Here’s the story of how a holiday music CD came to me by way of a Cheap Trick show I attended during the early 1990s. You May Also Like: Giancarlo Tossani’s Big Monitors, “O’Neal’s Porch” (2021): One Track Mind

It’s mid December and you might still be wondering what the hell you’re going to get that special music lover someone for Christmas. Steering you toward the good records and away from the crummy ones is a service we at SER provide year round. You May Also Like: Left LaneRead More

John Baumgardner’s Fruitcake with Nuts, which joins a teetering stack of Christmas-themed recordings, nevertheless finds a way to stand out in the crowd. Some of that is due to the pianist’s choice of material, which doesn’t always hew to conventions. You May Also Like: John Surman – Invisible Threads (2018)

Springsteen’s ode to film noir, “Meeting Across The River” is perfectly sequenced as the energy momentarily shifts down from She’s The One and heads toward the album’s close. You May Also Like: Reevaluating Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle’ Alister Spence and Satoko Fujii OrchestraRead More

Steely Dan paid homage to Duke Ellington back on Pretzel Logic with the only cover song on a SD album, and less explictily so again with the closing track on Katy Lied, “Throw Back The Little Ones.” You May Also Like: Five Moments of Eternal Brilliance From Steely Dan’s ‘PretzelRead More

Tony Bennett’s warm, inviting delivery would seem perfectly suited to seasonal music — and it is. You May Also Like: Jazz Reedist Daniel Bennett on How Musicians Can Thrive In (and After) the Pandemic Age [Part 1 of 2] Daniel Bennett Group – ‘New York Nerve’ (2020)

This was a near-total crapshoot. I’ve never heard of guitarist Pierre Dorge, but the names Billy Hart (drums) and John Tchicai (soprano and alto sax) were familiar. What I ended up with was something that is mostly straight-ahead jazz, with a fair bit of angularity. Dorge’s playing goes from theRead More

The title for the Noah Kaplan Quartet’s debut album makes all the sense in the world when you look up the word “descendant” in the dictionary. There, you’ll find one of the definitions read “deriving or descending from an ancestor.” You May Also Like: Noah Jack, “Neighborhood” (2017): One TrackRead More

If you’ve ever been interested in Ornette’s Free Jazz, but thought that it might be “too much,” then this album might be worth a listen. The first track, “First Take”, is literally a shorter version (17 minutes) of the Coleman classic. The double quartet lineup is impressive, too: Don Cherry,Read More

For many Southern-born Americans, Memorial Day weekend is a coming out party for the upcoming season — an un-official first day of summer, if you will. You May Also Like: Whisperin’ Bill Anderson, April 28, 2018: Shows I’ll Never Forget LCD Soundsystem, Aug. 5, 2016: Shows I’ll Never Forget