• Led Zeppelin fanatics get a big screen treat this coming Monday evening at 35 Regal Cinemas across the country, as the theatre chain will dim the lights for a special showing of No Quarter: Jimmy Page & Robert Plant Unledded one day before its DVD release.
• The youthful audience of the WB network's hit show Everwood is getting a music-history lesson with this Tuesday's release of its original television soundtrack. The Nettwerk Records' CD features current artists covering old-school FM-radio fare - from Kristen Hersh's take on Cat Stevens' "Trouble" to the Stereophonics' spin on Roberta Flack's soulful "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.
In 1989, the avant-garde composer and sax player John Zorn released Naked City, which I’ve always described as “death jazz.” The album featured an all-star band tackling music that ranged from short blasts of violent noise (with tracks as short as eight seconds) to beautifully atmospheric interpretations of classic film music, including a kick-ass version of the theme from the James Bond movies.
The October 2 opening concert of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra’s 90th season consisted of just two pieces: the world premiere of Stephen Andrew Taylor’s Transfiguration and the traditional Symphony No.
• Smiles and tenderness abound with a hug-full of new CDs in which big stars sing to the child in all of us. Last week Epic Records released Mary Had a Little Amp, a delightful benefit CD funding the People for the American Way's preschool organization, Project Kid Smart.
Driver of the Year’s Jason Parris promised a few months ago that the band’s new full-length release, Statik, was going to be as “bare bones” as possible. That phrase is vague when it comes to music.
• This Tuesday William Shatner further embraces, rather than denies, his 1968 psychedelic stinker, The Transformed, with a new album in collaboration with Ben Folds. The new pop affair, Has Been, was produced, written, and arranged by Folds, and boasts a cool guest list, from country boy Brad Paisley and the serious Henry Rollins to Aimee Mann and electronic artist Lemon Jelly.
It was Rob Cimmarusti, the owner of the Real Trax recording studio in Davenport, who turned me on to Martin Sexton. The most incredible live performer he'd ever seen, he said. Don't mess with the studio recordings, he advised; go to Live Wide Open, his double-disc live set from 2000.
This summer season was rife with wonderful activities, from the Grand Excursion to the Mississippi Valley Blues Fest to the Bix festival. But in my "saving the best for last" opinion, the festival that truly marks the end of season is the Chicago Jazz Festival, which this year honored one of the Quad Cities' own, Jimmie Jones, with an after-fest birthday party earlier this month.
• Uncannily timed with the recent death of Johnny Ramone, two new documentary films are telling the story of the three-chord foursome from Forest Hills, Queens, with one film recently debuting in New York and the other arriving on DVD next week.

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