Books: John Connolly; Tom Piccirilli

Dark Hollow by John Connolly It has been nearly a year since Charlie Parker's wife and daughter were murdered, a killing he avenged at the end of the first novel in this series, Every Dead Thing. Moving to his ancestral home in Maine, Parker gets a private investigator's license almost as an afterthought, spending most of his time fixing up his grandfather's old house and trying to heal his wounds. When he offers to speak to a husband overdue on child support on behalf of the struggling wife, he unwittingly comes into the crosshairs of the Boston mafia, who has recently been stung to the tune of two million dollars. Add to this the awakening of a long dormant serial killer and the fact that the daughter of his former best friend has gone missing nearby adds to Charlie Parker's troubles. The second book in the Parker series is a big one with Connolly juggling several plot-lines at once and doing a good job of it. Parker is trying to stay off the radar of the mafia, while looking for a deadbeat Dad the mafia is also chasing - and who also may be the illegitimate son of the newly awakened serial killer! The fact that this book reads well and is not nearly as contrived as I have described it is a testament to Connolly's skill as a writer and storyteller. Charlie Parker and his friends Angel and Louis continue to evolve as multi-dimensional characters, and the small amount of supernatural su

spense woven into the story is done well and deftly adds an extra sense of atmospheric texture to a fine story.

The Last Deep Breath by Tom Piccirilli When Grey's parents were killed in an automobile accident on an icy road, he is placed in an abusive foster home where he becomes close to his new "siblings," Pax and Ellie. When the tables are finally turned and Pax nearly beats the abusive foster father to death, the three agree to stay close as they enter the adult world. Pax and Grey stay in contact: Pax is a career soldier, while Grey gets booted from the military and drifts from job to job. One night, after years of silence, Grey finds his foster sister curled in an alleyway with a knife in her ribs. Keeping her fron death's door, Grey learns that she is a junkie on the run who quickly disappears again and launches Grey's cross-country quest to try and save her. Grey's capacity for violence is foreshadowed by the women he meets in his journey west, where each one offers money and sex in return for Grey killing their husband. When he meets up with an actress on the west coast he finally has the entre he needs, discovering that Ellie had been making low-grade pornographic films to feed her habit, starring with her beau who was billed as "Harvey Wallbanger and His Twelve-Inch Wonder of the World." With leads from pornographic film agents to gentlemen's clubs turning up empty, Grey races back to New York to finally confront what has happened to his foster sister and to learn her final secrets. Tom Piccirilli is a master of the noir style of writing, keeping the prose lean and focused while at the same time communicating a great deal of information about the characters and their circumstances. Grey, like all of Picirilli's great characters is a lost and lonely soul looking for one final chance at redemption before the world swallows him whole in its great chaotic maw.

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Alice Coltrane - Huntington Ashram Monastery / World Galaxy (Impulse 2-on-1) (Impulse, 2012)

There has been a new batch of 2-on-1 albums released delving deep into the back catalog of Impulse! Records and releasing some music that hasn't seen the light of day in a while or possibly never during the CD/Download era. This disc/download collects two albums by Alice Coltrane, where she deftly switches between piano, organ and harp accompanied by some excellent musicians and occasional string arrangements. Huntington Ashram Monestary was Alice Coltrane's second album for the Impulse and featured Ron Carter on bass and Rashied Ali on drums in addition to the leader's harp, piano and compositions. Many of the titles and compositions have spiritual themes reflecting the arena of Indian spirituality that she was moving to and would eventually lead her away from public performance for over 20 years in the 1980's and 90's. The title track leads off the record with some sparkling harp over full bodied bass and light percussion. The harp over percussion has the gentle feeling of water falling softly over a waterfall. "Turiya" also features harp, a rare instrument in jazz, over bass and drums with a soft, peaceful, almost new-age feel. "Paramahansa Lake" gives the harp a little darker sound and ends the first side of the record. "Via Sivanandagar" puts Ali back on sticks and as does "IHS" which is a very dark piano piece (the title stands for I Have Suffered) with bowed bass adding to the tension. Alice Coltrane plays the piano in a cascading fashion almost like the harp. "Jaga Jaga Rama" ends the album on another strong note with the full trio of piano, bass and drums. It's too bad there's no organ on this record as well, because I think it's the instrument where she has the most unique style, but nonetheless there is interesting music well worth checking out. On World Galaxy, she is supported by Frank Lowe on saxophone, Reggie Workman on bass and Ben Riley on drums. There is a large string section on some tracks and a couple of guest appearances. The has a gutsy interpretation of a song indelibly linked to her late husband, “My Favorite Things.” But this edition of the old standard takes moves in a fascinating new direction. Alice plays some beautifully pointed organ and piano, with the stings not acting as a sappy background, but as a swirling, whirling foil to her playing. The strings and harp take center stage on “Galaxy Around Olodumare” and “Galaxy Around Turiya” as the music builds to a meditative drone. “Galaxy in Satchidananda” features some of the organ work for which she is famous, unlike any of the famous jazz organists to come before her, she has a very unique sound, influenced by eastern and spiritual music. Alice’s guru makes a special spoken word appearance to promote peace and love, and then the band glides into a portion of “A Love Supreme” in which Alice’s now funky organ plays off against guest LeRoi Jenkins violin to an interesting effect. All in all, it’s a very interesting collection. Perhaps some aspects are a little dated, particularly the guru’s narration and the string orchestra draped over some parts of the music like a heavy velvet curtain, but most of it holds up quite well. Alice Coltrane’s music is overdue for critical reinterpretation since she made music that is well worth exploring. Huntington Ashram Monastery / World Galaxy (Impulse 2-on-1) - amazon.com

