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Arendal 1528
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Arendal 1528

CD Music

Mavis Staples: "If All I Was Was Black"

Details
CD music

January 2018

Anti- 87557
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

As a child in Chicago, Mavis Staples idolized Mahalia Jackson, a towering figure in gospel music who attained such stature that she was invited to perform at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961. Young Mavis got first-hand exposure to Jackson through the established performer’s friendship with Roebuck “Pops” Staples, the patriarch of the Staple Singers and an important -- though often overlooked -- link between the seminal Mississippi Delta guitarists and the urban gospel-soul of artists like Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone, and Marvin Gaye.

Read more …

ECV: "Sticks and Stones"

Details
CD music

December 2017

Kwimu Music
Format: CD

Musical Performance
*****

Sound Quality
*****

Overall Enjoyment
*****

When you’ve heard someone play music as often as I’ve heard Ottawa-based guitarist Roddy Ellias over the past 40 years, it’s easy to overlook some of the things you hear; not to say that you ever actually take their musicianship for granted. With the 68-year-old Ellias, who has been more than a passing acquaintance for much of those four decades, it’s not so much familiarity or ubiquity that contributes to that state as his quiet self-deprecation. He’s so low key that it’s easy to forget that he’s both a world-class player and composer.

Read more …

Living Colour: "Shade"

Details
CD music

November 2017

Megaforce
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Outrageously overlooked in the annals of recent rock history in favor of other mid-’80s bands like Metallica and Guns N’ Roses, Living Colour is back, and sounding tougher than ever. The quartet’s sixth album -- its first since 2009 -- is an extended meditation on the blues that is stuffed full of slamming guitar hooks and uncompromising social commentary.

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Gregg Allman: "Southern Blood"

Details
CD music

October 2017

Rounder 1166100054
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
*****

The first music review I had published examined an album by Gregg Allman. By then, 1977, I’d already been hearing his voice for seven years. So I approach his final recording with both sadness and a wealth of historical context. Although I met Allman only once -- very briefly on a beach in Macon, Georgia, in 1979 -- I feel like I’m saying farewell to an old friend.

Read more …

Vijay Iyer Sextet: "Far from Over"

Details
CD music

September 2017

ECM 2581
Format: CD

Musical Performance
*****

Sound Quality
*****

Overall Enjoyment
*****

There’s a common refrain in the wider jazz community that there are few stars left, and that those who still remain -- Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Sonny Rollins are those most often cited -- are well into their senior years. The people who repeat this refrain like a mantra mourn the days when, as my colleague Howard Mandel wrote, “giants walked the earth.” The typical roll call of giants includes Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and select others of their generation.

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Randall Bramblett: "Juke Joint at the Edge of the World"

Details
CD music

August 2017

New West 6398
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Beck’s idiosyncratic mashups generally defy cover versions, let alone by veteran southern jazz-rock artists. So finding a credible version of “Devils Haircut,” one of the core tracks of Beck’s breakthrough Odelay, on the 14th album by Randall Bramblett is a surprise.

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Steve Coleman's Natal Eclipse: "Morphogenesis"

Details
CD music

July 2017

Pi 69
Format: CD

Musical Performance
*****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
*****

Alto saxophonists Ornette and Steve Coleman share more than their instrument of choice and surnames; the younger Coleman was the first major bandleader since his namesake to make music that moved mind and body in equal measure.

Read more …

Valerie June: "The Order of Time"

Details
CD music

April 2017

Concord B01MF9RD6H
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

I celebrated my 60th birthday by catching one of the best concerts I’d seen in a couple of years. Consider the context: as someone who reviews music for a living, I see a lot of live performances. Yet this one still resonates, and it wasn’t just the monumental anniversary that made it memorable.

Read more …

Delbert McClinton & Self-Made Men: "Prick of the Litter"

Details
CD music

Hot Shot 001
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

It’s easy to see the humor through the world-weary cynicism when Texas-born singer Delbert McClinton half-drawls lyrics like “I gave up drinking / I gave up pills / I gave up everything that gave me a thrill / Nothing salty and nothing sweet / I skip it all, from milk to wheat / I got a trainer and a diet guy / Sprouts and protein shakes, that’s all I buy.”

Read more …

Brian Eno: "Reflection"

Details
CD music

February 2017

Warp 280
Format: CD

Musical Performance
***

Sound Quality
*****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Brian Eno is one of the rare figures in music who has preferred to work offstage and never claimed instrumental authority. Aside from a brief period with Roxy Music and even briefer forays with Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera and King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, Eno has remained in the studio, turning out more than two dozen albums under his own name and, much more successfully, serving as a producer for U2 and Coldplay.

