About P.J. Podesta

Born on Christmas Day, jazz pianist Don Pullen inspired something like faith among those who witnessed his miraculous live performances. I got initiated back in the 80s when I was getting overpaid dispatching limos for lawyers. After an evening shift, I’d often take a free car to catch a late set at Downtown jazz clubs … Read more

Friends Inquisitive friends Are asking me what’s come over me “(I wanna) Testify” – The Parliaments For all that first guess would have seen Martin Scorcese, director of The Last Waltz, “presenter” of the PBS Blues series, compiler of many rock soundtracks as the obvious choice to do The American Masters Bob Dylan. The finished … Read more

Amiri Baraka has been getting in the groove again during the past year, though as he says to those who wonder why he’s “back on the music”, “I never did go nowhere. Somewhere just runned away from the boy…” That is to say, when JazzTimes fired the Crouch named Stanley, (and if we know, as … Read more

Though “beginning” travels backward into the wherever, this one was Jackie Mc’s. I’ve already written about it for some weird Spanish magazine (Matador ca: Jan 07). That’s the way it goes in the craziness where we live, harnessed to the dead. Those who still walk around with the harshing memory of those who don’t (not … Read more

Influence of Black Mind is mine a mine for the gold of past and future Shine your gold black light out of yr mind into the mine of our time Be James Brown and wish The line to the mind is straight w/ rhythm flyin, change up stride in blinding light And JB be digging … Read more

You have to love pop music to feel the connection between James Brown’s 1963 “Please, Please, Please” and The Smith’s 1984 “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want This Time.” The subliminal link can be found in the parenthetical subtitle of Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good).” As artists, both Brown and … Read more

At the onset of recorded sound, Bert Williams and his partner George Walker billed themselves as “Two Real Coons,” thus tossing up for grabs every term in the phrase but the word two. Right at the beginning they put the wink to the promise of recorded documentation. The reality they documented was not individual, not … Read more