Like last week’s OTM, we’re profiling a song played by a pianist whose preferred method of attack is the trio format. Aside than that, there’s nothing that could be more different about today’s flavor, as we go from a twenty-six minute long cerebral jazz track to a three minute popRead More

by Pico Lately it seems every other article I write has some sort of Miles Davis connection to it (and I have yet another piece about a Davis sideman sitting in the pipeline). But as a lover of the early style of fusion as well as just about any formRead More

by S. Victor Aaron That Keith Jarrett, he’s one amazing individual. Consider: · In the middle of the domination of jazz by wanking electric guitarists and keyboardists in 1975, KJ sits down in front of an audience in West Germany armed with only a piano, starts playing whatever came outRead More

As noted, a “leak” of some new Dylan tracks from his own record label (ahem) got me back into the stacks – and back into Bob. We’re mixing and matching here, old and new, relevant and pee-yew. That’s Dylan for you … raising our sights, but occasionally frustrating our desires,Read More

Filled with outtakes, rarities and in-studio goof-offs, this is more revealing, even, than the sprawling 50-something track “Biograph” set. And, in fact, loaded with more songs. “The Bootleg Series” proves to be an intimate, strangely personal statement — seeing as how Bob Dylan didn’t put it together. It’s also aRead More

by Nick DeRiso While the performances on “Johnny Shines and Robert Lockwood,” from Shreveport, Louisiana’s Paula Records, are first-rate, unfortunately the sound quality early on is spotty. Some of the source material was slightly damaged on the Shines sides, resulting in a couple of gurgly spots where the sound fallsRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Son of little-known folk singer Leon Bibb, Eric Bibb grew up listening and meeting musicians like Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan — and his uncle, pianist and composer John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Eric has become more of a name in folk and bluesRead More

Bob Margolin makes fine use of delay-time rhythm, a mean slide scream, and the duo and trio ideas that were so successful for his old boss, Muddy Waters.

by Nick DeRiso Perhaps the only album from after the so-called Classic Period (“Dark Side”-to-“Animals,” some would also include “The Wall”) that must be checked out by any prospective Pink Floyd fan — if only because it helps encapsulate the Rest of the Story, outside of Roger Waters’ monolithic influence.Read More

by Nick DeRiso While it doesn’t have the cohesiveness of 1992’s “Portraits of Ellington,” this makes its own kind of statement. The playlist is an evocative pairing of older, traditional big-band selections by composers like Billy Strayhorn, with more modern tunes from Miles, Monk and Coltrane. In that way, theRead More