Ornette Coleman

Ten Jazz Albums to Listen to Before You Die

Ten Jazz Albums to Listen to Before You Die

Because there are multiple decades of jazz, it's almost impossible to pick the top 10 albums of all time; the hip cats with their canes and cool shades will throw their used saxophone reeds in my direction and call me a young whippersnapper. The debate is so polemic that I might as well write about ... More >>

Get To Know Your 2012 DOMA Nominees: Mora Collective

Leading up to our November 10 showcase, we'll be getting you familiar with some of our Dallas Observer Music Awards nominees, either via past features we've done on them, or new ones. You can vote for your favorite acts, venues and more right here. This piece originally appeared on August 31 It's ... More >>

UPDATED: The DC9 At Night/Good Records Challenge #4: Yells At Eels

UPDATE 10:30 a.m.: Congrats to Tracy Halliday, who is the lucky winner of Index Festival tickets and the loot from the Good Records challenge. Have fun out there, Tracy! Here we go now, get busy! It's time for another Good Records Challenge. I wish I had a whistle to blow. You know the drill: We gi ... More >>

Dallas' Mora Collective On The Weight of Syllables And The Term "Porn Bebop"

It's been 45 years since trumpeter Lester Bowie, in the introduction to his track "Jazz Death?" (on Roscoe Mitchell's album, Congliptious), answered the rhetorical question, "Isn't jazz, as we know it, dead yet?" with the knowing rejoinder, "Well, that all depends on what you know." Bowie might we ... More >>

Waltz Around Our 100 Best Texas Songs

The 100 Best Texas Songs: The Complete List

100. Tripping Daisy, "Sonic Bloom" Before this album, the band had a grunge-pop affectation, but this song, from 1998's Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb, was more heartfelt than anything they'd done before. - Daniel Hopkins 99. Pleasant Grove, "The Plaque at 16ft" Bret Egner wrote "The Plaque at 16ft, ... More >>

The Best Texas Songs of All Time: #39-20

Best Texas songs, #100-80 Best Texas songs, #79-60 Best Texas songs, #59-40 The Spotify playlist for songs #39-20 39. Billy Joe Shaver, "Live Forever" "Live Forever" is an emotional experience. The line, "Don't let the darkness take them" is tear-inducing, given that his own son, Eddy, was take ... More >>

Ronald Shannon Jackson - The Kessler Theater - 7/7/12

Ronald Shannon Jackson The Kessler Theater Saturday, July 7 Wish fulfillment at a concert? I've experienced it a few times: Captain Beefheart in 1976, Muddy Waters in 1977, Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton in 2001. It happened again this past Saturday night, when Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decodin ... More >>

Jazz Great Ronald Shannon Jackson Returns to DFW

Henry Rollins Remembers Roky, Stevie and Texas

Meat Puppets, Dawes and Lucero To Play Freshly Rebranded Fort Worth Music Festival

​Our pal Preston Jones of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram broke the news yesterday: After eight years of operation under the Jazz by the Boulevard banner, the annual jazz-centric, Fort Worth-based fall music festival now has a new name. The festival, which will still carry a heavy jazz bent, will now ... More >>

For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: T-Bone Walker (And B.B. King) Play Monterey Jazz Fest

GregoGet yours today.​Aaron "T-Bone" Walker died 36 years ago, almost to the day; the 7-year-old who lives in my house notified me of this over breakfast Wednesday as he read from the this-day-in-history section of the morning paper. He asked, "Who was T-Bone Walker?" I gave him the short answer: ... More >>

Gig Alert: Pat Metheny at the Nokia Theatre Tonight

Pat Metheny​Acclaimed jazz guitarist Pat Metheny makes a stop in North Texas this evening at Grand Prairie's Nokia Theater. Out on the road supporting his recently released effort Orchestrion, Metheny is capable of taking any particular show in any number of directions.Renowned both for his solo a ... More >>

Dennis Gonzalez Yells At Eels featuring Rodrigo Amado

The Great Bydgoszcz Concert (Ayler Records)

In Oak Cliff, An Effort to Resurrect the Kessler

View Larger MapSome of you may have noticed that yesterday, in the item about Kidd Springs in Oak Cliff, Jeff Liles posted a link to a video you'll find after the jump, along with the rather cryptic note: "Speakin' of the OC, we have this to look forward to next year:" Ah, but what, precisely, is th ... More >>

Echoes And Reverberations: Hitchhiking Along Post-Industrial Boulevard

Noise is not for everybody. Some people hear a jackhammer on the street corner and promptly cover their ears; others hear a subsonic melody and random harmonic movement in the staccato repetition of mechanized machinery. “Industrial music” is the umbrella term used to describe artists who e ... More >>

Wright Writes Himself to a Pulitzer

Cred Sheet

Stuff you need to know to avoid cultural ostracism

A Hoot of a Holler

There never was a tear in Bob Wills' beer

Lived on the Edge

Of Lost Legends and Found Heroes

Pat Metheny

The Way Up (Nonesuch)

She Can't Be Serious

Yes, she can. Genocide, adultery, dead cats--merry Christmas from Diamanda Galas.

Serart

Serart (Sony)

Poe Lou

It's a perfect day to let Lou Reed talk about going a little bit crazy

War on War

Almost four decades later, The Fugs' Ed Sanders is still fighting

Not Wasting Any Time

Dallas duo creates an online record label

Letters

Animal Farm, Police Story, All That Jazz

He Got Rhythm

Ken Burns wants you to know why Jazz is America's music

The Falcon Project

Lights Karma Action (Idol Records)

Ornette to be

Two reasons why it took Columbia Records two decades to figure out Ornette Coleman

The artist formerly known as print

Our quarterly roundup of the latest in music books

Across the Bar

Potluck Audio; Club B-day; Aden high Five; It's not easy being Green

Pat's the rub

The Smithereens' Pat DiNizio is playing in a living room near you

My heart's reflection

Genius plus love still equals Yo La Tengo

Follow the winners

Major-label survivors Royal Trux peel away experience to make a fresh, funky new album

Live from New York?

Saturday Night Live and DreamWorks Records team up for two not-ready-for-prime-time compilations

Out Here

Hey, world

On the Watts Prophets and the author's days in the Writers Workshop

Super Sonic

Don't call it space-rock, even if the Falcon Project's new record is set in...outer space

Cuba libre

Marc Ribot and his Prosthetic Cubans are Habana good time

The quiet man

Cornell Dupree is the ultimate un-showoff

Out There

College rock

UFOFU brings 'alternative' to ETSU and wins the talent show

To be or not to bop

Texan Jazz unveils the Lone Star contribution to jazz

Whose Young Turks?

Little Jack recruits some new blood and resurrects the ghost of e.e. cummings

Events for the week

1995 Dallas Observer Music Awards (Part I)

Blues for James

Local jazzer James Clay leaves remarkable legacy