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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
Chicano Music has gone through a lot of transformations and highs and lows, in the last half a century, sometimes in a good way, some other time not really up to the standards that the genre's Kingpin, Lalo Guerrero, reached in the late 40's.
It is therefore refreshing that a record that sticks to the traditions and the foundations of Chicano Music, with a little contemporary twist, like Johnny & Jaalene sees the light of the day right now, in 2018.
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
One of the secrets behind the success of a great album is the ability to keep the sound fresh and vibrant throughout the record, at the same time entertaining the listeners and jiggling different musical layers that magically fits inside one another, like a perfectly shaped sonic Matrioska.
This is something that the Leicester-born and London-based troubadour Jack J Hutchinson and his band of brothers Boom Boom Brotherhood fully manage to achieve in their debut album called Set Your Heart For The Sun.
Read more: Jack J Hutchinson's Boom Boom Brotherhood - Set Your Heart For The Sun
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
Throughout the last half a century, there have been many Jazz artists worldwide that have revered and paid musical tributes to one of the giants of the genre, the great American pianist and composer Thelonious Monk.
Some of said tributes have been, at times, very respectful of Monk's enormous music catalogue, some other times more imaginative and creative, two aspects that Thelonious Monk would have certainly loved, given Monk's innate tendency to go totally free-form in his playing style, on lots of the pieces the American Maestro composed in his exceptional career.
Read more: Monk & More - Richard Andersson With Rudi Mahall, Artur Tuznik & Kasper Tom
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
It happens to many music artists to go back to their roots, after a certain amount of time and once their careers have reached the highest reachable artistic pinnacle.
The same can be said for the American Blues-Rock guitarist and singer-songwriter Tinsley Ellis, a well-known and internnationally well respected artist that, for more than 4 decades, has impressed and very much still impresses to these days thousands of lovers of the genre, thanks also to his razor-sharp ability in Ellis' guitar playing style and for his deep and powerful vocal delivery.
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
For the last two decades, the fame and reputation of the American Funk/Jazz/Rock Guitar Maestro, songwriter, producer and podcaster Cory Wong has increased exponentially, thanks not only to the undisputable multifaceted talent of the 40-years-old's artistry and ability, but also to his well-known association with bands like Vulfpeck or Dave Matthews Band, amongst other, with whom Wong has worked with on numerous occasions.
Whilst running his solo career and running at the same time a remarkable instrumental side project called The Fearless Flyer, Wong finally managed to find the time to get back to studio and to work on the follow-up of his successful 2024 solo album called Starship Syncopation, a record that was unanimously received by the worldwide music press as a superb contemporary display of the finest quality of Jazz, Funk and Fusion.
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
It's no secret that the American eclectic collective They Might Be Giants have followed their own path without having to compromise with anything and anybody, throughout their longstanding career, as they do still in these days. It would be also a bit unfair to call the band only as an Alternative Rock one, because their music is much more than that.
Since their early days in the 80's as a collective, TMBG, a.k.a. John Flansburgh and John Linnell, have always loved to create music pastiches that take inspiration from the spur of the moment, rather than planning ahead records that could be of a conceptual nature or a more pidgeonholed one, by privileging instead what it spoke to them instinctively, throughout all the different decades that Linnell and Flansburgh have been making music together.
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
Music and its meaning are something different for every music artist, as many other things are, in life, for all of us.
Music also and often reflects our personalities, our moods, our roots, the places in our souls where we have been to and the ways we came out as, either winners or losers. Even when an artist's career would be on a high through the media, we would never be able to find out how that artist got there and what life path they have been through, until they decide to reveal it themselves to the rest of the world.
