USOLA #6 & 7

The Beast has posted the latest two entries in our United Sounds of Los Angeles series over at Los Angeles magazine. Read #6 here and #7 here.

USOLA #5

The Beast has a new installment of our series The United Sounds of Los Angeles over at the Los Angeles Magazine site; you can check it out here.

In the print edition of the May issue, our blog bud Sean J. O'Connell profiles South L.A. saxophonist Kamasi Washington and his new record.

Two New Music Series, Yo!

Over at Los Angeles magazine, the Beast has just started a new music series called The United Sounds of Los Angeles, in which we offer up 100 must-have L.A.-centric albums from the indispensable to the willfully obscure. All genres will be represented! So get that "Like" button primed and feel free to Tweet/Comment/Repost to your heart's content. Thank you in advance!

A music series of a different stripe has just been announced for the Mayme Clayton Library in Culver City. Following the passing last year of journalist Mimi Melnick, whose Double M Jazz Salon was a vital connective tissue amongst L.A.'s far-flung jazz communities for nearly two decades, the Clayton has decided to continue Mimi's salons. And their starting this new series on April 6 with a corker of a show: A Celebration of the Music of Horace Tapscott. (There's a bit of poetic justice here: Tapscott was an early supporter of Ms. Clayton's efforts to found the Western States Black Research Center, which evolved into the current Clayton Library.) The killer band is made up of Tapscott friends and acolytes: Bassist Roberto Miguel Miranda, drummer Fritz Wise, saxophonists Michael Session and Tracy Caldwell and poet Kamau Daa'ood. There's even a real coup afoot: the great pianist Bobby West is flying in from Europe JUST FOR THIS SHOW. There is no excuse to miss this -- especially if a cat like Mr. West can cross the Atlantic to pay his respects on what would have been his mentor's 80th birthday. You can buy your tickets here. And if you can't make it? GET THE WORD OUT ANYWAY!

Ornithologies

After a bit of a break, The Beast has a book-related piece on the Los Angeles Magazine site about three recent Charlie Parker biographies. Check it out here.

Moonlighting!

Austin Peralta

The Beast has been remiss in posting this week, but we've been busy elsewhere. Here's our latest live reviews from the Los Angeles Magazine blog:

Venice Says Goodbye to Austin Peralta

(2/8/13)

 

Hands on the Hard & Hollow: Bill Frisell & Vinicius Cantuaria

(1/22/13)

 

Haden Family Honors

(2/13/13)

Charlie Haden

The Beast on Newsstands Now

After a considerable, uh, "hiatus", The Beast finally sees its name again in PPJ (Paid Print Journalism) in the October issue of Los Angeles Magazine, which just came out this week. In the "Culture" section towards the front is a brief interview/profile of one of the elder statesmen of jazz guitar, Dr. Kenny Burrell [pictured below as a young pup] Feel free to go out and buy a copy -- if not for us than for the provocative, non-jazz related cover.