Tag Archives: horn section

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Tom Russell – East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam

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The first Tom Russell tune I heard was “Gallo Del Cielo,” which stopped me in my tracks as a guy in my unit played it over a field telephone speaker out in the field. You couldn’t get much lower-fi than that delivery, but I was transfixed by the song. I wrote the performer & title down in my notebook and made a note to acquire it once I got back to the barracks. I jumped into the back catalogue pretty deep after that. The only other memory I have of the guy who introduced me to Tom Russell was him getting busted for trying to smuggle a confiscated Colt .38 Special back from Iraq.

I can’t find a version of “Gallo Del Cielo” online that does the studio recording justice, so instead I went with a live version of the initial track of Blood and Candle Smoke inspired by Tom’s experiences teaching in Nigeria during the Biafran War. This is a pretty fair introduction to how densely allusive his songwriting can be.

I don’t think Tom tours anymore and I’m not even certain he still plays shows. If he was coming remotely close to the People’s Republic I would be there. He’s one of my favorite living songwriters.

2 votes, average: 9.00 out of 102 votes, average: 9.00 out of 102 votes, average: 9.00 out of 102 votes, average: 9.00 out of 102 votes, average: 9.00 out of 102 votes, average: 9.00 out of 102 votes, average: 9.00 out of 102 votes, average: 9.00 out of 102 votes, average: 9.00 out of 102 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10 (2 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10)
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Angélique Kidjo – Crosseyed and Painless

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Shows on the scale that Angélique Kidjo is routinely capable of pulling off would be exhausting for me to attend, but there’s no way I would willingly miss her. I don’t know who is in charge of parceling out megastardom, but somehow they managed to short shrift Mdme. Kidjo.

2 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 10 (2 votes, average: 8.50 out of 10)
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Orquesta Akokán – El Inflador

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This week I'll be featuring some of the artists on my 4-Hour Bucket List — essentially, those I'd happily drive up to four hours away to see perform (assuming no shows on the tour are closer to me). There are more names on the list than days in the week, so (spoiler alert) I'll drop my list on Friday and invite you to do the same.

Orquesta Akokán ("from the heart" in Yoruban) is made up of musicians from Cuba and New York. The band's arrangements are penned by a guy with a PhD from NYU who wrote his dissertation on Cuban piano improvisation in the 1930s–40s, and the band’s three founders recruited the rest of the lineup through the vocalist's connections with Irakere, the legendary Cuban band founded by Chucho Valdés.

3 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10 (3 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10)
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