Monthly Archives: September 2025

Heirloom’s debut album initiates a legacy of lyricism, hard swing, and probing form

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Album cover for Heirloom’s debut album “Familar Beginnings.” Courtesy Shifting Paradigm Records

With a jazz band’s name so lyrically titled, Milwaukee’s Heirloom shouldn’t have surprised us that their first recorded artifact is a musical objet de art. Of course, many musicians strive for art, but Familar Beginnings is the real thing. Chops-laden bandleader-guitarist Ben Dameron’s classical training helps underscore that a potent  lyricism deeply informs his calling.

The lyrical bent blooms in titles like “Eucalyptus Breeze” and the rustic “Indigo Tears,” a deep-dish slice of Bill Frisell-ish Americana. If the latter title also suggests a famous Ellington “mood,” it’s no coincidence as Heirloom digs elsewhere into the Strayhorn bounty chest with “Isfahan.” This interpretation gives a jaunty boost to saxophonist Johnny Hodges’ languid classic. Dameron’s melodic sense is fully woven into his structural form.

Heirloom (l-r: Ben Dameron, Tim Ipsen, Sam Taylor, Hannah Johnson) performs at an album release event recently at the Jazz Estate. Photo by Kevin Lynch

As for form, “Message from the Deep” appears almost “through composed” but probes depths that bring light to one’s fire. So, don’t worry about the album’s backbone. The penultimate tune drives the band around the final curve with full-throttle swinging. The piece, “Fake Block”” cagily suggests football, to me. Here drummer Hannah Johnson absolutely crackles spitfire, astride her apparent quest to become one of the upper Midwest’s best jazz drummers. Hardly undone, tenor saxophonist Sam Taylor doesn’t spare the horses he reins masterfully elsewhere.

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This review was orignally published in The Shepherd Express: https://shepherdexpress.com/music/album-reviews/familiar-beginnings-by-heirloom/

 

Ben Sidran live shows we’ve got a man in the lighthouse

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Ben Sidran – Are We There Yet? Live at the Sunside (Nardis)

You still can’t beat live jazz. Accordingly, this is as close as you can get to the way the Madison-based jazz singer-songwriter-pianist lives through his playing. Sidran has dedicated his career to “demystifying the world of jazz,” as an artist/author/public intellectual. “Jazz musicians are just like the rest of us, only more so,” he has written. Those last three little words gleam pearls of wisdom. You might say, as of existential necessity, we all improvise through life. But jazzers raised improv to an art form, becoming guideposts of adventure, and lighthouses to the shore.

Sometimes sirens of safety on the shore: “When the band shows up the mob becomes a parade,” his liner note says with a pointed sense of timely relevance. That’s why, still living and live at 82 in a favorite French nightclub, Sidran remains so vital and significant to hear.  As a singer-philosopher he can bat around metaphors and tropes like a master tennis champion, with a sweet swing and follow-through in his delivery. “You Got to Picture Him Happy” contemplates the long-suffering Sisyphus legend, “It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it/ There’s just the rock and that hill and that godawful sun.” In other words, you can’t give up, but strive for some style — beauty is truth? — to give power back to yourself, and others.

Happy might have a chance, but there’s nothing Pollyanna about this man. It wouldn’t be a Sidran session without a nod to his foremost influence, Mose Allison, whose “Ever Since the World Ended” contemplates The Apocalypse with tender que sera. “Ever since the world ended/ things that seemed so splendid/ don’t seem to matter anymore/ it’s just as well the world ended/ ’cause it wasn’t working anymore.”

Here’s a still from a YouTube video of Ben Sidran performing “I Might Be Wrong” from his latest album “Are We There Yet?” YouTube

Ask yourself, how true does that lyric ring?

Among his best current co-sharers is post-Coltrane tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza who solos with a sonic translator’s synchronicity with Sidran’s style. And Sidran can still play the piano like a prowling panther, perfectly befitting his funky hard-bop roots. His singing is suave and world-weary. He’s still the quintessential hipster. But not hipper than thou, just heavily laced with wry. “I’m tired of being so hip/ It’s like waiting for a ship/ that never comes in.” We’re lucky to have him still manning the lighthouse.

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This review was originally published in The Shepherd Express: https://shepherdexpress.com/music/album-reviews/are-we-there-yet-live-at-the-sunside-ben-sidran/

Comedian Stephen Colbert may be the best silent philanthropist/do gooder nobody knew about

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NOTE: This Colbert story seems to be a false AI-generated one, suggesting how pervasive and sometimes deceptive online stories can be, including feel good stories that just might seem “too good to be true.” This didn’t feel quite like that to me, but closer inspection should’ve been in order. Apologies. Congrats DO seem in order for Colbert’s Emmy Award. KL

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I was gonna post a brag about the Packers kicking butt again.

But this Stephen Colbert story transcends, as a Culture hero we can feed from. He shames us “do good” talkers. And, of course, the Trump-kowtowing network that fired him.

His quiet humility is inspiring, as he has a natural bully pulpit. Imagine what Trump would do if he had something like this to “share.” Maybe he didn’t want people expecting him or others to joke about them. He understands the need for human dignity, that “Welfare queen” Reagan, and most Republicans since, haven’t.

I think now of “hillbilly elegy” hypocrite JD Vance.

You gotta love how social media has jumped on his silent band wagon and started tootin’ their horns for him.

A Pulitzer Prize for the comedian whose currents run silent and run deep? 1

I’m all in. He’s a Culture Currents hero par excellence.

I need not say much more, one footnote aside.

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1 Run Silent, Run Deep was a 1958 WWII film starring two quintessential hero-type actors, Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. But how about a same-titled sequel starring a Colbert hero? Hmm, couldn’t use either of those two, if they were around. Maybe Bob Uecker, if he was still around, or Pee Wee Herman? No, he’s gone, too.

Maybe Steve Martin with a little hair dye? I like him for this, but is he too old? Colbert himself? No, he’d probably defer. Maybe a younger, more anonymous SNL type… Thoughts?

Social Media EXPLODES: Fans Demand Pulitzer Prize for Stephen Colbert After Shocking Details Emerge! The late-night legend has secretly dedicated thousands of hours serving over 220,000 meals and raising funds to build 1,000 housing units for the homeless and veterans — INSIDE the hidden life of a real-world hero! From New York to South Carolina, the internet is flooded with the hashtag #PulitzerForColbert. Fans are calling him “the true voice of justice” — not only because of his razor-sharp satire on The Late Show, but because of the way he lives: humble, compassionate, and unafraid to stand up for the vulnerable. See the viral photos of Stephen Colbert cooking meals, serving the homeless, and changing lives — why his hands-on kindness is shaking the internet! The untold stories behind his charity work, the emotional moments with lonely seniors, and the surprising reason millions believe he deserves the world’s greatest honor. Details in comment – News