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Books: Tom Piccirilli

Short Ride to Nowhere by Tom Piccirilli

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jenks and Hale are two regular working guys that live side by side, they're not great friends, but not enemies either. But when the recession comes, they suffer the same fate. Losing their jobs, having their houses foreclosed upon and having their wives leave them foce them to leave the outer boroughs and sleep in cars, homeless shelters and parks in Manhattan. When Jenks learns that Hale has killed himself at an asylum after being found near-dead next to the body of a young girl, Jenks makes it his mission to find out what happened. Moving from the asylum to Central Park shantytowns and homeless shelters where the cries of the lost rattle his very bones, Jenks puts the pieces together one by one and comes to a conclusion. One that must be paid for in blood... This novella really strikes to the bone of what has been happening during the recession as banks and lawyers run roughshod over working class people who are just trying to get by. Piccirilli writes with tough sympathy about the two characters, coming on like a modern day Steinbeck as the characters navigate the dark side of the American dream. Short Ride to Nowhere - amazon.com

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Daunik Lazro, Jean-Francois Pauvros, Roger Turner - Curare (NoBusiness, 2011)

This collective trio, consisting of Daunik Lazro on baritone and alto saxophones, Jean-Francois Pauvros on guitar and Roger Turner on drums & percussion creates a wide variety of interesting soundscapes that test the boundaries of improvised music on this album, which brings together selections from two live concerts. "Morsure" opens the album with atmospheric low moans, scrapes and clanks. Escalating guitar and drums develop a chaotic maelstrom. There is a dynamic downturn to open percussion and an ominous feeling. Saxophone screeches are overblown with fear and angst. Brief probing honks percolate with slow and spare texture buzzing and scraping in "White Dirt." Sounds bubble up and fade out like in a dream, where saxophone groans against a rusting industrial backdrop as if fighting to stave off entropy and decay. The music builds to paranoid screams, insular and foreboding. "En Nage" develops boinging and twanging guitar and scraping percussion which become a very cool sounding reverberating against themselves, playing sound off against silence. Raw saxophone enters, punctuating with guttural shrieks, like a branding iron stamping it's mark on the music. Nasal alto saxophone swirls and cries like a lonely infant, engaging the percussion storm of crashing cymbals. Shifting to a low buzz, Lazro moves back to baritone and Pauvros tries to peel back layers of the music with ringing guitar. Background radiation builds like a coming solar storm, and saxophone shrieks around shy bass bullying, braying before finally moving the enveloping cacophony to exhausted finish. "The Eye" concludes the album with approptiately ominous guitar textures panning the scenery like the Eye of Sauron. Controlled baritone saxophone moves through the backdrop before switching to pinched sounding alto grappling for footing. Faster the music moves into a whirlwind of sound, drums thrashing and saxophone wailing. Soon, the battle is over and quiet saxophone forms poping sounds and swirls of air, scraping & rattling amongst the quiet. Curare - NoBusiness Records

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Chick Corea with Eddie Gomez and Paul Motian - Further Explorations (Concord, 2012)

