photo: Genevieve Ruocco Of all the rock or fusion guitarists out there, there’s none out there who possesses the most pleasing tone, amazing technique and exceptional phrasing all wrapped up into one than the Brit Allan Holdsworth. He’s is a guitarist’s guitarist, having influenced everyone from Eddie Van Halen toRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Guilty pleasures. Admit it, we’ve all got ’em when it comes to music. For some time, now, I’ve been meaning to put a list together for everyone’s amusement. I was reminded of that half-serious promise I made to myself when I came across Rolling Stone Magazine’sRead More

The hard-punching Charles Thompson is best known, if he’s known at all now, as a deep-background member of the Coleman Hawkins/Howard McGhee band from this period. On “Takin’ Off,” however, Thompson’s frisky rhythm and round-house experimentation are a constant reminder of just how underappreciated he remains. Thompson wasn’t simply aRead More

In anybody else’s hands, this new Mavis Staples album would have been a museum piece, interesting but ultimately dust-covered and remote. Not that “We’ll Never Turn Back” (to be issued on Tuesday by Anti- records) doesn’t have plenty of right things to say, and certainly plenty of righteous things, inRead More

This summer’s reunion of those pop perfectionists Crowded House had me back listening to this terrific mid-90s release, which — like the new tour — does not include longtime frontman Neil Finn’s brother Tim. From its completely realized debut with producer Mitchell Froom to the transformations when Neil and TimRead More

Fewer bands in rock have been more unjustly maligned than Chicago. Now, I’m no fan of the David Foster years, but being responsible for some of the shlockiest pop of that era doesn’t diminish the more innovative and ambitious output of the seventies, especially those first five albums. You MayRead More

The lead-off track from Anders Osbourne’s Grammy-nominated ‘Living Room’ is a rootsy jam and a helluva good time.

Editor’s note: This column ran as part of an obituary package on the national Gannett News Service wire upon Dizzy Gillespie’s passing in 1993. People told him those bullfrog cheeks would ruin his playing. The embouchure, very important. Flinty, yet funny, John Birks Gillespie was insightful enough to understand thatRead More

NICK DERISO: Guitarist Buddy Guy, a Baton Rouge-area native, has a presence hardly in need of defining. From bar-walking solos (thanks to that old 150-foot amp chord), to his clean, percussive style on a polka-dot guitar, Guy has since the 1960s cut a wide swath, image-wise. Yet “Southern Blues” illuminatesRead More

For well over a decade, Medeski, Martin and Wood (henceforth referred to as “MMW”) has been to acid jazz what Crosby, Stills & Nash is to folk-rock. A group at the top of the heap consisting of three extraordinary talents, and whose main releases are richly supplemented with temporary configurationRead More