Music
Various Artists, Boppin’ by the Bayou Again (Ace Records)
Those Cajuns, so the liner notes tell us, went off to war and came back with guitars and drums on their minds and in their hands. Thus, scores of snappy […]
My Music: Luke Winslow-King
“I started playing guitar at about eight or nine years old, studied piano a bit, and played French horn in band. My dad was my earliest influence. He liked to […]
Jerry Lee Lewis, Original Classic Albums: 1965-1969 (Raven Records)
Over the course of five original vinyl releases—that’s I’m On Fire, The Return Of Rock, Memphis Beat, Soul My Way and Together—Jerry Lee Lewis, usually just in from wearing himself […]
Denise, Camden Town (Alice’s Loft Music)
Forty-two musicians played on this, so sayeth the liner notes, which I can believe, counting strings, keyboards, saxophones, percussion and choirs. Lead artist Denise Mangiardi often curiously takes off in […]
Dylan’s Angels: Bob Dylan’s New Orleans Paintings
“There are a lot of places I like,” wrote Bob Dylan memorably in his autobiography, “but I like New Orleans better.” Of course, “like” varies so much from mind to […]
Chapel Blues, Bed of Roses (Eltor Records)
Dutiful. Reasonable. Listenable. If it sounds like I’m having trouble coming up with superlatives to describe this record, well, you’re right. The most interesting part of all the playing, Lawrence […]
Brooklyn Jazz Warriors, In Service of the King (Independent)
Oddly enough I was reading about Akhenaten, that revolutionary monotheist sun-worshipping Egyptian pharaoh, when lead singer Yisroel Arye Gootblatt came in singing about the almighty, or at least the transcendent, […]
Jason Marsalis Vibes Quartet, In a World of Mallets (Basin Street Records)
On a drum kit, the youngest Marsalis often goes several directions (meters) (not Meters) at once. On vibraphone, as he demonstrates here, it’s more a matter of smoothing up many […]
Johnette Downing, Reading Rocks! (Wiggle Worm Records)
Don’t get me wrong, my faith in humanity felt torn and frayed well before two women I know got almost everything they own ripped off by a heartless thief who […]
John McCusker, Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz (University Press of Mississippi)
The true secrets of Edward “Kid” Ory (1886-1973) might still lie locked up in Gregg shorthand—a form of stenography that was invented by John Robert Gregg in 1888—in a series […]
