by S. Victor Aaron Kingston, Jamaica’s own Monty Alexander looms as large a figure in Jamaica’s jazz world as Bob Marley does for its homegrown reggae. A virtuosic pianist in the Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson tradition, Alexander often melds Tatum and Peterson with the dancehall, calypso and reggae idiomsRead More

by Nick DeRiso There are songs you listen to with one elbow jutting out a car window, the gas pedal cutting into the floor mat. Then there are the things that open up different vistas, albums that bring you around to quieter places — sounds that force you to stopRead More

by S. Victor Aaron It’s become a late winter tradition for three years running: covering a new release by the most successful electric blues artist of late, Joe Bonamassa. In ’09 it was The Ballad Of John Henry, then ’10 brought us Black Rock. The short story on the reviewsRead More

You expected the Cars, reformed without the late bass-playing vocalist Benjamin Orr, to come out with a sad song. Not a track called “Sad Song” that sounds anything but. You May Also Like: Todd Rundgren jumpstarted the New Cars’ surprisingly fun It’s Alive The Cars’ Often-Overlooked ‘Candy-O’ Still Revs WithRead More

by Mark Saleski Back in the late 1980s, there was a backlash of sorts against the new traditionalist tendencies in mainstream jazz. Wynton Marsalis and his cohorts had come along to celebrate (and honestly, expand upon) the early strengths of bop and, as usual, the major labels started releasing likeRead More

Yet another product from Moppa Elliot’s Hot Cup Records, which already says a lot about a record that shares the same label as Bryan And The Haggards, Puttin’ On The Ritz, and Mostly Other People Do The Killing. But we were already saying things — nice things — about Lundbom’sRead More

by Mark Saleski Jazz fans have always been sort of coy with the word ‘fusion.’ We like to make jokes about it, even applying a nickname of sorts — The F-Word — because we’d hate to admit that we’re ever serious about the genre. Yeah, fusion seems to get theRead More

Imagine a musician who was totally immersed in his craft. Imagine that person setting down his instrument for 45 years. All of those decades away (and I’m sure Mort is tired of hearing about this story), all of that bad living. A reasonable person might think that attempts at aRead More

by Nick DeRiso First off, this doesn’t start off with any piano, but also not the churchy wistfulness of the Cowboy Junkies’ 1987 breakthrough The Trinity Session. Instead, there is a gnarled electric guitar from Michael Timmins, a mashed-down organ and an updated worldliness in Margo Timmons’ familiar alto. They’reRead More

Photo by Dino Perrucci by S. Victor Aaron This isn’t the type of site that covers Kenny G records, but it’s not because we’re G haters. It’s just that there’s music out there we prefer to write about. Maybe 99.8 or 99.9% of the music out there falls in thatRead More