Delfeayo Marsalis doesn’t just rediscover Duke Ellington. He reanimates Ellington as a living breathing thing, a collaborative voice.

photo: Natascha Rockwin by S. Victor Aaron According to Wikipedia, a gutbucket is “a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator.” There is even a “gutbucket blues” style of music that was played by those jug bands of long ago. And soRead More

The King has been dead for nearly a half century. Not that you’d know it with all the reissues, television specials and creepy rip offs from Nat Cole’s daughter over the last pair of decades. He’s funny that way. Cole has had more output over that period than many livingRead More

Photo from NME.com by Tom Johnson Just a week ago, we were expecting nothing more than the usual – just distant wondering of when there might be a new Radiohead. It had to be coming soon, right? It’s been more than three years since they surprised us with In RainbowsRead More

Even today, there’s still no roadmap for Dr. John and the Meters’ crazy-eyed co-mingling of R&B, jazz, island beats, blues, boogie funk and hoodoo.

Photo from Todd Rundgren’s MySpace page by Something Else Reviews Todd Rundgren has announced five spring concerts, during which he will perform a pair of albums in their entirety, Todd and Healing. The first-ever live stagings of these two releases, held in September of last year, found Rundgren on stageRead More

Photo by Sandrine Lee by Mark Saleski HA! Made ya look!! Wait, you’re thinking…that’s not Justin Bieber…it’s Esperanza Spalding! Yeah, I just couldn’t resist a little GrammySmugness2011™ … except that I’m really listening to Pizzicato Five! I’ve been thinking about this year’s Grammy awards. Specifically, the “shock” of jazz bassRead More

by Something Else! Reviews Robert Cray tops this year’s class of inductees into the Blues Hall of Fame. He’s joined by acoustic bluesman John Hammond; soul-blues belter Denise LaSalle, 1950s singing star Big Maybelle, and singer/songwriters Alberta Hunter and J.B. Lenoir. Also to be recognized: Vivian Carter and Jimmy BrackenRead More

Photo by Myles Boisen by S. Victor Aaron Imagine a conversation with three other people where topic…a theme if you will…is selected and all four of you are to converse on that topic at certain points in time. And then at other times, a random topic is chosen, but everyoneRead More

by Something Else Reviews Composer/producer Ryan Truesdell on Wednesday launched the Gil Evans Centennial Project at GilEvansProject.com. There’s news: Truesdell, the first person outside of the Evans family to have full access to his musical archives, has uncovered a series of rare compositions, from before and after Evans’ celebrated collaborationsRead More