NICK DERISO: What an enveloping, unforgettable experience: Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and drummer Max Roach, then bop’s most visible surviving pioneers, performing as a duo in a completely improvised concert. Neither had ever recorded a more free-form album, yet still there remains a deep affection for what came before — andRead More
NICK DERISO: When it comes to north Louisiana smooth jazz saxophonist Leroy Marshall, you expect a set that is, by turns, shot through with sweet soul ballads, great groovy moods and heaping helpings of delightful romanticism. Consider it done. The initial track on this pleasant 2006 overseas reissue, “Tupelo,” isRead More
NICK DERISO: The Crawl, led by the memorable eyepatch-wearing lead picker Mike Morgan, improved on an already pleasant mix of precise playing and white-boy bark with this one. Singer-harmonica player Lee McBee, who wrote or co-wrote three songs, had by then found a simpler way of getting a song over:Read More
NICK DERISO: Even four solo records later, you keep expecting Billy Bob Thornton to do something wacky on his new release “Beautiful Door,” to be issued by Universal on July 24. See, in the movies, he’s Bad Santa. The Astronaut Farmer. That murderous dude in his Oscar-winning plot for “SlingRead More
NICK DERISO: With a tip of the hat to Z.Z. Hill, one of his clearer influences, young bluesman Lonnie Shields debuted 15 years ago with a record that kept its eye out for the head-wagging flourish. Recorded over the preceeding four-year period in Memphis and Clarksdale, Miss., “Portrait” was filledRead More
NICK DERISO: Art Blakey demanded bravado from his bands, and this one was perhaps his most intense and adventurous. Debuting here on Riverside, “Caravan” opens with Blakey’s audacious drum solo — then moves quickly into an assertive and simply awe-inspiring take on a track once defined by Duke Ellington. ARead More
NICK DERISO: Cuban sensation Gonzalo Rubalcaba entered the U.S. not yet a legend, but discovered by one, Dizzy Gillespie. Rubalcaba (very Corea, but with some Hancock mixed in) made a splashy debut on both the Blue Note and Messidor labels in the early 1990s — reinvigorating the Afro-Cuban jazz movement.Read More
The ongoing summer reunion tour by the Police — which included last night’s appearance as part of the Live Earth concerts — got me to thinking about Sting’s solo stuff, an often too-precious group of records that has nevertheless had its undeniable moments of transcendent beauty. You want to likeRead More
NICK DERISO: One of the first R&B hits for Shreveport-based Jewel-Paula Records founder Stan Lewis was by that juke-jointy legend Frank Frost. A take-off the Slim Harpo song “Baby Scratch My Back,” it was finally collected on CD as part of the rollicking “Jelly Roll Blues” in 1991 — andRead More
NICK DERISO: Skid past the first few tracks — an overcooked original, then a couple of snoozers that are just too obvious in their modern cliche — and Dave Kikoski began to live up to his producer’s persistent tips of the hat. That would be Steely Dan guitarist Walter Becker,Read More
