The default mindset when it comes to jams is the longer the better, but, today, we must mark the inevitable planetary departure of Wayne Shorter, a pillar from the most creatively dynamic period in the history of jazz. Even as I recall his headlining set at the first Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in Washington, D.C., it still seems impossible that among us might walk giants. Shorter’s catalogue and contributions are tall and wide, but, here at ALDLAND, we play the hits. You heard it as soon as you heard the news, and it’s this week’s Jam:
Following the losses in recent weeks of Christine McVie, Jeff Beck, and Robbie Knievel, yesterday announced the departure of David Crosby. The founding contributor to The Byrds; Crosby, Stills & Nash; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, his own solo career, and other affiliated ensembles remained an active creator until his death at the age of eighty-one.
I read a quote in this morning’s paper attributed to composer Gustav Mahler that stopped me for a moment: “Death has, on placid cat’s paws, entered the room.” I shoulda known something was up. David and I butted heads a lot over time, but they were mostly glancing blows, yet still left us numb skulls. I was happy to be at peace with him. He was without question a giant of a musician, and his harmonic sensibilities were nothing short of genius. The glue that held us together as our vocals soared, like Icarus, towards the sun. I am deeply saddened at his passing and shall miss him beyond measure.
Crosby’s “juvenile” anthem, undertaken quite maturely in 1974 by CSNY is this week’s Jam:
Although it at times seems as though this site has become something of a necrology, these are significant passings that merit note.
In June of 1993, the Chicago Bulls stood as back-to-back NBA champions looking to complete the first threepeat since the 1960s Boston Celtics. After finals series wins over the Los Angeles Lakers in 1991 and Portland Trailblazers in 1992, the Bulls faced Charles Barkley’s Phoenix Suns in the 1993 NBA finals.
Phoenix, winner of sixty-two games during the regular season, held home-court advantage over the fifty-seven-win Bulls in a two-three-two finals series format. The Bulls won the first two games on the road, and the teams then split the first two games in Chicago. Holding a 3-1 series lead following their home win in game four on June 16, the Bulls had one opportunity to close out the series at home– game five on June 18– before the series would return to Phoenix for possible games six and seven.
Bulls forward Horace Grant was worried about the possibility of a summer return to Arizona, and Phil Jackson, Chicago’s cerebral coach dubbed the “Zen Master,” was especially interested in wrapping things up at home in game five, including for personal reasons: he had a concert to attend.
Nobody hit that grand rock production sweet spot like Meat Loaf, who died yesterday at the age of seventy-four, and who, this now being the end of time for which no one prayed, Satan better hope is not coming his way. My first memory of Meat Loaf was an appearance at an MLB all-star game. (Google suggests it might be this one, but I’m not so sure.) When I later heard the original music he created with Jim Steinman, Prof. Roy Bittan, the Mighty Max Weinberg, and Todd Rundgren, with assists from Edgar Winter and Phil Rizzuto, it was almost impossible to believe it was real, and seeing that music presented in the context of the Rocky Horror Picture Show didn’t make it any easier to believe. Bat out of Hell, Meat Loaf’s 1977 debut, is punch in the face after punch in the face, and the title track and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” are knockouts. A decade and a half later, 1993’s Bat out of Hell II proved Loaf & Co. still had it, opening with comeback epic singalong “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do that).” (Full disclosure: this post is not sponsored by Dr Pepper.)
Meat Loaf’s memory can bear two selections, and these two heavy hitters will serve as this week’s Jam:
ALDLAND’s news desk is a bit backed up, but we can’t permit more time to pass without marking the passing of the Jamaican Bass Bard, Robbie Shakespeare, who stepped onto a new groove earlier this month. One half of a stellar rhythm section alongside drummer Sly Dunbar, Shakespeare played with numerous Jamaican artists, including Peter Tosh, before expanding his circle to include others in America and the U.K. Along with Dunbar, Shakespeare joined Bob Dylan as part of his incredible Infidels band, which also featured Mick Taylor and Mark Knopfler on guitars. Dylan’s camp recently released video of alternate selections from those studio sessions, one of which is today’s Jam:
No, those wild and crazy guys aren’t back in the touring saddle quite yet, but some of their compatriots already have been shaking off the lockdown rust at an amphitheater or beach venue near you, and their guitarists have something unusual in common.
When Vermont’s finest, Phish, found fit to resume noodling for their fans in Bentonville, Arkansas last month, close observers noticed something unusual. Amidst the band’s compliment of new equipment appeared a familiar, if unexpected, appendage affixed to Trey Anastasio’s new guitar.
Is ALDLAND the best land? It certainly has outlasted some of the other notable lands and done so with a budget and staff smaller than Wily Peralta’s July 2021 ERA. But has this persistence produced anything of value? What, after ten years, is ALDLAND’s interlocutory legacy?
On August 1, 2011, ALDLAND.com launched with a spread of five posts that, in their collective individuality, provided a serviceable preview of the site’s future range and attitude, and, in their totality, formed the sort of vaguely resistant– Buckley’s National Review this is not– word jumble with which Alvin Lee, singing above, might ambivalently resonate. Since then, we’ve published over 1,600 posts covering major and minor sports, sports media, music, movies, television, fake interviews with athletes, real reports from games and concerts, our own podcast and special-event live blogs, and muchsome more.
Most of my operational theses for this site boil down to an effort to create a sports-and-more website that I would want to read. A decade later, I confidently can report that ALDLAND has achieved that goal; after all, I remain a reader of the site. Whether many others read the site is a different and arguably more important question, though, and on that front the results are mixed. Regardless of what’s in the quarterly reports from our engagement department, though, expect ALDLAND to remain a reliable source for everything Mike Greenberg’s too scared to say and Rob Manfred’s too dense to admit. Thank you for ten years of readership!
Nearly ten years after they first were featured in this space, ZZ Top has, with the passing of bassist Dusty Hill, ended its tenure as the longest-running music group with an unchanged lineup. To call this the end of an era is an understatement, as would be any attempted summation of the band’s history and legacy. The trio consistently embodied the total rock and roll package, and today’s Jam is a small tribute of gratitude to their commitment, sound, and style:
The past year has offered more than its fair share of challenges, and unwrapping a new calendar while casting out the old one isn’t likely to offer the degree of actual page-turning transformative catharsis many colloquially proclaim to expect and for which all hope.
Whatever the nature and trajectory of the new chapter that commences tomorrow, we pause here– unprecedently for this feature, on a Thursday— to acknowledge one last strike this current year struck in the taking of the captain of music’s all-name team and, along with Clarence Clemmons and Bobby Keys, a charter member of the most elite and exclusive cadre of rock and roll saxophonists, Alto Reed, who yesterday lost his battle with colon cancer.
With Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band, Reed was the author of many essential rock horn licks and, as featured in today’s Jam, perhaps its most singularly memorable sax line. Seger called Reed his band’s ambassador and true rock star. Let this lonely, wintery wail never be far from your ear:
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