One’s interpretation of Clutch, the mostly metal and sometimes funk-soaked ensemble, depends on where in the game a listener was made hip to the band’s interpretation of Led Zeppelin doing the nasty with Black Sabbath. Fans of their 1993 debut, Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes and Undeniable Truths, still muse…

“Avant-garde” isn’t the most appropriate label to place on eco new music percussionist Jeph Jerman and his approach to producing sound. Sure, his uniquely captured artistry — which doesn’t rely upon popular time signatures, written notations, and detectable meter — can be placed in the, ahem, “acquired taste” category. But…

The late alto saxophonist Jackie McLean was infamous for a rich and powerful tone, a heroin addiction, and being the dude who nearly stabbed iconoclast Charles Mingus after the big bully bassist punched him. But one thing overlooked during McLean’s career — due to the relatively restrained modal jazz compositional…

Compulsion is one of those albums that makes you scratch your head with wonder at how it could ever have gone out of print in the first place. Maybe we can blame the overabundance of jazz albums in the stratosphere, or maybe it’s because the late pianist Andrew Hill didn’t…

In a progressive jazz culture dominated by New York and Chicago, other towns with improvised music scenes tend to get the shaft. That’s too bad, because pockets of experimental sounds — from Santa Cruz, California, to Montague, Massachusetts — continue to challenge and imbue eardrums. A perfect example is Look…

“Little Dutch sailor boy” takes on an entirely new context when Harry Merry takes the stage. The Holland-based, one-man band, dressed in full nautical regalia, puts on a bizarre freakout circus that’s both riveting and uncomfortable to watch. Goofball lyrics modulate from a high Pee Wee Herman-inspired timbre to Draculian…

Aside from his role as music educator, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra director, and “yes man” of Ken Burns’ criminally incomplete Jazz documentary, the apparent soothsayer of the genre’s modern movement — trumpeter/bandleader Wynton Marsalis — is also the master of wallpaper jazz — compositions with easygoing tempos, robotic time signatures,…

Listening to Angélique Kidjo’s forthcoming album, Dijn Dijn (Razor & Tie), is like attending a crash course in World Music 101. Her 11th full-length, scheduled for a May 1 release, is filled with familiar Western classical-inspired formulas — poppy hooks, radio-friendly durations, and a star-studded list of guest musicians from…

Calmness intercepts Zac Pennington’s tortured timbre and nervous-breakdown-bordering subject matter when he croons tunes for the Parenthetical Girls, the indie pop ensemble that recently swiped Phoenician Edward Crichton of the recently disbanded and once hugely popular Reindeer Tag Team. The Seattle area-based group — which sounds like Belle and Sebastian…

The prospect of hearing 72 minutes of wildly cacophonous squeeze-bulb horns may be too much for even the most patient listener. And as is often the case with world music albums with a field-recording slant, the story tends to be more interesting than the actual recorded document. Indeed, the tale…

In simple terms, Terminal 11 is known as a laptop DJ. However, placing such a generic label on a driving creative force in experimental electronic music implies that he uses computer equipment as a crutch. That’s definitely not the case, because what the local musician transfers from his madman-scientist brain…