The music of pianist Monty Alexander clearly shows the influence of several true jazz legends, but I place more importance on his proven success in absorbing their lessons. Lots of pianists have displayed the influence of Oscar Peterson’s relentlessly swinging, seamless bebop lines, for instance, but bassist Ray Brown and vibraphonist Milt Jackson–both longtime associates of Peterson–have each used Alexander in their own groups for extended periods. Many musicians speak highly of the deceptively light touch that Nat “King” Cole brought to the piano; Alexander has incorporated enough of Cole’s muse to structure a fairly successful onstage tribute, replete with his own similarly dry and wispy vocals....

Ron Surace treats the piano with respect, and it responds in kind, issuing lines that lilt and chords that balance almost perfectly at their centers. Surace has a light, assured touch, and he creates classic solos that feature spinning treble lines, block-chord interludes, imaginative leaps, and a constructive use of space–often as not on his own compositions, which range from tender ballads to equally effective niche numbers like waltzes and sambas....

Born to country royalty, Rosanne Cash spent the first part of her career singing the songs she was told to by her country star-producer husband, Rodney Crowell, and wound up on the country charts for a decade. Much of that work (codified on the scrumptious best-of, Hits 1979-1989) was impressive, but it wasn’t the full story. When she and Crowell broke up, Nashville must have snickered at what the husbandless, producerless, songwriterless waif would do next....

Why is it that every single organ and component of the human body gets cancer except the heart? I have heard about cancer of everything from the brain to the blood; it seems no appendage is safe from the ravages of the big C. Yet I have never heard of anyone getting heart cancer. Am I merely medically ignorant or does the big love muscle have a secret weapon? –Peter Scott, Burbank, California...

AMM Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The importance of the British collective AMM for any of today’s radical music cannot be overstated. Their brand of freely improvised sound set the stage for industrial, noise rock, and ambient 30 years ago, and they successfully brought together strands from free jazz and experimental classical music, yielding an altogether new agglomeration. Meanwhile, AMM actively sought to bridge the perceived gap between the physical and psychological materials of sound and the social practices of music making–to give the lie to the supposed elitism of abstraction....

In “Ellen’s Tune,” a soft and whimsical tribute to his wife, folkie Bill Morrissey captures his appeal with typically shambling aplomb: “Nothing up my sleeve, no bag of tricks / Glad she goes for lyrics, not guitar licks.” For some reason, I kind of feel guilty about liking Morrissey; probably because it’s easy to scoff at people who are treading the boards in a genre that’s been passed over by time, and also because it’s hard, really, to argue that he’s important, or even to make a case that the skeptical will find the pleasure he gives worth the time it takes to know him....

For all its popularity and critical acclaim I never really got Bjork’s music, either with the Sugarcubes or without. More a quirky oddball than a genuine innovator, she seemed to offer nonthreatening weirdness tailor-made for people who consider themselves creative and open-minded. With that in mind, I don’t know how to explain the remarkable transformation chronicled on her stunning second album, Post (Elektra). Part of its dramatic power must come from her collaborators: Nellee Hooper (who’s worked extensively with Massive Attack and produced Bjork’s dance-pop-oriented solo debut), Tricky, Graham Massey of 808 State, and Mo’ Wax mainstay Howie Bernstein....

Cold Fever Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Beginning in Tokyo in a standard screen ratio before expanding to ‘Scope in scenic Iceland, this arresting, oddball 1995 road movie by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson–cowritten by producer Jim Stark (a longtime Jim Jarmusch associate)–is the first Icelandic feature to be released commercially in the U.S. (Nearly all of the dialogue is in English.) Strange, often funny, and occasionally beautiful, it concerns a Japanese businessman (Mystery Train’s Masotoshi Nagase) who’s planning a vacation in Hawaii until his grandfather (the late Seijun Suzuki, ace B-film auteur) persuades him to fly to Iceland during winter and travel cross-country to perform a memorial service at the spot where his parents died in an accident....

Rebecca Rossen and Keith Carollo at the Dance Center of Columbia College, June 7 and 8 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Rossen is far more experienced, especially in the world of experimental dance. Her lanky body is suitable for ballet. But her experience and choreography are the antithesis of classical dance. She sticks her arms and legs out at quirky angles, folding and unfolding her long body and interrupting the movement’s natural flow and rhythm....

