Word: proteans
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...first set on Saturday night featured two mysterious compositions by Elvin's Japanese wife, Keiko Jones. Starting with Keiko's misleadingly innocent Japanese folk melodies, The Jazz Machine used both pieces as vehicles for high drama, exploring every nuance of Elvin's protean grooves. Tenor saxophonist Greg Tardy has shown considerable development in the past two years. He movingly demonstrated his growing mastery of Coltrane's licks with chorus after chorus of blowing in a style hauntingly evocative of his idol. His exploratory forays entered into the area of choked cries, multiphonics, and ever-multiplying expansions of the harmonic structure...
...goes by an incomprehensible glyph, but we're old-fashioned -- became a huge star by ingeniously weaving together two powerful strands of pop music: the guitar-based rock of Jimi Hendrix and the rhythm-heavy funk of George Clinton. With a great gift for melody and a protean instrumental talent, Prince released such commercial and artistic triumphs as Purple Rain and Sign o' the Times. In his persona, meanwhile, he presented himself as a sort of pansexual sprite. Tiny, mascara wearing, lubricious, he gave erotically charged performances and bestowed on his records titles like Lovesexy...
David Byrne is rock's most protean misfit. During the 1980s, when he was the lead singer for Talking Heads, his jittery, paranoid persona was the ideal conduit for songs about psycho killers, information overload and the itchy $ neuroses of ordinary life. Then, on albums such as Remain in Light and Speaking in Tongues, Byrne added African polyrhythms to the Talking Heads' new-wave mix, creating a pancultural groove...
SINCE HIS ARRIVAL ON THE POST-punk scene 17 years ago, Elvis Costello has shown himself to be one of the most prolific and protean songwriters of his generation. Known for lean, melodious three-minute songs with scathing lyrics about sexual guilt and revenge, he reigned for more than a decade as the acerbic headliner of progressive pop. Then came the '90s. Once a skinny faux nerd, Costello put on weight and grew a beard. His last pop album, 1991's sentimental Mighty like a Rose, was a disappointment. After last year's The Juliet Letters, a sedate song cycle...
...Diva; opinionated crank ("AIDS is a CIA plot"); and First Amendment scourge of Tipper Gore. With his death from prostate cancer, a few days short of his 53rd birthday, it may now be easier to appreciate an often overlooked fact about Francis Vincent Zappa: he was the most protean and adventurous American composer of his generation...