Music
C.J. Chenier, Can’t Sit Down (World Village Records)
C.J. Chenier’s last album, The Desperate Kingdom of Love, went about as far outside the zydeco mainstream as you can get—ominous title, PJ Harvey title track, generally downbeat feel. But […]
Peter Novelli, Peter Novelli (Chalet Music)
How does a little-known if perfectly-capable blues guitarist get heavyweights Dr. John, Texas Tornado Augie Meyers, Baton Rouge blues great Raful Neal and ace drummer Big Johnny Thomassie—the latter two […]
The Mumbles, Annunciation St. (Independent)
The Mumbles can be forgiven for accidentally borrowing their album’s title and cover concept from the subdudes, whose own Annunciation was released in 1994. But the subdudes never wrote a […]
Galactic, The Other Side of Midnight: Live in New Orleans (Anti- Records)
This is Galactic’s first official live album in a decade, though countless board tapes and CD-Rs have crossed fans’ hands in the interim. As it turned out, 2001’s We Love […]
Garage a Trois, Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil (Royal Potato Family Records)
Like Gang of Four, which is now essentially two guys, Garage a Trois has a band name that’s just too good to change when it’s no longer numerically accurate. The […]
Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars
The music world lost a great maverick when producer Jim Dickinson died two years ago of heart complications, at the age of 67. Originally a session keyboardist who played with […]
Trombone Shorty, Backatown (Verve Forecast)
It didn’t take a genius to peg Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews as a national success waiting to happen. He’s young, good-looking and a born entertainer, he was also making credible […]
Chocolate Milk: The Other Funk Band
Quick: Name a New Orleans funk band that recorded for a major label in the ’70s, worked with Allen Toussaint, played backup on dozens of notable sessions, and left behind […]
Porter-Batiste-Stoltz, Moodoo (Highsteppin’ Productions)
From the start, one of Porter-Batiste-Stoltz’s strengths was their lack of a keyboard player. The power trio format is fresh territory for funk and PBS has worked wonders with it, […]
Joe Krown/Walter “Wolfman” Washington/Russell Batiste, Jr., Live at the Maple Leaf (Independent)
Every Jazz Fest seems to bring another stack of one-off, local supergroup, live jam albums. What’s different about this one? For one thing, it wasn’t made during the Fest, but […]
