‘Fingerprints,’ Peter Frampton’s first-ever instrumental release, boasts a buffet-style diversity – from jazz to blooze to Soundgarden.

NICK DERISO: The Lightnin’ Bugs’ first live album begins, fittingly, with this boozy tribute to “Mama Rosanne,” a primer on the pleasing, blues-based gumbo that’s quickly become associated with this north Louisiana-based group. Start with healthy dashes of wheezing accordions, plucky fiddles and second-line drum-groove. Then, about midway through, sprinkleRead More

photographer – Clay Patrick McBride by PicoIt’s not a recording that’s a decade in the making, but it’s been fermenting for that long. Saxophonist David Rogers has immersed himself in the music and culture of far-flung parts of the world where he’s lived, like Southeast Asia and West Africa, andRead More

NICK DERISO: Buckwheat Zydeco should, more correctly, be called Buckwheat Zydeco/Soul/Pop/Dance/R&B/Rock/ Funk/And Some Gospel. “On Track” is perhaps the best example of Stanley Dural’s far-flung interests. He arrived, of course, with the credentials: A gravelly patois style, a band called Il Sont Partis (“they are crazy”) and experience in theRead More

NICK DERISO: Go into this hidden-away New Orleans gem expecting blues — what with Jim Dickinson producing and East Memphis Slim as a sideman — and you’re in for a big surpise. The House Levelers were more of a thumpy roots-music outfit, one that was at once sharp as scissors,Read More

Oscar Peterson, one of jazz music’s most recognizable modern-day pianists, was felled on Sunday not from the lingering effects of a 1993 stroke — he kept playing after that — but from kidney failure. He passed, aged 82, in his native Canada outside Toronto. Peterson’s stroke compromised his left handRead More

Everyone knew Loretta Lynn was at Shoney’s in West Monroe, Louisiana. It said so right on the side of her tour bus. But she wouldn’t come out.

With all the All Star albums of 2007 out of the way, there’s just one more piece of year-end business to take care of: my favorite song of the year. Like the top CD of the year, this one didn’t require much agonizing. It’s a song that puts me inRead More

by Pico Either it’s been a strong year music-wise, or I’ve simply been listening to more new releases than I usually do. It’s probably a combination of both but regardless, there was a lot of good chaff left on the floor by the time I finalized my All-Stars Starters andRead More

When it came time to decide which CD’s to include in my starters and alternates lists for 2007, there was a lot of agonizing over many of the choices. But my top choice came early and easily. In fact, it was all but determined by the end of May, afterRead More