Relocation notice!
Jam Session is moving in with Blurt! For articles posted after October 15, please visit Blurt.
Or check out: Everyone's a Critic | Club Crawler | Musician Interviews | Of Note | Music Calendar
Entries
When Verdi was 85 he found religion
Verdi's Four Sacred Pieces were the last things he composed.
Verdi's Four Sacred Pieces are something I've been meaning to listen to since 1993, or so. This 365 idea is the perfect excuse to finally check them out. The four pieces were written separately but published together. The texts aren't …
Jason Robinson: Tiresian Symmetry
I'm still mulling over my top-ten jazz releases for 2012, but here's an advance tip: Tiresian Symmetry is number one.
Tenor saxophonist/composer Jason Robinson represents the best hopes one could have in the generation of players entering their maturity in this age where cookie-cutout, music-factory sameness seems to dominate the plethora of jazz releases. Robinson is a schooled musician who …
RIP Patti Page: Famous former neighbor dies at Encinitas nursing home
“Tennessee Waltz,” “Old Cape Cod” and “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” singer was 85
RIP San Diego music legend Patti Page, known for hits like “Tennessee Waltz,” “Old Cape Cod,” and “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” She passed away this week at the age of 85. Her musical success spawned several …
365 new classics
How about a new piece of classical music every day for a year?
What to do for the New Year? I was thinking about listening to a piece of music I’ve never heard every day. Yes, 365 new pieces of music this year. I’ve probably heard about 60 of Schubert’s 300 songs so …
Mundell Lowe, Jaime Valle, Jim Ferguson and Ramon Banda
Lowe continues to take chances, improvising in the moment in a sublime and swinging concert at the new Dizzy's.
There is something magical, and instructive about watching guitar great Mundell Lowe perform. Years of living "in-the-moment" have been honed into a personal improvising aesthetic where the proof of virtuosity involves what he doesn't choose to play as much as …
New Year's Day salute to Vienna
International orchestra, singers, and dancers bring in the new year at Symphony Hall.
New Year's Day can be all about football and hangovers but it can also be about the waltz. The San Diego Symphony is taking a chapter out of Vienna's book and offering a concert of waltzes on Tuesday January 1st. …
Castellanos reunion concert at the new Dizzy's
Featuring a core group of Gerald Clayton on piano, Hamilton Price on bass and Kevin Kanner on drums, the trumpeter invited tenor saxophonists Ben Schachter and Brian Levy to celebrate a group that dominated the Onyx for ten years.
It is difficult to imagine the San Diego jazz landscape without the Herculean amount of energy that trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos has infused it with since he came here 20-some years ago. Among the many things we have to thank him …
Jam Session's Top 12 of '12
Most popular Jam Session entries of 2012
1) FM 94/9 Cancels Morning Talk Mikey Show by Barnaby Monk 2) Joe Walsh: Saving the World, One Monk at a Time by Dave Good 3) Lana Del Rey on SNL: Coup or Crap? Local Reaction by Jay Allen Sanford …
Tribe of D at the new Dizzy's
Alto saxophonist David Negrete joined forces with like-minded improvisers for a hypnotic and compelling set of original music.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/29/37610/ Alto saxophonist David Negrete returned to San Diego last night with Tribe of D, a quartet featuring NYC bassist Danny Weller, local piano hero Joshua White and LA drummer Dan Schnelle for a long set of riveting and spiritual, …
Does this mean Satan is now booking Linda Vista's Brick by Brick?
Dark metal band Daemos playing Feb. 2 w/Dumest Animals, On Decent, and Mojave Green
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/28/37571/ Daemos plays hardcore dark metal loud and aggressive enough to make Metallica cover its ears. The group has been haunting San Diego venues since the early '90s, as well as landing slots opening for Judas Priest at L.A.'s House …
"I stayed in hiding for 25 years" says songwriter PF Sloan
AMSD hosting Sloan and Creed Bratton (Grass Roots) in Normal Heights Jan. 12
“I stayed in hiding for twenty-five years because people threatened to kill me,” says PF Sloan, songwriter behind '60s hits like “Secret Agent Man,” “Where Were You When I Needed You,” “California Dreamin’” and the anti-war anthem “Eve Of Destruction.” …
Chuck Perrin ends 2012 with a triple
Perrin closes out the year in style, with three excellent concerts beginning this Friday with David Negrete, continuing Saturday with Gilbert Castellanos and concluding on Sunday with Mundell Lowe.
As the year 2012 winds down, the San Diego jazz scene heats up this weekend for a slew of must-see concerts. As it often does, this Friday begins with a conflict. The Gilbert Castellanos curated series at the Westgate Hotel …
New Year's Eve Enchantment Under the Sea Dance at El Dorado
Back to the Future themed party in East Village.
The Enchantment Under the Sea Dance was a pivotal affair for a young unstuck-in-time Marty McFly. It was here that Marty successfully got his teenage future-parents to fall in love and thereby prevented himself from being erased from existence while …
Wobble: New Years Eve with the Plump DJs
Alternative electronic dance night brings in the New Year at Spin Nightclub
Promoter Bryen Beglinger started Wobble Events nearly two years ago as an underground answer to what he saw as uninspired, mainstream nightlife. “The mainstream is all about being treated like cattle by bouncers herding you in to buy $13 drinks …
Daughter of the Regiment and onomatopoeia
Rataplan means rataplan in comic opera.
Chorus rehearsal started last week for San Diego Opera's production of Daughter of the Regiment. Even with all the Christmas music, there is one tune I cannot get out of my head. It goes like this, "Rataplan, rataplan, rataplan. Rataplan, …
O Holy Night or o holy crap I'm running out of voice?
O Holy Night will take a singer to the edge so give them a hug for New Years.
Once again O Holy Night turned into “O holy crap here comes the high note” There will be a day when I’m not riding that battle horse at eleven o’clock at night after a full day of kids, two hours …
Bing Crosby and Karen Carpenter: greatest Christmas singers of all time.
No opera singer ever sang better than Bing and Karen
I've been listening to a lot of the KOGO 95.7 Christmas mix this season. There are a lot of repeat songs but you get to hear a lot different singers sing them. A few things have impressed and terrified me …
What about us? The last slaps of 2012
A rundown of artists and bands hitting Los Angeles, but skipping San Diego this month.
Every music fan in San Diego is all too familiar with the traditional skipping of America’s Finest City by some of America’s laziest bands. We all know the pattern: Play Phoenix or San Francisco, hit LA and then COMPLETELY SKIP …
North Park bar has had enough Beatles, going gay for Morrissey
Bar Pink hosting Pony Death Ride's release party for Not a Foal, Not Yet a Horse Jan. 15
"We had no idea that this year is the 50th anniversary of Beatlemania, but we're really lucky it turned out that way," says Jaye MacAskill, who with husband Joe is one half of Pony Death Ride, whose full-length Not a …
Mike Gao: Beta World Peace
Future beat technician Mike Gao releases second full-length album.
Mike Gao's sophomore LP dropped yesterday via L.A. label Huh What & Where. Elaborating on textures from his April, 2011 debut Sun Shadows, Beta World Peace showcases Gao’s signature lurching bass lines, asymmetrical percussion, and glowing synth leads - orchestrated …