Hey Bo, Sad to see you go. But rest in peace, brother, knowing that your legacy beats in the hearts of all rock 'n' rollers tonight... and tomorrow night... and the night after that.You kept it savage and primitive for years, and we, disciples of the big beat, will always look to you whenever things around us get too civilized. Man, your music always had one foot in the jungle.OK, so Chuck Berry had the licks, and Elvis got all the chicks. Buddy Holly had the twang, and Little Richard made ‘em shake that thang. But Bo, you had the

Eddie Shaw's been around, you know. He blew his sax for Muddy Waters before jumping ship and landing in with Howlin' Wolf. After Wolf's big adios in 1976, Shaw kept it going with the Wolf Gang. And though Shaw hails from the Mississippi Delta, the man is all Windy City blues.Shaw honked tight and bright - a little reminiscent of Big Jay - last Wednesday at the Dinosaur as I was face to face with some medium-rare black angus. He pulled out a rather fast version of Ivory Joe's "Since I met You Baby" that kinda took the melancholy out,

Three new summer shows have been unveiled for the Constellation Brands Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua:Bob Dylan Tuesday, August 19, CMAC, Lincoln Hill Rd, Canandaigua, 232-1900, tix on sale Saturday, June 14Kid Rock Wednesday, August 20, CMAC, Lincoln Hill Rd, Canandaigua, 232-1900, tix on sale Saturday, June 14Reggae Fest w/UB40, Matisyahu, Maxi Priest, Culture, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad Sunday, August 24, CMAC, Lincoln Hill Rd, Canandaigua, 232-1900, tix on sale Saturday, June 14Keep your eye on Ticketmaster for prices and more.

Dear Kid, A friend of mine was raving about your new song, "All Summer Long," the other day. I heard it, and now, well, I'm raving too. Kid, you were singing over the top of "Werewolves Of London" and "Sweet Home Alabama" -- not the riffs, but the actual records. What is this bullshit? I understand the current climate encourages sampling, lifting, borrowing, etc. These are nice ways of saying "ripping off." But  this isn't even a rip-off, it's a fucking copy!At best this is lazy, and you certainly have the talent to create your own music. You are now in

Dead Dog creates a racket that is both threatening and atmospheric. I caught the act Wednesday night at an undisclosed location, where Eric Frate presided over a table laden with electronic devices that, though intimidating to me, he manipulated in such a way that I found myself dancing to the eerie noise. When he growled guttural vocals underneath it all, the lightless room took on the doom and gloom of another dimension. (The fog machine helped, too.) After Dead Dog's set, the scene shifted to another room, where Autoanimal had set up. This band played extra loud, and lacking earplugs,

The buzz among jazz fans is that this year's model of the Rochester International Jazz Festival could have used a jazz legend --- a Herbie Hancock, an Ahmad Jamal --- to give it that truly great jazz festival vibe. Still, there's a lot to look forward to in the coming nine days. There's one bona fide soul legend, Al Green, and a singer I've always wanted to see, Dee Dee Bridgewater. And kicking off the festival on Friday is one of the great jazz drummers, Al Foster. He's played with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, and others; the standards have

Every Thursday there's a featured act at the House of Hamez's open mic night, handpicked by the organizers to perform for 20 minutes or so before the rest of the poets and musicians get up to do their thing. Last night, to mark Pure Kona's 15th year of open mics, Alex Northrup and Genevieve Legacy were the features, bringing a blend of music and spoken word to the evening. Northrup and his friend Ben played a short set of well-crafted pop songs, and Legacy followed with her poetry. Her lilting voice perfectly punctuated the poems, some of which were more song than

I don't think the early-bird jazz fans were quite ready for Denis Parker and Scott Goudie, a couple of middle-aged, white, Canadian men wailing on a pair of acoustic guitars and beating out one 12-bar blues song after another. The quick applause after the introduction turned almost immediately into chatter and empty seats when folks realized this group wasn't going to launch into a chorus of "Fly Me To The Moon" or some other jazz standard. But the duo did manage to turned the Big Tent into a makeshift front stoop -- one set deep in the imaginary South -- and

Had the distinct pleasure of introducing ex-Thelonious Monk drummer Ben Riley and his Monk Legacy Septet to kick off the 2008 Rochester International Jazz Fest. And in keeping with Monk's abstract, smart-aleck slant, there weren't no piano. Instead the punch and slug came from the brass, and the blur of enchanting dischord came from the guitar. And of course the bump, bop, and swing -- with a touch of wry sarcasm -- came from Riley himself as the band cut through the Monk catalogue, including my favorite, "Monk's Dream." It was magnificent in an evening-shade kinda way, despite the sun doing

Judging by the capacity crowds at all of the Club Pass shows I went to Friday, the 2008 Rochester International Jazz Festival is off to a great start. An even better indicator is the fact that all of the musicians I saw were top notch. Unfortunately, between Norwegian accents, muffled microphones, and the tendency to speak over applause, I couldn't catch the names of too many sidemen. The first strains of "So What" -- and I mean the exact gorgeous piano part that Bill Evans played on the "Kind of Blue" album  -- let the Kilbourn Hall audience know in

