Nick and I have both been on a long-running campaign here to get Allen Toussiant his due. His imprint on New Orleans R&B, and American music in general is hard to escape but since he’s been more of a behind-the-scenes guy, his name doesn’t usually come up as often asRead More

by S. Victor Aaron James Taylor went through most of his career without putting together records that have a strong, overall theme to them. That’s changed of late: in 2006 there was a Christmas album and last year it was a live album with little accompaniment. This time out, it’sRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Moore never goes too long between studio releases; just last year we were here chatting up his then-new Close As You Get and now the Irish heavy blues-rocker is already back with another mixture of originals and classics, called Bad For You Baby. When Moore isRead More

‘The Blues Rolls On’ shows Elvin Bishop is as lively and loose as ever – and that’s enough to make it a good add to anyone’s collection.

NICK DERISO: Funny thing about that modern-day romantic Harry Connick Jr.: Before this decade-old release, he hadn’t ever explored a song cycle about, and only about, love. Oh, Connick would take his shots, now and then. But always with a dash of popcraft crooning, light New Orleans funk or swash-bucklingRead More

There was, for a pairing of musicians so closely associated with other forms, an irrepressible blues feel to 1961’s “Bags Meets Wes,” reissued this year as part of the Keepnews Collection. That makes a chance meeting between Milt Jackson (longtime member of the complex, often formal Modern Jazz Quartet) andRead More

A couple of years ago, I posed the question: is the Dave Holland Quintet the best jazz group working today? Today, the Dave Holland Quintet has been supplanted by the Dave Holland Sextet, and with last week’s unfurling of the Sextet’s first record Pass It On, we get to assessRead More

Urged on by a buoyant audience, Cannonball Adderley’s “Walk Tall” becomes both a call to action and a celebration of spirit.

Missing in the eternal argument embodied in their 1970s lyric — Which one’s Pink? — was my idea that it was neither Roger Waters nor David Gilmour. Maybe there would have been no Pink Floyd, not really, without Richard Wright. That’s what I hear in “Live at Gdansk” with GilmourRead More

R.L. Burnside’s ‘First Recordings’ was the result of a neighbor’s recommendation: “I know who that be.”