Scott McLennan
Avoiding pat formulas and enlisting unexpected aides de camp are probably the only ways that Bob Weir and his fellow founding Grateful Dead mates can avoid turning into a stale nostalgia act.
Arts Fuse critics select the best in film, dance, visual art, theater, music, and author events for the coming weeks.
Drummer Nick Mason and his four non-Floyd bandmates turned Boston’s Orpheum Theater into a psychedelic palace.
The Flesh Eaters have returned with renewed vitality, after it hit some troughs and sputtered to a near stop.
This studio outing emphasizes superb ensemble playing; the result in a beguiling album in which just about every note shines.
“I want our music to be genre-less. Actually I want it to be genre-more.”
“Five hundred years from now, people will come to that album the way that people come to Wagner and Beethoven. This is a classical piece from our era.”
The Grateful Dead’s music is moving forward with the help of musicians who are OK with the occasional look back over their shoulders.
Kamasi Washington’s music connected viscerally with a Royale audience that was packed with young people — or at least way younger than those normally seen at a jazz concert.
Favorite Music, Popular and Beyond, of 2018
Our critics offer their musical highlights of 2018.
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