Keb Mo isn’t that kid playing the old blues on the old steel guitar anymore. Instead he often comes off on his new album The Reflection like a pillowy-smooth 1970s-era singer-songwriter You May Also Like: Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ – Tajmo (2017)

Dancing with Duke, the second album as a leader from North Carolina bassist John Brown (Nnenna Freelon), follows the thematic pattern established by his well-received initial recording — a tribute to Art Blakey. But this homage to Ellington explores more interesting territory, in that Blakey’s music has always been associatedRead More

He sings something like Bob Dylan, plays guitar something like Mark Knopfler, but doesn’t fall into easy mimicry of either. Credit a long journey to get here You May Also Like: No related posts.

“Seeds We Sow,” the title track to Lindsey Buckingham’s sixth solo album, due on Sept. 6, is a darkly introspective triumph You May Also Like: How Lindsey Buckingham Balanced It All on the Underrated ‘Gift of Screws’

Nashville-based saxophonist Chris West continues an intriguing exploration of his own composition “Surprise,” this time alongside Jeff Coffin of the Dave Matthews Band. Appearing as the closing track on the new Disc 2 of his on-going Surprise Trilogy, “Surprise 3” finds West and Coffin intertwining through a series of conversationalRead More

Quintus McCormick doesn’t quibble with genre on this new project from Delmark Records. Instead, he sings with a remarkable facility, at once bright and sweet then hard and accusatory, sounding at times like some after-midnight deep bluesman and then like a spit-shined mainstream soulster You May Also Like: No relatedRead More

Percussionist Chris Jones leads a relentlessly groovy ensemble through a series of songs as rhythmic as they are spiritual on Mardi Gras Indian Funk, issued recently by Mardi Gras Records. For the uninitiated, “Old Black Johnny” details the history and passion of the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, in the personRead More

Pianist Augusto Pirodda, on his fifth long player, plays with the melodic, insinuating sensitivity that belies his brief recording career. You May Also Like: Paul Bley, Gary Peacock + Paul Motian – ‘When Will The Blues Leave’ (1999, rel. 2019) Michel Petrucciani, with Gary Peacock + Roy Haynes – ‘OneRead More

Zigaboo Modeliste discusses how his celebratory writing style has continued to grow, and why he never expected one of the Meters’ most memorable sides to see wide release.

“If there is a 13th wonder,” fellow Meters co-founder George Porter Jr. once said of Zigaboo Modeliste, “then he is it.”