NICK DERISO: “The Ultimate Session” might not completely live up to the billing. Forgive us, however, if we cherish its sense of hip-shaking fun, anyway. Assembled are a who’s-who group of New Orleans musicians who played nearly five decades before with the likes of Little Richard, Fats Domino and ProfessorRead More

Pink Floyd‘s A Momentary Lapse of Reason, alas, was no Dark Side of the Moon. Criticized then as now for being transitional and samey, though, it was far from the worst thing foisted on unsuspecting fans during the 1980s. You May Also Like: The Song That Made Pink Floyd’s ‘MomentaryRead More

NICK DERISO: “I’m Having Fun” arrives as advertised. That is to say, it’s a bubbly, rollicking party record, featuring King Curtis — the Fort Worth native was one of the last of the great R&B saxists — shaking a bandstand to its foundations while keyboardist Champion Jack Dupree lays inRead More

Seems writing a tragi-comedy about small town eccentrics — some on the very brink of despair, all of them building powerful dreams inside their heads — comes easy for someone who spent time in Louisiana. It has for John Dufresne, the former professor at Northeast Louisiana University turned accomplished author.Read More

When Ringo Starr recently announced that he wouldn’t be responding to any more fan mail, it occurred to me that he must be completely unaware of the disastrous foibles he’s unleashed on a loving but ultimately unwitting fanbase. Certainly likeable (at one time, anyway), Starr was and is a drive-byRead More

by Nick DeRiso Herbie Hancock almost didn’t pull off “The New Standard.” This High Concept offering from 1996 found Hancock, with varying degrees of success, adapting songs by popular artists like Peter Gabriel, The Eagles’ Don Henley, Paul Simon, The Beatles and Prince. You had to give him credit —Read More

What better way to spend Halloween than with (as it’s lovingly referred to in the liner notes) “this thing“? “The Torture Never Stops” — a 24-song, two-hour blast of almost indescribably brilliant/crazy rock from an Oct. 31, 1981 concert by the equally brilliant/crazy Frank Zappa — affords us a uniqueRead More

NICK DERISO: Sam Cooke, for all his power and grace as a singer, established this strikingly brief legacy during the time of the Hit Single. Which meant Cooke’s most well-known albums of the early 1960s were often dotted with dated filler, tunes in the Broadway style of the day orRead More

There is a grail-like anticipation to these recordings, captured during four live performances just as trumpeter Miles Dewey Davis’s career transformed from a twinkling light at dusk into remarkable super nova. Too, these aren’t your run-of-the-mill sideman constellations; they are, actually, all stars. Namely, the band features a still-rising JohnRead More

You’re to be forgiven — even if you were there — for missing this one. Seems, because of lengthy set overruns by the bands that preceded them, the Who didn’t take the stage at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival until the no-kidding hour of 3 a.m. (The bill thatRead More