Tone Poems release at Little Theatre Caféon November 4 2026
CDs are coming back. So we keep hearing. I prefer 45s but I don’t think they are ever gonna come back.
Margaret Explosion releases “TONE POEMS” on Wednesday. My last poster for this upcoming event was too noisy. The noisiest thing I have ever done according to Peggi. So I toned it down. Chris Schepp took the photo of the band playing at the Little last month. I messed with it a bit. You can stream our new release now at the links below and we’ll have a stack of CDs at the show on Wednesday. Hope you can stop out.
Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri performing Transylvanian Dance at Bop Shop
And now for something completely different.
And now for something completely different.
We have one Béla Bartók LP, actually a double LP, a European import, that we bought at the downtown library for a song when they thinned their collection. Bartók (1881–1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, photographer and pioneering ethnomusicologist—a man of science. In 1904 he heard an 18-year-old woman singing songs from her Transylvanian village, and his life’s goal was established. Bartók traveled to remote villages across Eastern Europe with an Edison phonograph and wax cylinders to record over 13,000 regional folk melodies. The folk songs greatly influenced his own work.
Pianist Lucian Ban left Transylvania at 30. He and the violist Mat Maneri performed “Transylvanian Dance,” improvisations on the songs Bartók collected, at the Bop Shop on Wednesday night. We found the performance as emotional and deeply human as Bartók’s recordings. Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri have recorded a few versions of Retracing Bartók—Reimagining the Béla Bartók Field Recordings for ECM Records, and this was the last stop on their recent tour.
Tone Poems CD Release poster for Wednesday November 4, 2026 at Little Theatre Café
Margaret Explosion is excited to announce our tenth full-length release, “Tone Poems.” Fourteen songs, all performed and recorded at the Little Theatre Café in the last year or so. The album features special guests: Phil Marshall on two tracks, Bernie Heveron on the closing song and Bennie Johnson playing Brazilian percussion on “Wiggle.” The album was mastered by the great Arpad Sekeres.
Tone Poems is available to stream everywhere now. There are also videos for four of the songs on the Tone Poems release page. Hope you get a chance to check it out or come to the official CD launch on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, at Little Theatre Café.
I have no idea why this picture is so blurry. Nothing wrong with the audio!
Kids are lucky today. They have so much music at their fingertips. The musical trajectory is no longer linear, and algorithms and playlists lead them down all sorts of twisted paths of discovery.
Lately I’ve been snatching up jazz 45s anywhere I see them, stuff I would have dismissed back in the day, Miles from the ’50s and ’60s, Cannonball Adderley, Horace Silver, Ike Quebec, Bud Powell, Lee Morgan. I wish Blue Note would re-release all the 45s they put out over the years.
The first jazz album I had was Charlie Mingus’s Town Hall Concert, and that was 1969, after a whole lot of pop and rock ‘n’ roll. That left me wide open for all those seventies Miles albums. Then backward to Coltrane’s albums from the sixties. Then Weather Report, Ornette Coleman, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Archie Shepp albums in real time, as they were being released. And through it all, any Sun Ra album I saw.
I am traveling backward with “Come Sunday.” I first came across it and immediately fell in love with it on Eric Dolphy’s Iron Man album. Dolphy performs the solemn piece on bass clarinet in a duet with Richard Davis’s bowed bass. I later learned it was a Duke Ellington piece, part of his Black, Brown and Beige suite. It was first performed in 1943 at Carnegie Hall and recorded the following year on RCA.
A few years ago I found an absolutely beautiful version on 45 by Johnny Hodges, who used to play sax in Ellington’s band. And only very recently did I learn that the Duke wrote lyrics for the song and recorded an almost a cappella version with Mahalia Jackson in 1958.
I looked for a seven-inch version of this song and found seven of them with picture sleeves for sale on Discogs for only seven euros! But they are all from the Netherlands, where the song was released on Philips in 1958, there would be shipping and duty on top. Why was this masterpiece never released on a 45 in the US?
Poster for Margaret Explosion performance at the Little Theatre Café on Wednesday, October sober 7, 2026
Jack, who plays bass clarinet and guitar with Margaret Explosion, is unavailable on Wednesday, so Bernie Heveron will be joining us. Bernie played bass with Personal Effects back in the early eighties. And he played bass with Colorblind James for a few years in the mid-eighties. Margaret Explosion’s bass player, Ken Frank, took Bernie’s spot in Colorblind. And we are all still friends. This will be a fun gig.
