‘The Blues Rolls On’ shows Elvin Bishop is as lively and loose as ever – and that’s enough to make it a good add to anyone’s collection.

A couple of years ago, I posed the question: is the Dave Holland Quintet the best jazz group working today? Today, the Dave Holland Quintet has been supplanted by the Dave Holland Sextet, and with last week’s unfurling of the Sextet’s first record Pass It On, we get to assessRead More

It’s been since the beginning of August since we’ve last done a “Quickies” here, so we’re long overdue for another one. There’s been a bevy of music put out during these last eight weeks that our full-fledged reviews don’t begin to cover, and a lot of it noteworthy. Gosh, IRead More

Marc Ribot is near the front of a phalanx of whack jazz axe slingers that includes Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser, and of course, good ol’ Bill Frisell. As way out his anything-goes approach goes on his solo records, he’s plenty versatile enough to play for guys as diverse as JohnRead More

It was only a few years ago that I was lamenting the fleeting guitar talent in George Clinton’s early Funkadelic band who reached incredible heights as Clinton’s lead axeman on funk classics like Free Your Mind … And Your Ass Will Follow and Maggot Brain. Besides Eddie Hazel, there wasRead More

Sometimes you know if a CD is going to be good even before you cue it up and start listening to it. The first thing I that caught my eye when I opened up Michael Bates’ Clockwise CD was the note that it was taped live on a two-track recorder.Read More

“The best post-punk jazz trio with vibraphone ever.” That’s the bold declaration you’ll find when you click on the link at the bottom of this article to purchase their CD. It’s also very hard to argue with that statement. James Westfall (vibes), Dan Loomis (acoustic bass) and Jared Schonig (drums)Read More

Photo: Susan J. WeiandWith jazz fusion having been around for some forty years, now, it’s not so easy to be distinctive in that field anymore. Garaj Mahal manages to stick out, mainly due to massive chops by all four group members and a dizzying array of influences each group memberRead More

The sky’s the limit for Aaron Parks and he’s already several miles off the ground.

Earlier this week, Atlanta, Georgia’s own Jerry Reed passed away at 71 years old. To a lot of folks, Reed was a fixture in Burt Reynolds movies from the mid-seventies to the early eighties. But my strongest recollections of Reed go back a little further, when he was still knownRead More