Read more …

  1. BassDrumBone: "The Long Road"
  2. Keith Jarrett: "A Multitude of Angels"
  3. Norah Jones: "Day Breaks"
  4. Metalwood: "Twenty"
  5. Nels Cline: "Lovers"
  6. Paul Simon: "Stranger to Stranger"
  7. The Allman Brothers Band: "Live from A&R Studios, New York, August 26, 1971"
  8. Pat Metheny: "The Unity Sessions"
  9. Wes Montgomery: "In the Beginning"
  10. Charles Lloyd & the Marvels: "I Long to See You"
  11. David Bowie: "Blackstar"
  12. John Abercrombie: "The First Quartet"
  13. Billy Gibbons and the BFGs: "Perfectamundo"
  14. Keith Richards: "Crosseyed Heart"
  15. Blue Buddha: "Blue Buddha"; Dave Douglas Quintet: "Brazen Heart"
  16. Jason Isbell: "Something More Than Free"
  17. Ryan Adams: "Ten Songs from Live at Carnegie Hall"
  18. Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell: "The Traveling Kind"
  19. Laura Marling: "Short Movie"
  20. Ted Kooshian: "Clowns Will Be Arriving"
  21. Suzie LeBlanc: "La Veillée de Noël"
  22. The Villains: "A Little Something for the Pain"
  23. Henry Mancini: "Music for Peter Gunn"
  24. Barb Jungr: "Hard Rain: The Songs of Bob Dylan & Leonard Cohen"
  25. Jeremy Fox: "With Love"
  26. Will Kimbrough: "Sideshow Love"
  27. A.J. Croce: "Twelve Tales"
  28. The Iveys: "Jenna's Song"
  29. The Dave Miller Trio with Rebecca DuMaine: "Better Than Anything"
  30. Bob Dorough: "Eulalia"
  31. Charlotte de Rothschild and Danielle Perrett: "Christmas Lullabies"
  32. Tchaikovsky/Duke Ellington-Billy Strayhorn: "Nutcracker Suites"
  33. Tianna Hall and Chris Cortez: "Noel"
  34. Tim Warfield: "Tim Warfield’s Jazzy Christmas"
  35. Gina Kronstadt: "Come Over"
  36. The Swingle Singers: "Weather to Fly"
  37. Tierney Sutton: "After Blue"
  38. Cheryl Bentyne and Mark Winkler: "West Coast Cool"
  39. Lorraine Feather: "Attachments"
  40. Lyn Stanley: "Lost in Romance"
  41. Randi Tytingvåg: "Lights Out"
  42. Vincent Cross: "A Town Called Normal"
  43. Nancy Harms: "Dreams in Apartments"
  44. Abigail Riccards: "Every Little Star"
  45. George Shearing & Don Thompson: "George Shearing at Home"
  46. Matthew Morrison: "Where It All Began"
  47. Thisbe Vos: "Under Your Spell"
  48. Mustered Courage: "Powerlines"
  49. Denise King & Olivier Hutman: "Give Me The High Sign"
  50. Thomas Gansch and Georg Breinschmid: "Gansch & Breinschmid Live"
  51. Ben Sidran: "Don’t Cry for No Hipster"
  52. Raquel Bitton: "Rhythm of the Heart"
  53. Frank Vignola & Vinny Raniolo: "Melody Magic"
  54. Laila Salins: "Elevator into the Sky"
  55. Tim Mahoney Band: "Shine Through"
  56. The Summarily Dismissed: "To Each!"
  57. Will Scruggs Jazz Fellowship: "Song of Simeon: A Christmas Journey"
  58. Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, Conductor: "Horns for the Holidays"
  59. Jacqui Sutton: "Notes from the Frontier: A Musical Journey"
  60. Barluath: "Source"
  61. Letizia Gambi: "Introducing Letizia Gambi"
  62. Fiona Apple: "The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do"
  63. Susie Arioli: "All the Way"
  64. Georg Breinschmid: "Fire"
  65. Hiroe Sekine: "After the Rainfall"
  66. Jamie Ousley: "A Sea of Voices"
  67. Bill Toms: "Memphis"
  68. The SSJ All-Stars: "From California With Love"
  69. Dale Ann Bradley: "Somewhere South of Crazy"
  70. Duda Lucena Quartet: "Live"
  71. Stevie Nicks: "In Your Dreams"
  72. Megan Slankard: "A Token of the Wreckage"
  73. Take 6: "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"
  74. "Christmas with The Washington Chorus"
  75. Esperanza Spalding: "Chamber Music Society"
  76. John Escreet: "Don't Fight the Inevitable"

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