Author: J T. Ramsay

  • But who, pray tell, is the loneliest monk?

    Zoilus’ Carl Wil­son donates his two cents to Des­ti­na­tion: Out­’s ’90’s jazz poll [part three here.] I think that what Car­l’s on to is that it’s hard to argue for any genre after it’s passed the idiomat­ic baton to the Next Big Thing. But, as the com­menter right­ly notes, lists are great too, espe­cial­ly when…

  • We can certainly sympathize.

    Cocaine Blunts gets meta, crit­i­cizes goldrush/flavor of the month blog­ging, and notes the viral mar­ket­ing aspect of so much rap blog­ging. From the blog: Despite often being brand­ed with the term “tastemaker,” most rap blog­gers (and most music writ­ers by and large) have no taste. [1] And I don’t mean they have bad taste. That would…

  • They thought of jazz in a time of flannel.

    Des­ti­na­tion: Out­’s Best Jazz of the ‘90’s poll is real­ly great because too many casu­al fans are afraid to think about jazz past the ‘70’s.  Check out parts one and two now! And so far Joe Lovano has only been men­tioned once. He’s a fine play­er but as a co-work­er/­jazz afi­ciona­do once told me, “He’s…

  • The days keep growing longer and longer.

    I made the com­mand deci­sion over the week­end to give up free­lance music crit­i­cism, at least for now. I think the new job takes up the slack and, with luck, I’ll be able to do some cre­ative things there short­ly. And by cre­ative, I mean inter­view Rihan­na or some­thing like that. Mean­while, a list of things…

  • You soon will be a goddamn man!

    This might be play­ing near where you live. If you’re a fan of Cas­savetes, you’ll love the way Bur­nett presents the char­ac­ters and sto­ry in his 1977 mas­ter­piece, Killer of Sheep. Read more about Charles Bur­nett here.