Lodged toward the end of a nostalgic song cycle that attempts (with varying degrees of success) to recreate the soaring pop music of his California youth, Brian Wilson offers a moment of naked, welcome honesty. On “Midnight’s Another Day,” away from the florid orchestrations and dense backing vocals associated withRead More

“The best post-punk jazz trio with vibraphone ever.” That’s the bold declaration you’ll find when you click on the link at the bottom of this article to purchase their CD. It’s also very hard to argue with that statement. James Westfall (vibes), Dan Loomis (acoustic bass) and Jared Schonig (drums)Read More

Photo: Susan J. WeiandWith jazz fusion having been around for some forty years, now, it’s not so easy to be distinctive in that field anymore. Garaj Mahal manages to stick out, mainly due to massive chops by all four group members and a dizzying array of influences each group memberRead More

Used to be that whenever the term “Scandinavian jazz” would come up, one could summarize it by pointing to the sterile, pristine folk-jazz popularized by Jan Garbarek and the ECM label from the seventies on. In recent times, it’s come to mean such a variety of styles and tendencies thatRead More

NICK DERISO: Finding an impressive record by Lionel Hampton, known for both his harmonic and rhythmic sophistication, is easy. Finding one that delights as much as its intrigues anymore, however, is rare. His legacy, now more than ever, is secure: Born in Louisville, Ky., in 1908, Hamp would record hundredsRead More

NICK DERISO: This song, issued in the wake of the devastating attacks on New York City in 2001, nearly overwhelmed me with grief the first time I heard it. I thought of my father. He’s been dead 20 years this summer, and I must admit that — like everything fromRead More

NICK DERISO: Cephas and Wiggins, America’s best remaining champions of the easterly Piedmont blues tradition, somehow never really made it. I mean, Robert Cray-type made it. Stevie Ray-type made it. A shame. Self-taught harp player Phil Wiggins, from Washington D.C., met John Cephas as the 1960s blues revival was inRead More

The Quickies columns have been settling into a theme of late, a theme of pimping obscure jazzers, especially whack jazzers. Hey, I can do nothing but that for years on end, but then I’d be skipping over some albums worthy of salute that come the more mainstream side of music.Read More

My, how time flies. It didn’t seem so long ago when Wynton Marsalis spotted this young trumpet talent at a Dallas high school in the mid-eighties. Since then, Roy Hargrove has recorded fourteen albums as a leader, and another co-led with Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker. For these efforts, he’sRead More

So, you’re Andy Griggs, a sugar-sweet pop-country singer from West Monroe, La. And you’re standing in the lonely bull’s eye of center stage, guitar in hand. There are hundreds and hundreds of pairs of eyes looking back. “The adrenaline!” you say, whispering. “There’s a difference between 1,000 people and 15,000.Read More