Thanksgiving rolls around every year and I mostly remain silent on the “Happy Thanksgiving” front. It’s not that I have nothing to be thankful for

Another New Music Monday, another truckload of cool sounds — this time from the likes of John Hiatt, Lee Ritenour, Medeski Martin and Wood, Shemekia Copeland, Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris and the Gaddabouts, among others.

Oscar and Felix, at least at first, had nothing on this odd couple. But there they were, Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders: stalwart friends, picking buddies and musical soulmates — whatever their obvious differences.

There was something about a New Year’s Eve show and the Grateful Dead, as the forthcoming All The Years Combine: The DVD Collection so artfully illustrates.

What’s the “best” Grateful Dead studio release? The ones I hear mentioned most often are American Beauty, Terrapin Station and Workingman’s Dead. For me, it’s definitely Blues For Allah. The Dead at their jazziest. I use the tune “King Soloman’s Marbles” when I want to “trick” someone into liking the Dead. It’s a great instrumental full of snazzy percussion, snakey [...]

Ornette Coleman called his music the Shape of Things to Come, then later harmolodics. Everyone else, eventually, came to call it free jazz. And that fits. It was, after all, so very free.