World-class European theater can raise the ire of unsung local directors, who are often heard grumbling after a blistering international performance, “Well, sure, if my theater were state funded…” Let’s hope those cranks stay away from the 3/4 Theatre-Zusno’s thrilling puppet cabaret Gianni, Jan, John…. They might never recover. Founded in 1992 by Krzysztof Rau, then managing director of the Bialystok Puppet Theatre, the 3/4 Theatre-Zusno is Poland’s first private theater company....

“Maria, Maria, I played one of your daughters in my high school production,” gushes a young girl, her hand thrusting forward a well-thumbed Stagebill. The recipient of her enthusiasm is a gentle, plump elderly woman in a peasant frock. She looks over the Liz Phair look-alike from Palatine. “Ja, zo you did, my child,” she answers, obliging with an autograph. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Earlier in the evening, at a dinner hosted by Austrian Airlines, von Trapp had serenaded the guests with “Edelweiss” and a few other ditties identified with her celebrated family....

The FBI is scouring the country for the Unabomber–but is their search a classic case of misdirection? The best place to hide, they say, is right out in the open. Maybe the Unabomber is one of the most visible men in America. Maybe he’s Bill Gates. Think about it. A close study reveals some suspicious similarities. Consider the evidence and ask yourself: why have Bill Gates and the Unabomber never been seen together in public?...

National Exposure Photography Exhibition Diana E. Rosen’s Lisa provides an apparent contrast. An attractive young woman in a bikini stands calf-deep in blue water, facing the camera directly, even proudly, dominating the blurry landscape in the distance. But hung just to the right of it is Rosen’s Lisa and Stephen, and it can’t help but modify one’s view of Lisa. Once again the woman faces the camera, but here her look is more tentative....

By Ben Joravsky Around the country Bridgeport is known as the birthplace of Chicago’s Democratic machine and the home community of many powerful politicians, including the Daleys. But few people outside Bridgeport have heard of Bubbly Creek, which is part of the South Branch of the Chicago River, a tributary that runs from south of 26th to Pershing Road. It was once a major port for ships heading into Chicago from the Atlantic seaboard....

“This is Marie Duplessis,” Jill Daly tells me, turning the stiff, slick pages of an oversize book. “She was the original Lady of the Camellias.” She shows me a color portrait from the 1840s: a striking young woman with bright, dark eyes; arching, intelligent eyebrows; and long, shiny black hair framing a gentle, oval face. The woman wears a puffy, white chiffon dress with a daring neckline, and pinned to her bosom a large white flower, a camellia....

TECHNICAL JED 2/3, EMPTY BOTTLE This Richmond foursome bob and weave through guitar-drenched pop and melody-flecked guitar noise. Partially produced by Cracker’s David Lowery, their eponymous debut was recorded over the course of two years, which might explain its scattershot quality but doesn’t reveal whether the Technical Jed embraced their noisier attack after giving up on pop hooks or vice versa. Apart from a few songs that flare up, their musical schizophrenia is pretty darn innocuous....

I am getting married later in the year and to do so must get a blood test. What is the purpose of this? What kind of information could the government possibly be looking for? Is this test to ensure that Americans aren’t running around marrying their kin? –Engaged but Confused in Los Angeles Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Venereal disease was one of a handful of maladies (tuberculosis was another) that were deemed to have such horrible public-health consequences that they justified compulsory testing and other drastic measures....

I’m from the government and I’m here to help you. First sentence in the U.S. Public Health Service’s Healthfacts for those 50 and over: “It’s too late to die young.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Is it possible that decentralization and integration don’t mix? Lorraine Forte reports in Catalyst (December) that in 1987 216 Chicago public schools were outside the guidelines for integrated faculties (30-60 percent white, 40-70 percent minority)....

Just outside Benton Harbor, Michigan, in the dimly lit Pier 33 restaurant, a middle-aged waitress with a tightly curled helmet of hair is gazing down at my table with a mixture of curiosity and disapproval. What’s caught her attention is the pile of books beside my juice glass concerning southwest Michigan’s legendary House of David and City of David communities. She’s been chatting about Dan Rostenkowski with a table full of fishermen, all of whom think he’s getting a raw deal....

Shadow puppetry is a venerable and popular way of retelling myths and other folk legends on the islands of Bali and Java, and gamelan music has always been a part of the tradition. In the multimedia show Visible Religion, director Kent Devereaux has assembled a group of American and Indonesian artists for a cross-cultural treatment of a tale from the Hindu epic Mahabharata. The production has a few Western twists, including episodes from Greek mythology and Dante’s Inferno, and it blends Javanese puppetry, performed in front of a screen, with the Balinese style, which hides the puppeteer behind the screen....