Trompe opened their night at the Bop Shop with a Don Cherry song, something to do with elephants. Their lineup, two cellos and a family of trumpets, felt good on the ears. Cornet player Taylor Ho Bynum also performs with Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, Wadada Leo Smith and Mary Halvorson. The cellists when both bowing could sweep you away but each played pizzicato with precision as they sculpted their improvisations. I was amazed at how they stayed in complete control and pulled out of their compositions like masters.
Their second song, “Blues for Democracy,” written by the cello player, Je4 Song was a woozy, off-kilter, almost drunken stroll through city streets. At least that’s where I was going with it. It perfectly captured the wobbly state of our democracy today. This was a free show and one of the best we’ve seen.
Wren Cove performing at Abilene
A few nights later we were in Abilene to see Wren Cove. They sounded great once we moved in front of most of the crowd and slid into a spot along the wall next to Phil and Ry Marshall. Abilene’s days are numbered as Danny has decided to give it a rest. It’s so comfortable here we stayed for the second and then part of the third band on the bill. All of Rochester is going to miss this place.
Stage setup for Alarm Will Sound at the Eastman Theatre
The neighbors decided to close the pool this weekend. Peggi and I have been on duty the last two weeks, making sure the bottom was vacuumed and there were no leaves on the surface. We took a final swim while Peggi’s bread was in the oven and waited for the alarm to sound.
We had tickets for Alarm Will Sound at the Eastman at 8 pm. The group was started twenty-five years ago at the Eastman by some of the same music students who started Ossia, the New Music group I’ve written about over the years in these pages. The students started Ossia, not the school, in order to perform pieces they wanted to perform, adventurous music that doesn’t fit in the classical or jazz categories, pieces by Morton Feldman or Steve Reich or even their own compositions, in Kilbourn Hall.
Alarm Will Sound Grammy
I prefer the minimal side of New Music. With twenty-two members, Alarm Will Sound leans mostly in the other direction, although they performed one absolutely beautiful solo piano piece last night. They have a fascination with Aphex Twin, and the group performed two of his pieces last night, both from their new CD. Alarm Will Sound won a 2026 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, and their Grammy was under glass in the lobby.
These guys have been around. Tenor sax player Ricky Ford played with Ellington’s band, Charles Mingus, Dannie Richmond, Mal Waldron and Abdullah Ibrahim. Drummer Thurman Barker grew up in Chicago in the 1950s and was a charter member of the AACM, Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He has played with the Art Ensemble’s Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, and Henry Threadgill. Bassist Jerome Harris worked as a sideman to Sonny Rollins, Bobby Previte, Don Byron and Bill Frisell. Pianist John Kordalewski has played with Chico Freeman, Charlie Rouse, Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake.
So the Ricky Ford Quartet was fully equipped to pay tribute to John Coltrane last night at the Bop Shop. Except for one small concern. A pad had come off one of the valves on Ricky’s tenor sax. He looked very worried before the show, and the piano player asked if there was someone in town who could work on his sax. Peggi recommended Carl from Shuffle Music. Every horn player in this town goes to Carl.
Peggi gave Carl a call and put Ricky on the phone. Ricky put some super glue on the pad and made an appointment to see Carl in the morning at ten o’clock. Carl works out of his home now, and Peggi said she could hear Carl’s wife in the background telling him they would not be home on Saturday morning.
The gig went off without a hitch. The band roared through seven Coltrane songs and then two Wayne Shorter tunes and a gorgeous version of the Ellington song “Passion Flower.” I have a 45 of the song by Johnny Hodges that I love. This was something else.
Jake Wark and Michael McNeill performing at the Bop Shop during Fringe Festival
I live under a rock and have no idea what Ed Sheeran sounds like. I read the article about Robert Kraft, the New England Patriots owner, saying that Sheeran’s tour could not play at Gillette Stadium if it continued with Macklemore, a rapper who proclaimed “Free Palestine.” That announcement was followed by the withdrawal of Sheeran’s other support acts and the Irish folk band that backed him up on his two-hour-plus performances.
Everyone has to decide for themselves whether or not they want to ignore injustice, but I was impressed that Sheeran went on to play solo at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. The article said he used an array of guitar pedals to loop and layer short snippets of sound to create a live, repeating backing track.
Jake Wark’s tenor saxophone is hiding behind his laptop in my photo. He works in much the same manner, sampling and mixing while improvising on his sax. He sampled some crazy stuff and made it work in loops, weaving layers of electronica with melodic lines.
Pianist Michael McNeill was the perfect partner, such a quick improviser. The duo never let things get out of hand. Their performance stayed musical throughout, and it was quite impressive to watch them land the plane as they pulled out of the soundscapes they had created.
