This Best of 2015 list focuses on those revelatory moments, those times when a shard of pristine insight cuts through the clutter of expectation and then memory.

This Mid-Year Best of 2015 list also includes Emerson Lake and Palmer, Gov’t Mule, Jeff Beck, Lead Belly, the Knack and the Staple Singers.

Les McCann’s free-form soul-jazz experiment ‘Invitation to Openness’ is the sound of someone loosing himself from the bonds of expectation.

NICK DERISO: Pianist Les McCann is something like a lesser Horace Silver — somebody with a soulful, bluesy delivery who often strayed a step too far into pop. This release showed why: Despite its many joys, a fat electric bass gave the CD an unwanted fusion-y feel — in particular,Read More

Ahhhh, Friday night. As R.L. Burnside would say, “I know godd—ed well it’s party time.” But the blues isn’t the only place you’ll find the Good Lord’s name uttered in vain. Thanks to Les McCann, you can also find that commandment broken in a soul-jazz ditty that he made aRead More