The Right Prescription: An Alvin Fielder Mixtape

Since I don't have a regular radio outlet anymore—:(—thank God for Destination:Out. The site's principals have been unusually generous re: letting me muscle in on their territory when I have a blogging idea that suits their multimedia format. Last year, I surveyed Bobby Few's oeuvre, and now I've got another mixtape up on the site, bearing my somewhat corny—but IMHO justified— title of The Right Prescription (you'll have to read the intro to find out where that title comes from). This one's dedicated to Alvin Fielder (tearing it up behind the kit and looking like a ’70s ?uestlove in the pic above), a man who's always been one of my favorite drummers, yet whose recordings have always seemed really elusive outside of his famous debut on Roscoe Mitchell's Sound. I decided to use the sad recent news of his illness as an excuse to comb through his discography and pick out some choice tracks. Please take some time to sample this music; it's inspiring stuff.

All best wishes to Mr. Fielder! Here's hoping he makes it back to New York for a gig someday.

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Also, now playing over at The Volume, strong new tracks from John Hollenbeck, Kevin Hufnagel and Stinking Lizaveta.

And, in this week's Time Out New York, my review of the new Dylan disc.