by Nick DeRiso It’s been more than 50 years since Stan Lewis opened Stan’s Record Shop in downtown Shreveport. From his vantage point at the the top of Texas Avenue (I used to sneak down there after class), he would go on to create a once-lucrative business, then see theRead More

Much as Neil Young was the elder godfather to the grunge bands of a decade ago, guitarist John Scofield now enjoys a similar stature among the numerous funk-jazz jam bands that have sprouted up in the wake of the emergence of Medeski, Martin and Wood in the mid-nineties. Many ofRead More

by S. Victor Aaron PETER ERSKINE, Sweet Soul (1991) I’ve got scads of records led by John Abercrombie that show Erskine’s prowess on the skins better than this record. But here, Erskine does such a great job leading an ensemble that shifts from track to track. On some, we areRead More

1) Little Walter, “His Best”First gaining fame as a member of Muddy Waters band, Marksville, La.-native Little Walter pioneered the amplified harp sound that is often imitated but has not since been duplicated. Chess Records (now part of MCA) released a “Best” series that rank as one of the bestRead More

by S. Victor Aaron On the Columbia re-release of Miles Davis’ “The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions” … This 3 cd set covers Miles Davis’ recoding sessions from September, 1968 to February, 1969, chronicalling the line of demarcation between “acoustic Miles” and “electric Miles”. It is an important pieceRead More

This time we look at albums with grooves in the pocket even if they weren’t much in the press: 1) Herbie Hancock, Mr. Hands (1980)The seventies began very creatively for HH, first with the space funk Mwandishi albums followed by the better-known Head Hunters period that firmly eastablished Herbie’s pre-eminanceRead More

by Nick DeRiso While it doesn’t have the cohesiveness of 1992’s “Portraits of Ellington,” this makes its own kind of statement. The playlist is an evocative pairing of older, traditional big-band selections by composers like Billy Strayhorn, with more modern tunes from Miles, Monk and Coltrane. In that way, theRead More

Fans of his so-called comeback projects shouldn’t skip over ‘Connected’ as they make a bee line for Allen Toussaint’s classic-era albums.

The Beatles’ ‘Revolver’ became their best album as the group made its first genuine foray outside of already-comfortable pop-song structures.

by Nick DeRiso A line-up from jazzer nirvana is one thing. Wringing such ringing performances out of the guys is quite another. Call this cool vibes from vibrophonist Hampton, who certainly knows where to mail the invitations — a veritable who’s-who of jazz for the newbie: Pianist Hank Jones, trumpeterRead More