by Tom Johnson Paul McCartney has managed to document each of his more recent tours, yet insists on releasing them not as actual concert videos but more as documentaries of the show. This would be fine if he’d do as others have done, such as Peter Gabriel with Still GrowingRead More

Maybe because it’s the first Pink Floyd-related solo album I ever bought, but also because it came between two Roger Waters-heavy releases (Animals and then The Wall), this has always been a sleeper favorite for me. It’s a loose record, with some interesting instrumentals, never didactic — and anything butRead More

My favorite period of Genesis’ history — the years just after the iconic Peter Gabriel had left the group, when the band shouldn’t have been able to be a success, but drummer Phil Collins stepped up the mic and brought his own brand of iconic, if short, stature to theRead More

From its first dramatic rat-a-tat, this undulating rhythm signature that plays off a driving acoustic riff, “Northern Lights” moves with a persistent ardor. Alex Wand’s vocal runs in tandem, even as the drums recede into the background, until he has finally, definitively captured the center of the song. It’s onlyRead More

The word “muscular” as applied to jazz guitar players brings to mind folks like Al DiMiola, Barney Kessell, Mick Goodrick, and even early George Benson. The great thing about these particular players (as opposed to artists who are rooted primarily in fusion) is that they can tease out ideas withRead More

Confession time: I still have a place in my heart for Miles Davis‘ oft-reviled last album Doo-Bop. Sure, taken as a hip hop album, it didn’t set any new standards. But taken as a jazz album looking to the future, it held lasting importance as the precursor to hybrid albumsRead More

by Tom Johnson I am convinced that Wainwright is this generation’s finest melodist. I can’t think of a single young artist who so beautifully crafts vocals in such a way that it simply doesn’t matter what he’s singing about: You just want to hear the melody he’s singing. And thereRead More

We’ve heard this all before, right? Not exactly: The New Orleans-based Pat Casey opens the second of two interpretations of Herbie Hancock tunes with a gurgling bass before Rex Gregory and Ashlin Parker join in with on sax and trumpet, respectively, to restate the swinging, salacious, but by now unfortunatelyRead More

Ahmad Jamal originally recorded this concert at The Spotlite Club, in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 6, 1958. Featured is the same terrific trio that had that Top 40 hit with “Poinciana” — Jamal, bassist Israel Crosby and drummer Vernel Fournier. That signature song, which charted for 108 weeks (then unprecedentedRead More

The Toronto-derived drummer, composer and bandleader Harris Eisenstadt was described by The New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen as taking a “fixer’s approach to music making, looking for ways to fit the pieces together,” and while I agree with the praise he and others have heaped on Eisenstadt, IRead More