by S. Victor Aaron It’s become a late winter tradition for three years running: covering a new release by the most successful electric blues artist of late, Joe Bonamassa. In ’09 it was The Ballad Of John Henry, then ’10 brought us Black Rock. The short story on the reviewsRead More
You expected the Cars, reformed without the late bass-playing vocalist Benjamin Orr, to come out with a sad song. Not a track called “Sad Song” that sounds anything but. You May Also Like: Todd Rundgren jumpstarted the New Cars’ surprisingly fun It’s Alive The Cars’ Often-Overlooked ‘Candy-O’ Still Revs WithRead More
by Mark Saleski Back in the late 1980s, there was a backlash of sorts against the new traditionalist tendencies in mainstream jazz. Wynton Marsalis and his cohorts had come along to celebrate (and honestly, expand upon) the early strengths of bop and, as usual, the major labels started releasing likeRead More
by Nick DeRiso The 1970s weren’t all shag carpeting and plaid pants. OK, they were. But not all of it sucked. Really. We’ve done the research. If it meant dusting off the turntable, digging out the flared pants, and fro-ing up their hair again? Well, those are the sacrifices thatRead More
Yet another product from Moppa Elliot’s Hot Cup Records, which already says a lot about a record that shares the same label as Bryan And The Haggards, Puttin’ On The Ritz, and Mostly Other People Do The Killing. But we were already saying things — nice things — about Lundbom’sRead More
by Mark Saleski Jazz fans have always been sort of coy with the word ‘fusion.’ We like to make jokes about it, even applying a nickname of sorts — The F-Word — because we’d hate to admit that we’re ever serious about the genre. Yeah, fusion seems to get theRead More
by S. Victor Aaron For a lot of us, our first exposure to jazz was those Charlie Brown TV specials featuring the piano trio music of Vince Guaraldi. Then again, some Disney films like 101 Dalmations, Lady And The Tramp and especially The Aristocats contained jazz or jazz-y tunes.Read More