by Nick Deriso  A remarkably open and spiritual recording, “Then Sings My Soul” reveals the most touching of sentiments for the deeply religious Ronnie Milsap. Gone is the brassy everyman bravado of familiar country-soul and pop hits like “Stranger in My House,” “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It for the World”Read More

Cassandra Wilson, unlike so many, never turns a cover tune into a math problem — trying to get it too note perfect, or make it add up. Instead, her hypnotic, sensuous contralto transforms other people’s work, often giving it a power and meaning never dreamt of before. That’s writ largeRead More

NICK DERISO: With “New Orleans Meets Harlem,” pianist Marcus Roberts explores the connections between two of jazz music’s most elemental tributaries — building on familiar ideas put in place by Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. The record, Roberts’ first in eight years, hitsRead More

NICK DERISO: A crazy collision between the brassy sound of Rebirth and the great grooves of Parliament Funkadelic, LA Funk Brass Band is a party actually taking place on the bandstand. That makes sense, considering this funky roadhouse choir features a rotating set of 50-or-so performers with roots from northeasternRead More

NICK DERISO: “The Spirits of Our Ancestors,” pianist Randy Weston’s vibrant exploration of the African roots within jazz, remains a rapturous delight in any language. Legends Dizzy Gillespie, Idris Muhammad, longtime Basie sideman Benny Powell and Pharoah Sanders appear, while groundbreaking trombonist Melba Liston — then working for the firstRead More

NICK DERISO: Recorded live at the club Memory Lane in Los Angeles over a two-night stand on May 25-26, 1967, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s five-track “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac” is sometimes criticized for its brevity. Sure. There have been boxed sets produced with slighter source material. Still, Gillespie, in particular onRead More

Milton’s roots music, ruddy and real, doesn’t sound anything like his bio: New York City-based singer-songwriter. Instead, we have this sweetly gruff record, “Grand Hotel,” which stands flat-footed in the middle of the four-way intersection of folk-rock, country, blues and pop. Milton, turns out, comes by this honestly: His grandmother,Read More

Irma Thomas, whose Louisiana legend of a voice has darkened into a more expressive place, is taking a similar career tack. The new “Simply Grand,” in fact, finds Thomas moving deeper into the emotional underpinnings of her best work at a time when safer environs would probably be more profitable.Read More

From the first chunky guitar chords, the Spinners’ “I’ll Be Around” is a different kind of a song about getting dumped, and still loving her anyway, and thinking to yourself — and then saying out loud — that you’ll wait for as long as it takes for her to return,Read More

by Nick Deriso The Blues Foundation announced its 2009 inductees for the Blues Hall of Fame on Wednesday. Lucky us. We already love ’em: Multiple Grammy Award-winner Taj Mahal; Irma Thomas, the “Soul Queen of New Orleans”; as well as late Chicago bluesman Son Seals and the Reverend Gary Davis.Read More