Photo by Tommy Hazeltine by Mark Saleski It was many years ago, in the early 1990’s, that I had my first encounter with Ronnie Earl. He was playing at Raoul’s Roadside Attraction in Portland, Maine. I had never heard of him before but a friend of mine was sure thatRead More

Jason Kay has slowed down the pace of Jamiroquai new album releases, and Rock Dust Light Star was the group’s first since Dynamite five years ago. Nothing has changed much with the music, and since this band has long ago perfected its style of acid-jazz and retro disco, there’s noRead More

Buddy Guy is a great, living blues legend who can still play guitar and sing as well as he’s always has. But his albums of late have been inconsistent. In the case of his last album, Skin Deep (2008), all the guest appearances diluted that hard-driving Chicago electric blues sound,Read More

by S. Victor Aaron The nattily-dressed alto-sax player from the Netherlands, Benjamin Herman, released Hypochristmastreefuzz in 2008, following up on his 2001 live album with the great Dutch avant garde composer Misha Mingelberg with a studio album of Mingelberg tunes. These sessions are released again in 2010, but supplemented withRead More

by Mark Saleski “…The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar: now that’s my idea of a good time.” Ah yeah, tell it Mr. Zappa! One of my all-time favorite quotes concerning the instrument, Frank wasn’t proclaiming the guitar the king of instruments so much as noting that it’s theRead More

This Costello disc followed up the simple, organic country-folk of 2009’s Secret, Profane And Sugarcane. The personnel (the Sugarcanes), including red-hot producer T Bone Burnett, carries over but only a little of the music does. National Ransom, which also includes the Imposters as well as Vince Gill, Marc Ribot, BuddyRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Last year’s Colorfield was Joe Morris’ convincing debut for ESP-Disk. This year’s follow-up follows the same strategy of going without a bass (an instrument that he, ironically, is very proficient at), but instead of piano this time, there’s a cello (by Junko Fujiwara Simons) and violinRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Gebhard Weber is the German sax and bass clarinet player we introduced here last spring when reviewing the new album by the combo he co-leads with trombonist Steve Swell, The Ullmann|Swell 4. Ullman has other projects going, though and the Conference Call whack jazz supergroup heRead More

photo: Jimmy Katz by Pico Bob Dylan is a towering figure in folk, and as we were reminded a few days ago, his legacy extends deep into rock music, too, via the all the strong and memorable covers done by rock bands, especially The Byrds. What’s more interesting is thatRead More

by Pico Ever since the music business as we know it first came into existence, there have always been musicians for whose need for artistic purity and/or just out of financial necessity has made them into “do it yourself” musicians, producing homemade music for a limited audience. More accurately, aRead More