In 2008, then-21 year old tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger issued his debut CD Dry Bridge Road, one that made much of an impression. Fresh out of the New England Conservatory, Dry Bridge Road racked up recognition from publications like Jazztimes, Jazz Review and the Village Voice, where it won theRead More

by Nick DeRiso With “Grinding Man,” a rollicking rapscallion highlight from his Grammy nominated album with Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, we get a winking glimpse into how 97-year-old Pinetop Perkins has kept himself going all these years. You May Also Like: James Cotton, Shemekia Copeland, Gary Clark Jr. + othersRead More

by Something Else Reviews Perhaps Todd Rundgren’s own restive muse — he’s dabbled in every major rock subgenre over the past four decades — simply makes him too difficult to categorize. Maybe Rundgren never stuck with one thing long enough. Somehow, this pop music maverick hasn’t consistently found the widerRead More

by Nick DeRiso Inspired by a record-release performance by the Toronto-based Foggy Hogtown Boys, fellow Canadian Bradford Monk decided to compose a traditional bluegrass recording. By that, he didn’t mean sped-up country songs. He meant honest-to-goodness, real-deal bluegrass – done the old-fashioned way, with no winking irony or next-gen updates.Read More

by Mark Saleski We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. During the late 1970’s, my hormone-addled adolescent brain held a few things dear: my girlfriend, my Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath and Kiss records and my copy of Fear andRead More

You can’t fault Gregg Allman his nostalgia on ‘Low Country Blues.’ Legendarily restless, he’s still a man, and the leader of a band, that’s been through a great deal.

Photo by Vicki Blankenship by Mark Saleski The phenomenon of crowdfunding is not entirely new, but it appears to be gaining momentum. I first became aware of it a few years ago when jazz artists such as Cuong Vu, Jim Hall, and Maria Schneider created projects through artistShare. The conceptRead More

by Nick DeRiso Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads Blues” remains one of the most terrifying, wonder-filled songs, even if you don’t know the oft-told tale of how the doomed Mississippi bluesman became so proficient so quickly at playing his guitar. It’s one of the reasons that, despite the brevity of his timeRead More

photo: Tom Lau S. Victor Aaron In preparing to assess Jane Ira Bloom’s brand new CD Wingwalker, I pulled out the prior one, the excellent Mental Weather from 2008. The striking comparison between the two became obvious before I even pulled the CD from the sleeve; I quickly noticed thatRead More

by S. Victor Aaron The steady stream of highly talented young jazz musicians continue to flow from Israel to New York. We’ve gone from Avishai Cohen to, uh, Avishai Cohen and everyone in between, like Amos Hoffman and Oz Noy. Earlier this week, we officially welcomed another Israeli musician intoRead More