Pianist Chick Corea recorded this homage to the late pianist Bill Evans with former Evans collaborators Eddie Gomez on bass and drummer Paul Motian recorded live in 2010 at the Blue Note in New York City. These recordings are particularly poignant as they are among the last recorded documents of the great drummer Motian who anchored Bill Evans’ sublime trio with Scott LaFaro before embarking on a stellar career as a bandleader. The album contains a number of Evans compositions and as well as songs that are associated with him like the original “Peri’s Scope” and the LaFaro composition “Gloria’s Step.” The group develops the material collectively, whether totally improvised like the exciting “Off the Cuff,” or an excellent extended version of Thelonious Monk’s “Little Rootie Tootie.” Corea’s love of Spanish musical development lays the foundation for “Another Tango,” while bebop is represented with a fast paced version of Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House.” Evans’ own beautiful ballad “Turn Out the Stars” is given a heartfelt reading as well. The diversity of the material and the high level of interaction amongst the musicians drives this album beyond what one might expect from a standard “tribute” album. Gomez acts as a rock-solid pivot point for Corea and Motian to dance around like a may-pole, and the drummer is particularly inspired, adding the hushed mystery of his non-linear percussion. Finally this works well for Corea too, as much of a Evans fan as he may be, his playing style is quite different than the honoree and he brings a different sensibility to the music that is laser focused on spontaneous creativity and works very well. Further Explorations - amazon.com

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Books: Love Goes to Buildings on Fire by Will Hermes

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever by Will Hermes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Many books and articles have been written about the music scene of the 1960's and then the punk scene of the late 1970's, but in music history, the mid-1970's have been something of a lost era, snubbed by critics as a time of vapid pop and pretentious progressive rock and jazz fusion. Will Hermes looks to set the record straight by focusing on the vibrant music scene in New York City during the years 1973-1977. Taking a wide angle view from rock to jazz, salsa and disco, Hermes shows that in New York City at least, the prevailing notion of an unproductive stretch of musical history is far from the truth. He follows the development of the jazz loft scene, a DIY culture where pioneers like Sam Rivers and Rashied Ali took control of their own destinies by opening their own music spaces in lofts and began to attract the finest improvisers from around the country. In fact, Hermes ends the formal narrative recounting a David Murray/Lester Bowie gig. The beginnings of the DJ and underground rap culture are examined in detail, developing into the club scene that would become disco. Using these genres along with the growing popularity of Latin salsa, Hermes uses them as a lens to view the socio-economic culture of New York City. Rock and roll and especially the birth pangs of what would become the punk scene are examined in detail. Following the likes of Patti Smith, The Ramones, The Talking Heads and burgeoning mega-star Bruce Springsteen, he is able to look at the different dynamics of how bands and musical personalities form and either prosper or flounder. Hermes writes knowingly about the avant-classical scene as well, following the likes of Phillip Glass and Steve Reich as they develop ever more progressive and large scale works. This was a very well written and extensively researched book (with a full bibliography for those looking to read more on a particular topic.) Hermes is able to spin stories so well that even aspects of the musical culture that I wasn't interested in like disco were interesting, if not for the music, than the way they wove themselves into the musical tapestry of the city. This is a very highly recommended book that is must reading for music fans or NYC scenesters. Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever - amazon.com

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Mockuno NuClear - Drop It (No Business, 2011)

Liudas Mockunas is a young Lithuanian saxophonist playing alto, tenor and soprano who deserves attention. Joined on this adventurous album by members of his group Mockuno NuClear are Dmitrij Golovanov on piano and electric keyboards, Marijus Aleksa on drums plus Vytis Nivinskas on bass and Darius Rudis playing drums on a few tracks. The group makes music that cuts an exciting progressive path through modern improvised music. The opening and closing tracks, "Prelude" and "Take It" develop slowly and gradually like intro and outro pieces. Saxophone and piano probe on the former, with the pace gradually picking up as bass and shimmering drums join, returning to melodic sax and piano duet. The latter has quiet cyclic phrased saxophone with cymbal splashes, gradually building a long sax tone that is held until the end. "The Cursed (Prelude Variation 2)" has light toned sax solo sax swirling, gaining steam and brawn, while putting out small pithy phrases like musical morse code, shaded with overblowing, and textures woven well in this performance that was recorded live. "The Dark Side / The Bright Side (The Bright Side is Dedicated to Andrew Hill)" is a lengthy suite where percussion, raw saxophone electric piano combine like an electric period earthy electric Miles Davis stew, full of dark funk, raw and nasty, with guttural saxophone on the first part, and a low forlorn textural solo. The second half has the electric piano, bass and drum trio developing into strong collective post-bop improv, before Mockunas returns, providing long tones of saxophone over a slower tempo. "How to Earn Money" roars out of the gate with fast paced full band improvisation pulsating, and after a fast paced rippling piano, bass and drums interlude, saxophone and drums grapple like wrestlers in a very exciting duet section. "Elephant Tango" advances a cool sinuous melody growing forward with piercing saxophone taking things outside the traditional tango, then returning back to melodic improvisation with saxophone and drums setting the pace. Deep honks of sax with electric piano moving funky saxophone bleating and cool drum patterns low toned rhodes underpins "Drop It" with exciting drums and saxophone development. All in all a well played thought out set, making clear by degrees the group's attention to detail. Drop It - No Business Records

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