‘First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate’ includes 33 songs, both mirroring Funkadelic’s 33 years away and creating an almost exhaustively comprehensive return.

Here is a review of Wayne Krantz’s cool fusion jazz rendition of MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This.”

Bryan Murray’s nutty but endearing hip hop/jazz hybrid ‘Balto!’ is a homegrown concoction worth checking out.

With D’Angelo’s pertinent message, color-blurring harmonics and a total lack of slickness, ‘Black Messiah’ is a worthy successor to ‘Voodoo.’

‘The Signal’ is bold, personal and completely lucid audio art from Elizabeth Shepherd. It wouldn’t be overstating it at all to assert that this is the most important vocal jazz record of 2014.

“Simon Says” is a freaky, funky mix of Glenn Miller and Ice-T.

This past week, I spent perhaps too much time reading (and re-reading) a couple of bits on the Internet. The first was a series written by Questlove, entitled When the People Cheer: How Hip-Hop Failed Black America. The other was an only tangentially-related article published way back in 2003 calledRead More

I can say without reservation that the Los Angeles-based Ozomatli puts on the best live show I’ve ever experienced.

Beyoncé’s eponymous fifth album took many by surprise with its release on December 13 via iTunes without any hype or promotion, but perhaps what’s most surprising – and exhilarating – about this release is the actual music You May Also Like: Peter Erskine New Trio – In Praise Of ShadowsRead More

Hollywood has the unfortunate habit of taking an success and grinding it into the ground but remaking it until the essence of what made it successful dissolves. You May Also Like: Micky Dolenz Might Have Finally Figured Out What the Monkees’ ‘Head’ Was About Roger McGuinn, John Kay + OthersRead More