for this paper quite a bit in the ’80s and ’90s. He was some gift — a blast of energy who brought your heart rate up to his own. He rocked.One time Scott’s band was playing a club, and he......

The Curse of Tut

Greg Burk
King Tut got me busted in the Egyptian Museum in 1989. My wife and I, recently married, were visiting Cairo. Romantic vacation — but I was also obsessed with an object I’ll call the Org.I had first seen the Org in 1978 at the L.A. County Museum of Art, during......
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For the Love of Redd

Greg Burk
Photo by Ted SoquiSeems like Freddie Redd is always getting reintroduced. Sir, it’s a pleasure to remeet you. Back in May, I hung out with the pianist at Catalina’s, the classy Hollywood jazz joint. Saxist Frank Morgan, a man of Redd’s generation, was on the stage. In case this is......
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High On Fire, Drunk On Jack!

Greg Burk
Photo by Kevin Scanlon Beware: High on Fire ain’t here to rinse your nylons. The Bay Area band play the darkest, sludg-iest riff-rock in all of hell. So it’s only natural that they’d man the barricades of the first-ever Sounds of the Underground metal tour, which presents a less commercialized......
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Whitesnake, Ricky Warwick

Greg Burk
WHITESNAKE, RICKY WARWICK at House of Blues, June 26 When David Coverdale belts out all that humpahumpa ’bout how he wants to slide it in, go down slow & easy and give me all his love tonight, I suspect it’s really my wife/daughter/mommy/ocelot he’s after, cuz he never sends me......
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Live Jazz

Greg Burk
Times have changed, but a full appreciation of jazz still requires a suit, a roll of currency and a steady supply of liquor. The suit shows respect for America’s great indigenous art form. The cash makes you feel you can afford the best. And the drink helps you forget that......
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X Ray Vision

Greg Burk
Photo by Wild Don LewisWhen you think of Los Angeles music, the X synapse is one of the first to fire. Most regional rock artists would be glad to dip a tributary guitar neck in X’s direction, and Riverside’s blasting soulsters the BellRays, who joined the fray in the mid-’90s,......
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The Joy of Jazz

Greg Burk
Kenny Burrell is the international dean of jazz guitar. He’s also an academic dean — director of UCLA’s ever-expanding Jazz Studies program since its 1996 launch — as well as a zealous professor of music and ethnomusicology. His task: helping build a tugboat to pull America’s native musical form back......
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Heart Food

Greg Burk
Photo by Judy HimmelMany turntables, you know, have turned to dust and have not been resurrected. And the same thing can happen with music. A few years ago, friend Barbara had no turntable and one particular old LP that she needed (needed) to hear: the 1972 first album by an......
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The Sign of Z

Greg Burk
How does a 37-year-old Latino from Pacoima acquire the tools to become the producer of choice for Brit metal dudes two generations removed? Alchemy: A heavy Limey bluesman, Peter Green, was writing “Black Magic Woman” — a Latin-influenced number that would be covered a couple of years later by Santana......