Duane sent us an article on the Missy Mazzoli world premiere of “Lincoln in the Bardo,” opening at the Metropolitan Opera. The 45-year-old says her entry to opera came through MTV with its eye-popping barrage of splashy, jangling videos. Coincidentally, we have been watching a lot of XITE, one of those free channels that come with a Samsung TV, over at Kevin and Jeanne’s place.
The channel’s slogan is “See Your Music,” and it really fits, as they keep the sound off when we’re there. Janet Jackson, Gary Numan, Electric Light Orchestra, Quiet Riot, and even Kansas videos look operatic without the sound. Kevin says he likes the station because they play a lot of Kool & the Gang and all those Black groups that MTV refused to play back in the day. Not only that, they mix in performances from The Ed Sullivan Show like the Carpenters, Petula Clark, and Pearl Bailey. We had to ask them to turn the sound on for Neil Diamond’s “Holly Holy.” I never thought those videos from the ’80s would live on, but they do in a wonderful way.
I had my teeth cleaned last week, and I had to interrupt Amy, the hygienist, to tell her I liked “Give Me One Reason,” the Tracy Chapman song that was coming out of her tiny Sonos speaker. Got me thinking about the Beach Boys song: “You’re sittin’ in a dentist’s chair. And they’ve got music for you there.” Her playlist was heavy on Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty, and it all sounded so good. She told me it was a Pandora playlist called “Stevie Nicks Radio.”
I loved the afternoon we spent at Storm King in the Hudson Valley. It was the perfect way to celebrate our anniversary. The 500-acre outdoor museum has more than 100 works by many of my favorite artists, but they don’t have a Chillida. There is a mostly outdoor Chillida museum, Chillida Leku, outside of San Sebastián, where all the work is by one man. I would say Chillida Leku is more impressive than Storm King.
Peggi took a short movie at Storm King of some school kids rolling down one of the hills in front of a large sculpture. It brought back memories of doing the same thing with my siblings and standing up so dizzy I couldn’t walk straight. I found a quote from Chillida in the book Hauser & Wirth put out, Eduardo Chillida: Writings, that fit well enough to have Chillida represented at Storm King, and I inserted it in this Margaret Explosion video.
The song was in the big list of performances that were in the running for our new release, Tone Poems, but it didn’t make the cut. I hope you like it. And here is my favorite Chillida quote:
“Isn’t planning a way to steal the present’s greatest mission?”
We still sell cds at our shows and people often ask, “which cd best represents what I heard tonight?” or something to that effect. The players and instrumentation have changed over the years and it is tough to recommend one. I often recommend the very first cd we did, 1998’s “Invisible Idiot.” Our most recent cd, “Field Recordings” is sold out and so is “Disappear“. I’d like to say, just get a streaming subscription and you can hear them all but I bite my tongue. We need more product.
We started collecting songs we played live a couple of years ago and eventually we whittled down the list to fourteen. We sent those to Arpad for mastering a few weeks ago, he brought them to life and we are headed over to his studio tonight to make a few final tweaks. Now we need the artwork.
We named a live piece we did “Bohemia” and created a video for it. The song made the cut for the new release and I thought it might make a good title for the cd. I found a print of a photo (above) I had taken in Indianapolis in the early 70s and thought these guys made pretty good bohemians but the print had what they used to call “satin finish ” and I wasn’t able to get rid of the pixelated look without buying an add on for Photoshop.
Margaret Explosion Arcadia cover art
I switched gears and started working with the ‘Arcadia” concept. I took this photo on the windward side of O’ahu when we were visiting Matthew and Louise. John Vaccaro recently sent me a scan of a sheet of press type, a font called “Jackson,” and I used that for the title.” Peggi and I used to see this font in Spain. I drew enough of the letters to create the Refrigerator logo back in the nineties and I am thrilled to have a whole alphabet.
Margaret Explosion Arcadia cover art
That first one looked like a travel ad for Aruba so I swapped out the beach photo for one from Rochester.
Margaret Explosion Arcadia cover art
And then tried this one. The central figure, the girl standing alone in the water, looks like a Rinekake Dijkstra subject and mood goes in a dystopian direction.
Margaret Explosion Arcadia cover art
This photo, taken out the window of the back seat of Matthew’s car in Honolulu, fit the dystopian mood and I switched the title after we watched the fantastic”Blast of Silence,” sometimes described as a tone poem.
Margaret Explosion Arcadia cover art
I lightened up for a few minutes, long enough to entertain putting our cello player’s son on cover.
Margaret Explosion Arcadia cover art
And finally settled on using an abstract I did incur garage back when we lived in the city.
