More than 20 years after Captain Beefheart's last musical outing, the Magic Band (sans the Captain) reconvened for the 2003 All Tomorrow's Parties festival. Actually, it's a Magic Band that never was, consisting of Drumbo (John French) on drums, vocals, and harmonica; Rockette Morton (Mark Boston) on bass; and guitarists Mantis and Feelers Reebo (Gary Lucas and Denny Walley, respectively). (For the live shows, Robert Williams – another Magic Band alumnus – took over the drum chair when Drumbo had to sing and play harp.) Of course, these guys knew the material, but they don't just play the tunes, they attack them, summoning up the controlled chaos that made the original Captain Beefheart recordings such singular achievements.
Dietrich Fischer Dieskau makes for an intriguingly offbeat, enjoyably seedy knight under Leonard Bernstein's baton. Bernstein has some interesting ideas about this opera, and not all of them work, but he grounds the opera with a solid, inspiring cast. Regina Resnik is clearly having a ball as Quickly, Rolando Panerai is fantastic in one of his most reliable roles. Only Juan Oncina and Graziella Sciutti, as the young lovers, disappoint. Best of all is Ilva Ligabue, caught in her prime in one of her best roles. Most of the cast would also feature in Bernstein's studio recording, but this live performance has a vitality absent from the more well-known studio effort.
Antonio Salieri’s Falstaff is not Verdi’s and never will be. That out of the way, it’s a charming evening’s entertainment, occasionally quite funny, with nicely characterized roles, swell, brief melodies, excellent, spicy wind writing (vividly played here on period instruments and recorded in such a way that the sonics favor them), and nice forward propulsion. The action moves quickly and pointedly, the dry recitatives are frequent but never too long, and when they do go on, the cast here is clever and involved enough to make them dramatically viable.
Unfathomable, unimaginable and infinite: the creation of the universe and will remain an eternal mystery to the story told by every culture on earth their own myths. To say this issue has the production team Avenue, Giorgio and Martin Koppehele with "Child Of The Universe" again created a concept work that is musically and visually an organic unity and takes the audience on a fantastic journey across the cosmos of the universe.
Acoustic Samurai is an acoustic live solo album by Paul Gilbert, guitarist of the heavy metal band Racer X and of the hard rock band Mr. Big. It was recorded live in Tokyo's Hard Rock Cafe and released in 2003.
Not only is Alabama-born Jerry McCain a terrific amplified harpist, he's also one of the funniest songwriters working the genre and has been for more than four decades, as anyone who's dug his out-of-control 1950s Excello rockers "My Next Door Neighbor" and "Trying to Please" will gladly testify. McCain was born on June 18, 1930, in Gadsden, AL. As a youngster, Little Walter was McCain's main man on harp, an instrument McCain began playing at age five. Walter passed through Gadsden one fateful night in 1953 with his Aces, offering encouragement and a chance to jam at a local nightspot. That same year, "Boogie" McCain made his vinyl debut for Lillian McMurray's Trumpet label in Jackson, MS, with "East of the Sun"/"Wine-O-Wine" and his brother, Walter McCain, playing drums on the sides.