Post Tagged with: "Nick DeRiso"

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Something Else! Featured Artist: The Platters

NICK DERISO: Though ever-changing subsequent lineups weakened the Platters’ considerable impact, the fact is — they still matter. The first rock band to have a Top 10 album, these 1990 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame appeared in the initial motion picture based around this then-new music,Read More

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Elton John – One Night Only: The Greatest Hits (2000)

NICK DERISO: As pleasant as this compilation of songs from an October 2000 concert by Elton John may be, yeah, there are problems. The truth is, early 1970s records like “Tumbleweed Connection” (a studio release with no – no! – hit singles) and the rollicking “11-17-70” (a live trio albumRead More

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Terence Blanchard – The Malcolm X Jazz Suite (1992)

NICK DERISO: The task here was turning sweeping orchestral themes from trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s score for Spike Lee’s epic bio into a piece that not only holds together — but also comes across like a true jazz recording. Blanchard’s effort is a triumph, something memorably better than the original film’sRead More

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Guilty pleasures: Goo Goo Dolls – Dizzy Up the Girl (1998)

NICK DERISO: There are funny stories from when the Goo Goo Dolls were nobody. These tales were, before “Dizzy Up the Girl” made them matter, just about the only thing that might help you forget that dumb band name. Almost. The band will talk about the time in Raleigh, N.C.Read More

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Freddie Krc and the Shakin' Apostles – Paisley Prairefire (2000)

by Nick DeRiso Freddie “Steady” Krc’s work as leader of the Shakin’ Apostles is as crunchy and cool as his old boss Jerry Jeff Walker’s contemporary stuff is serene and settled. The group had gone through several lineup changes since its inception in 1993, but by 2000 settled into aRead More

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Snooks Eaglin – New Orleans Street Singer (1959)

by Nick DeRiso A truly special, even virtuoso, street-level discovery, Snooks Eaglin burst onto the musical landscape with this nearly uncatagorizable debut. The in-joke around New Orleans was that he was presented as a “folk” musician, when in actuality the then-22-year-old Eaglin had already been playing in electric blues andRead More

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Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie – Max + Dizzy, Paris (1990)

NICK DERISO: What an enveloping, unforgettable experience: Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and drummer Max Roach, then bop’s most visible surviving pioneers, performing as a duo in a completely improvised concert. Neither had ever recorded a more free-form album, yet still there remains a deep affection for what came before — andRead More

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Leroy Marshall – New Spices (1998)

NICK DERISO: When it comes to north Louisiana smooth jazz saxophonist Leroy Marshall, you expect a set that is, by turns, shot through with sweet soul ballads, great groovy moods and heaping helpings of delightful romanticism. Consider it done. The initial track on this pleasant 2006 overseas reissue, “Tupelo,” isRead More

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Mike Morgan and the Crawl – Full Moon over Dallas (1992)

NICK DERISO: The Crawl, led by the memorable eyepatch-wearing lead picker Mike Morgan, improved on an already pleasant mix of precise playing and white-boy bark with this one. Singer-harmonica player Lee McBee, who wrote or co-wrote three songs, had by then found a simpler way of getting a song over:Read More

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Billy Bob Thornton – Beautiful Door (2007)

NICK DERISO: Even four solo records later, you keep expecting Billy Bob Thornton to do something wacky on his new release “Beautiful Door,” to be issued by Universal on July 24. See, in the movies, he’s Bad Santa. The Astronaut Farmer. That murderous dude in his Oscar-winning plot for “SlingRead More