Susan B. Anthony Frederick Douglas Bridge in Rochester
We used to hear Michael Burritt all the time, playing his signature marimba as we walked by his house. We’d often cross paths with him when he was out jogging, but the last time we saw him he was pictured on the billboard on the side of the Sibley Music Library. And that was at least a year ago. I looked him up online and found he is not only the head of the Eastman percussion department but a leading percussion soloist who performs extensively around the globe, so maybe that explains it.
Mona Seghatoleslami reviewed Michael’s latest release in CITY, and we played it before leaving the house today.
I always pick up a copy of The New York City Jazz Record when I’m in the Bop Shop. I always find something interesting in the free monthly. In the August issue I read about a recording that David Murray just re-released, with him and drummer Steve McCall backing the poet Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones). We listened to the first track, “Last Revolutionary (for Abbie Hoffman).” Now, more than ever!
I’m planning to play this 45 from 1964 at Skylark Lounge tonight. I found it at the Bop Shop. “Sciuri – Sciuri” is a Sicilian folk song by Francesco Paolo Frontini in 1883. Luisa & Gabriella made it a hit in 1964 and the duo split shortly after. The track helped establish Gabriella Ferri as one of Italy’s greatest 20th-century cabaret voices. Icouldn’t find the song on Apple Music or Spotify but I found a live (dubbed) version on YouTube. Here’s an English translation.
Jasmine flowers and little creepers, I don’t sing because I feel in love, I only sing to clear my mind and pass the time.
(chorus) Flowers, flowers, flowers all year round, The love you gave to me, I give it right back to you.
Saturday, as we know, gladdens the heart, Blessed is the man who has a beautiful wife. He who has a beautiful one spends money on her, He who has an ugly one feels his heart dying.
Red roses in blossom, Pity the poor person who believes your words. I don’t want you anymore, you can leave!
I set the alarm most Sundays for 3 p.m. No matter where we are we tune in to WAYO’s Up On The Roof with Kyle. Today was no exception. His mix of early soul, jazz, R&B, doo-wop, and lesser-known 45s from the fifties through the seventies is exquisite. His radio voice alone takes you back a notch. And we’ve seen him spinning records a few times, most recently at Rochester Rapid Response Network’s benefit at Skylark, where we introduced ourselves. We met his friend Kelley there too, and Kelley suggested we all get together and take turns spinning 45s.
On Friday it happened. They each walked in with a 45 carrying case and we got down to business. Kyle started things off with a record he had just managed to track down, Irma Thomas’s “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand).” Worth every penny he paid for that one! Kelley played a version of “Scotch and Soda” that was every bit as good as the Kingston Trio version I had ready to go. Kyle pulled out a Jamaican pressing on the Barron’s label, Joya Landis doing “When the Lights Are Low.” Kyle told us he has this idea to do a whole night somewhere where they can turn the lights down and play slow songs all night.
The Sapphires’ “Who Do You Love?,” Bertha Tillman’s “Oh My Angel,” Stax’s Wendy Rene, the familiar Barbara Mason with “Yes I’m Ready,” and Barbara Lewis’s “Pushing a Good Thing Too.” We have four Barbara Lewis 45s, but not this one. That is, we didn’t. Kyle told us he had two copies and gave us one. Peggi and I were pretty rabid music fans during this period, and these young guys can play a whole set of songs that are new to us.
We were out walking today when the alarm went off. Bo Diddley’s “Surfers Love Call,” Larry Birdsong’s “Since You Left Me Behind,” Della Reese’s “Blow Out the Sun,” and the Lafayettes’ “Life Is Too Short.”
We put another row of arugula in and another row of lettuce, one that supposedly can handle the heat. Everything is going great guns with all the rain we’ve had. Lake Ontario is still more than a foot above normal. But I’m not complaining. So many parts of the country don’t have enough rain.
We’re keeping up with Cape Fear, watching an episode each week. That is about all the TV we’ve had time for with all the World Cup matches. Javier Bardem is so good! Bardem and his wife, Penélope Cruz, have (so far) been the most natural-looking celebrities in the stands at the World Cup. Unless they are better actors than I think, they genuinely looked like they were having a good time. We liked both earlier versions of Cape Fear, the one with Robert Mitchum and then the one with Robert De Niro, and we camped on Cape Fear a few times on our way down to Savannah, where my in-laws retired. This version is on another level. I hope they don’t wreck it.
