Playing This Week in the Kevmobile

I love all the different forms of "new media" with which I'm involved. But as someone with no "office time" and no computer beyond an iPhone during the business day, it's impossible to come up with fresh content for this blog, Twitter and Facebook. I'm a consistent Facebooker, and I've recently tethered Twitter to it so that I can post my shorter statuses in both places, and every once in a while, something from either of the other two sites finds its way to this blog as well.

Since I regained the ability to listen to my iPod in the car over Christmas, one of the things I've started doing on Twitter is making note of what I'm listening to in the car that day; most of the stuff on the 'Pod is material that I've downloaded from eMusic, which means there are a lot of "indie" jazz artists that deserve wider recognition. So to further integrate my sites (and since I've often had little "what I'm listening to" blurbs at the bottom of other blog posts in the past), I decided to use Sundays as the day when I'd recount what I listened to all week. These blurbs can be slightly expanded, since they're not limited here by Twitter's 140-character count, and I'll also provide links to the artists' website that can be accessed by clicking on their names. So sit back and enjoy the first weekly edition of this feature, and if you're curious, be sure and visit the artists' sites.

• TUESDAY: Kneebody, Kneebody. How would one describe this band? They're set up like a traditional jazz combo, but their music is anything but that. Critic Nate Chinen described them as "a band that inhabits the borderland abutted by post-bop, indie-rock and hip-hop, without seeming to give much thought to the borders," and that's pretty accurate. I want to see these guys live...


• WEDNESDAY: Myra Melford's Be Bread, The Image of Your Body. The pianist leads a group that's heavily into electronics, featuring Cuong Vu (of the Pat Metheny Group), among others; the music varies between pretty and skronky, but it's an interesting fusion.


• THURSDAY: Nils Petter Molvaer, Khmer. I've written about this Norwegian trumpeter in a previous post, and his music is still in my regular rotation to this day.


• FRIDAY: Bobby Watson, Tailor Made and Tokyo Leaders Big Band, Live at Someday in Tokyo. The amazing alto saxophonist, composer and honorary patron saint of my evening combo (since we've played so many of his compositions) gets together with his post-Horizon combo and a top-notch Japanese big band to stretch on several of his tunes. Includes extended versions of "In Case You Missed It" and "Karita."


• SATURDAY: Anne Paceo Triphase, Empreintes. A creative trio led by the French drummer, with world-music influences that give it a guitar-less Metheny-ish vibe, or possibly a less-electronic Esbjörn Svensson Trio.


• SUNDAY: Austin McMahon, Many Muses. Another creative drummer/composer who leads a one-horn quartet (only in this case, the one horn is clarinet or bass clarinet) through a set of enjoyable tunes. And according to his website, a new release is on the way shortly!

I'll try to do this every Sunday from here on out.