Music
Eden Brent: Getaway Blues (Yellow Dog Records)
When it comes to musical instruments in blues, it’s the guitar that rules. It’s more prevalent than the piano, it’s portable, and has greater potential for varying sounds, tones, and tunings. True, blues is guitar-dominated, but just hours of solid, nonstop guitars can lead to saturation burnout, at least to some ears, making the blues pianist a welcome treat.
Various Artists: We Are All Drifters: A Tribute to the Continental Drifters (Cool Dog Sound)
Looks like the Continental Drifters are officially legendary now. Though the band itself is currently on hiatus, they’re being honored with the trifecta of a compilation double album, a print biography, and this two-CD tribute album curated by biographer Sean Kelly and longtime friend and associate, Los Angeles musician David Jenkins.
Nation Beat: Archaic Humans (Ropeadope Records)
Nation Beat is the vibrantly realized musical vision of its leader and founder, Scott Kettner. A drummer, percussionist, composer and educator in New Jersey, Kettner formed Nation Beat to merge his jazz foundation with Brazilian rhythm.
Piper and the Hard Times: Revelation (Hard Times Records)
Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Piper and the Hard Times play a brawny array of blues, rock, soul, rhythm-and-blues and funk. Individual songs on the band’s new album, Revelation, can tilt closer to one style or another.
Jim Stephens: Pick Your Potion: A Blues Journey (Independent)
Guitarist and songwriter Jim Stephens designs his albums as a curator or tour guide. By any standard you can name—musical style, lyrical mood, production, instrumentation—this album goes all over the place; it’s a blues album with elements of rock, R&B, jazz and hip-hop.
Joe Boyd: And the Rhythm Remains: A Journey Through Global Music (ZE Books)
Now along comes Joe Boyd’s And the Rhythm Remains: A Journey Through Global Music, which accomplishes the same feat, but covers so much more ground. At over 800 pages, this nearly two-inch thick book is over twice the length of Sublette’s tome. It is a whopper in every sense of the word.
Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers: Now Is The Time (Angel Dove Global/Universal Music)
Though 2024 is half over, Dwayne Dopsie is already knocking out a banner year. On February 26, the Zydeco accordionist received a call from producer Raphael Saadiq to be part of Beyoncé’s landmark country album Cowboy Carter, released March 29. The next day, the Zydeco accordionist hopped on an airplane bound for Los Angeles to play his accordion on Dolly Parton’s signature classic “Jolene.”
Delfeayo Marsalis – Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Crescent City Jewels (Troubadour Jass Records)
New Orleans enjoys any number of unique, robust aspects of life that can be considered its precious stones. As the birthplace of jazz, its singular musical culture, being so closely linked to the African diaspora, is regaled around the world. On trombonist and bandleader Delfeayo Marsalis latest release, Crescent City Jewels, the musicians in his full capacity Uptown Jazz Orchestra represent a collection of sparking gems who carry on and extend this city’s traditions and, importantly, have fun doing just that.
Jim Markway: Comrades (Independent)
Bassist Jim Markway gathers many of his New Orleans musical associates together in various combinations on his aptly titled release, Comrades. As regulars on the jazz scene, it is more than likely these musicians have shared a bandstand or at least run across each other.
Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. and The Zydeco Twisters: More Fun With Rockin Dopsie Jr. & The Zydeco Twisters (ATO Records)
Whatever else 2024 will be remembered for, in zydeco, it will also be known as the year of the Dopsies, with a pair of albums by Dopsie brothers Dwayne and Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. and The Zydeco Twisters, sons of venerable zydeco pioneer Rockin’ Dopsie, Sr. (1932-1993).