And if you are looking for lighter fare, I would suggest the feel-good Neil Diamond movie Song Sung Blue. Years ago, while vacationing with Peggi’s parents on Hilton Head, we went to see a Neil Diamond cover band in the hotel lounge. Peggi’s father had too much to drink at dinner, so he lay down and Peggi, her mom, and I whooped it up. The band was sensational, so much fun. And I thought Neil was corny. I guess he is, but his songs are a life force.
“Solitary Man” wasn’t in the movie. I bought that 45 in the sixties, and I still have it. I might give it a spin tonight when we have a few friends over for a 45 party.
David Murray performing with Kahil El’Zabar at the Bop Shop in Rochester, New York
David Murray and Kahil El’Zabar returned to the Bop on Monday night. We first saw them together twenty-five years ago at the old Bop Shop Atrium. The recording from that concert was released on Delmark. I shot this video of the two of them ten years ago in this same location. As Murray told the crowd, “I’ve been all around the world, and you people don’t know how good you have it here, in this place.” Peggi and I sat down front, just behind our brother-in-law (right).
After reading James Blood Ulmer’s obituary I had to play his “Are You Glad to Be in America” 45. I might have known this before, but while reading the credits on the sleeve I noticed that David Murray played tenor sax on it. He has recorded with Max Roach, Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Jack DeJohnette, Chico Hamilton, Elvin Jones, Archie Shepp, and Pharoah Sanders. He is a co-founder of the World Saxophone Quartet. And it was a joy beyond words to hear him play in such an intimate setting. We don’t know how lucky we are.
Charlie Watts watercolor by Peggi Fournier based on Duane Sherwood photo of Charlie at “Ode To a Highflying Bird” book signing in NYC
It was so good to see Skylark Lounge packed last night for Rochester Rapid Response Network’s (RRRN) fund raiser and dance party. But the bar was so crowded it was tough to get a beer. The pop trio, Missu Kissu played a set and WAYO’s Kyle Brown spun 45s. We told him how much we love his Sunday afternoon show and we hung out behind him in the dj booth for the rest of the night, chatting about 45s. Kelley, a friend of his, was back there as well and he told us about a fabulous store in Detroit that has hundreds of boxes of soul 45s. We hatched a plan get together and each bring a stack of singles to play.
From Steve Lampert’s collection of handbills for Slugs in the East Village 1967 – 1972
I have one Lee Morgan 45 but he is featured on three of the Art Blakey singles I have. I played the Morgan record, “Hey Chico,” last night while we were preparing dinner and Peggi said it sounded like Frug music. She demonstrated it.
I didn’t know much about Lee Morgan, so I googled him and found Ethan Iverson’s Substack article on the movie I Called Him Morgan. Morgan’s wife preferred to call him “Morgan,” and then she shot him at Slugs on the far east side of lower Manhattan.
We watched the movie last night and loved it. Fellow musicians and friends paint a loving picture of Lee. He was a fully formed musician at eighteen. Helen tells her side of the story, and together they paint a picture of Slugs, where nearly every jazz great of that foundational era performed.
“The Chase” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at Little Theatre Café in July 2025
We have twenty-eight Margaret Explosion songs in a folder called “Arcadia.” They were all recorded live over the last two years. We are sifting through them in preparation for a new release. About half of them will find a place on the CD of the same name.
“The Chase” is one of the songs from that folder. We put it together with some footage I shot from the car while Peggi was driving. We had this fall-colored leaf stuck to our windshield in spring, so we took it for a spin. Margaret Explosion plays at the Little Theatre Café on Wednesday, June 3.
When we would visit my parents in their last years, my mom often had the obituary page from the local paper open nearby. She’d say, “Did you see that so-and-so died?” Often it was a former neighbor or one of their friends’ spouses. We still read the paper and, of course, at our age we’ve seen plenty of people we know listed there.
Yesterday there was a name I was trying to place under a picture of a guy who looked a bit like Ricky Nelson or Frankie Avalon with his guitar. The obituary for Richard Nicholas Tosti was short, but it included a link to the funeral home’s website. We learned Dick graduated from Aquinas in 1959 and died after a struggle with cancer at 84. It also mentioned that he played at Gigi’s Italian Restaurant on Hudson Avenue.
I found an article that announced Gigi’s closing in 2018. The owner was quoted as saying, “When we were on East Ridge, there were eight Italian restaurants in a few-mile radius: Gigi’s, Pasta Villa, Dentico’s, Mamma Rosa’s, Nick’s Sea Breeze Inn, the Italian Osteria, Ciprianni’s/Carpani’s, and one other just down the street from us.” For a few years Peggi and I tried to keep track of the many Italian restaurants in Rochester but Gigi’s was not there.
