Home Articles posted by Ekreader (Page 21)

Crossover Prog from Canada’s AsZension – Biosphere!

AsZension – Crossover Prog – Canada One of the albums that has been in my prog rock listening rotation over the past several days is Biosphere the sophomore release from the Canadian Crossover Prog band AsZension. The band is currently a studio-based band but there are plans to make it a live band. Aszension was founded by multi-instrumentalist Kevin Thiessen after he completed his studies in Contemporary Music and Technology, audio engineering, production and guitar at Selkirk College in Nelson B.C. After finishing his studies Thiessen set out to find like-minded musicians. First he met and then added guitarist and engineer Calvin Shiu,…

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This Day in Music Happy Birthday to Austria’s “Chet Baker” Michaela Rabitsch!!

Today March 8th Austria’s only and top female jazz trumpet player Michaela Rabitsch celebrates her ?????? birthday, Michaela is a singer, composer and is called a modern-day female Chet Baker by the US magazine Jazzscene!! She calls Weyer, Oberosterreich, Austria her hometown and currently Vienna is home. She has started her musical journey at 7 studying classical violin, at 14 she moved to Vienna to continue her studies. She switched to trumpet and studies for jazz- and popular music at the Bruckner conservatory Linz (now Anton Bruckner private University) with Ingrid Jensen, Peter Tuscher and classical trumpet with Fritz Handlbaue….

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The Safari Discovers More Ethiopian Music from the Addis Acoustic Project – Tewesta!!

If you’re like me and long for Ethiopian music to be like it was in my childhood in the 1950s and 60s, back when Ethiopia’s pop music of this era predominantly featured acoustic instruments such as the mandolin, accordion, clarinet, and double bass, played along with traditional instruments such as the “Kirar”, “Kebero”, “Washint” and”Massinko”. Then you’ll love the new album from the Addis Acoustic Project, Tewesta (Remembrance)!! The album brings back that old music but in a new light! Of course I am kidding – but I have listened to the album a couple of times and I must say that…

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The Uptown Shuffle from Saxophonist Vincent Herring

Originally posted March 2014 updated Nov 2025 So the other day I wrote about the great Dexter Gordon, today I’ll move to a contemporary  saxophonist, but still a great one – Vincent Herring. I’ve been listening to Herring’s latest release The Uptown Shuffle for a couple of weeks now and I think I like it more and more each time I listen. About Vincent Herring Herring is considered to be one of the premier sax players of his generation. He was born in Kentucky in 1964 and raised in California. His musical journey began when he started touring with Lionel Hampton’s…

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The Safari Explores the Music of the Brazilian Progressive Metal band Angra!

Angra- Progressive Metal – Brazil So the other day, Spotify suggested that I listen to the song “Reflective” from the album Sounds of Innocence by Kiko Loureiro. Since the name looked interesting and he appeared to be a guitarist I downloaded the album onto the iPhone and it became the soundtrack for my ride to the Motor Vehicle Inspection Station. I discovered that Kiko is a very, very talented progressive rock guitarist and a member of the Progressive Metal band Angra. So after listening to Loureiro’s solo album, I downloaded Angra’s latest release Aqua and gave it a listen! Both…

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The Safari Explores the Classical Side of Progressive Rock’s Jordan Rudess – All That is Now!!

The question of the day is: Can a prog rocker create beautiful classical piano music? My answer to that is a resounding yes – especially if that rocker entered the Julliard School of Music Pre-College Division for classical piano training at nine years old, like rock keyboard artist Jordan Rudess did!!. I think that the prog rock world is glad that in his late teens Rudess became increasingly interested in synthesizers and progressive rock music and left the classical world behind and set out to make his way as a solo progressive rock keyboardist!! The beautiful classical music that I…

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Dexter Gordon aka “Sophisticated Giant” born Feb.27,1923!!

   Dexter Gordon – Saxophone (February 27, 1923 – April 25, 1990)   Dexter Gordon was born on this day February 27 in 1923.Aside from the facts that he was jazz tenor saxophonist and starred in Round Midnight I don’t know much about Dexter’s music, so I figured his birthday is a good day to go exploring.. At Wikipedia I read….. He was among the earliest tenor players to adapt the bebop musical language of people such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the instrument. His studio and live performance career spanned over 40 years. Gordon’s height was 6 feet 6 inches (198 cm), so he was…

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The Safari Explores the World Fusion Music of Get Tribal – God of Drum!!

This morning the Safari decided it was a World Music kinda day, so  checked out the Zone Music Reporter’s Top 100 Radio Airplay Chart.. The first album that caught my eye was at number 3 – the self released album God of Drum by Get Tribal. The title of the album brought to mind the music of David and Steve Gordon, and the name of the band John Densmore’s Tribal Jazz. So I loaded the album onto the iPhone and listened to it while I was doing some shopping, The music was, in a word, mesmerizing! I found my feet…

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Archives: An Afternoon of Prog Rock with the United Kingdom’s Aquaplanage !

  Aquaplanage – Symphonic Prog – United Kingdom Ok so this post was written last March, one of the problems with listening and exploring so much new music, is that you forget about the ones you listened to and like, like Aquaplanage!! So here’s that March post! This afternoon I went to Mog to listen to Echoes of Indiana Avenue by Wes Montgomery only to find that they didn’t have the album. So I listened to another album for a bit and then I looked at albums “just for me”, which now is a collection of all types of genres,…

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Yesterday in Music – Feb 21, 1980 – Trumpeter Takuya Kuroda was born!!

About the same time that the Safari discovered Aynsley Lister, I also discovered the music of Japanese-born trumpet player Takuya Kuroda.That was several days ago, and yesterday Takuya celebrated his 34th birthday. While I had listened to a little of his latest album Rising Son, when I first heard about his music, but today I listened to the full album and it was a treat!! Kuroda grew up in Kobe, Japan and arrived in the US in 2000. While living in Kobe he played in various high school jazz bands, but he didn’t receive his first formal jazz training until…

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