It’s funny how certain bits of music can get under your skin. Several years ago, I was having a visit with my old buddy Gene out in upstate New York.

Like another Cuban product Aruán Ortiz, Manuel Valera is a gifted piano player who is able to reconcile the rhythmically based Afro-Cuban jazz of his homeland with the harmonically complex modern jazz of New York.

Steve Lukather, tirelessly active even after 35 years in the business, is rehearsing for upcoming 2012 tours with Ringo Starr and Toto, even as he works on a new studio recording.

The country rock field is a crowded one these days, but it takes a special talent to synthesize the genres in an accessible manner. And I’m pleased to announce that Dan Kibler possesses such a skill.

A best-of is really nothing to get excited about; they already have one of those, and this one even looks very similar in design. Basically, this sums up the band’s career from first album The Warning through Hear in the Now Frontier along with one track from Mindcrime II. There was a “deluxe edition,” of course, to tempt fans into [...]

If there is a group, in the era after the sad passing of Levon Helm, who can push forward the ageless Americana blueprint of the Band, it might just by Marley’s Ghost.