The Jazz Fest started Friday, but my first night out was on Saturday, when I went to see Saturday Night Fish Fry. First, though, I stopped by Rochester Contemporary, where AV Space was on the second night of a two-day music fest of its own. When we showed up, City Harvest Black was playing in a small, but packed, room. A projector showed upside-down images that were perfectly paired with the moody, mostly improvised noise. The noise set came off more as a composition, really, not unlike some of the jazz that was going on down the street. A friend

I have seen the headliners at six previous Rochester International Jazz Festivals, so I do not say this lightly: Dee Dee Bridgewater's performance Saturday night at the Eastman Theatre was the best of them all. And it wasn't just her phenomenal voice. Her movement on stage -- African dance and body language -- was absolutely spellbinding. Bridgewater's set showcased her involvement with Malian musicians over the past several years in an effort to find her African roots. Her band consisted of pianist Edsel Gomez, bassist and musical director Ira Coleman, drummer/percussionist Minino Gara, and three Malian musicians. All

It's a sturdier Big Tent this year, and I'm pretty sure the added rigidity has helped acoustically. The Blue Vipers of Brooklyn turned the whole damn thing into a swingin' Tin Pan Alley. Lots of drummers grow up beating on pots and pans before ascending a throne. The Blue Vipers' drummer apparently never graduated from the kitchen, as his whole set up was lapful of odds and ends that he binged, banged, whacked, and attacked with thimbled digits like a Dixieland foley stage. Used my Wonder Twin powers to shrink myself to the size of a lawn jockey and

"This is why we walk around the city," I reminded myself after circling the block three times today, looking for free parking. I finally gave in and coughed up all I had -- two bucks in spare change -- to park in the East End garage.Juliet Lloyd was already playing by the time I got to High Fidelity. The room was packed with fans, Club Passes slung around most of their necks, glasses of wine in hand. It was only 7 p.m. or so, but the night was already well under way as Lloyd's honey-smooth vocals spilled out and over

Of all the guitarists in jazz today, no one exploits more of the language of the electric guitar than John Scofield. Sunday night at Kilbourn Hall he went from classic jazz tone, through distortion, wah-wahs and wails, to electronic loops. And that was just in his first set. Scofield has been playing with Steve Swallow (bass) and Bill Stewart (drums) for years; the three of them can read each other's minds. Swallow and Stewart had plenty of room for excellent solos, but both were keenly attuned to Scofield's moves.Early in the set the group played what has become something of

I've noticed that even with the low-dough cover charge -- free -- those that crowd the free stages are sometimes more demanding than those who have shelled out a few clams in order to catch a live show by the toe. You play the Jazz Street (Gibbs the other 51 weeks), you'd better grab their attention rapidamente or their just gonna go back to jawin' with their neighbors. You hit 'em with something that requires a slide rule to understand or enjoy and you'll soon find yourself playing to the backs of a lot of heads.Perhaps my warning set them

So I should've said from the start of my Jazz Fest blogging that this is the first year I've gone to the thing with any sort of schedule in mind. Before, I would just kind of wander about and catch whatever free shows I could, mostly on weekends. Turns out, I didn't know what I was missing in the off-street venues.Tonight, I stepped in to the Lutheran Reformation Church on North Chestnut, where Ygdrassil played for something like the fourth time in two days. There's an immediate sense of the sacred when a band plays on an altar (definitely more so than a street stage) and I can see

Day 4 of the festival was swingin' hard, yin-yang style. First on the docket was the David Liebman Quartet. Before the first note rang out, the audience knew that Liebman was a serious player as he joked about beginning to play while the sun was still up.  He honked and squealed on the sax so hard that the Montage was transformed (figuratively speaking, of course) into a smoke-filled, after-hours nightclub for his hour-long set. Vic Juris, Liebman's guitarist and longtime band-mate, tipped the scales of hip even further when he slid bluesy clusters of notes up and down the guitar neck,

Tenor sax legend Lou Donaldson strolled out cool and casual onto the Kilbourn stage in a black suit promising nothing but straight-up jazz. "No fusion, no confusion," he said. He and his quartet then launched into a sweet take on his 1957 "Blues Walk" where he let Akiko Tsuruga, the little lady behind the B3, swell, swirl, and swing. By the time they were into the second tune -- essentially a Charlie Parker piece, even though according to Donaldson, Bird stole it -- the guitarist was playing so fast he almost fell off his stool. At 81 Donaldson still exhibits

Miguel Zenon is a great saxophonist, so it was frustrating to hear his band at Christ Church, where the acoustics (for jazz anyway) are nowhere near the acoustics of the Lutheran Church. Perhaps because it is a cavernous space, there was a strong echo that turned the full band sound to mush.When excellent pianist Luis Perdomo played a solo, things were fine; there was not enough sonic competition to muddle things. And when Zenon played backed only by bassist Hans Glawischnig, or played alone, the sound was good and his solos were wonderful. Drummer Henry Cole was also strong, but the