Delfeayo Marsalis talks about working with his brothers, even while he established his own musical philosophy away from them.

There is a magic in the old songs, but not necessarily in performing them in the old ways. You May Also Like: Yves Leveille – ‘L’echelle du Temps’ (2022) ElectroBluesSociety Featuring Boo Boo Davis – ‘Chicago Blues Covers’ EP (2020)

Even today, there’s still no roadmap for Dr. John and the Meters’ crazy-eyed co-mingling of R&B, jazz, island beats, blues, boogie funk and hoodoo.

Photo by Jim Eigo by Nick DeRiso People think of clarinets as this sound from a different era, and the guys who play them as having done so in black and white. The late Alvin Batiste, who initially found his muse in Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time,” was never thatRead More

by S. Victor Aaron NOLA-based Plunge is back again to follow up on their stripped down trombone-based brand of funky jazz found on Dancing On Thin Ice, Tin Fish Tango. Once again, ‘bone player Mark McGrain leads a small ensemble with bassist James Singleton of Astral Project, a sax playerRead More

Photograph by Andy Goetz By Nick DeRiso Big Sam’s Funky Nation, all brass and sass, opens its latest CD with a floor-rattling invitation to shake every thing you’ve got. For all of its musical prowess, that remains the one and only goal of this fun-loving, funky-butt recording by New Orleans-basedRead More

By S. Victor Aaron Ten years before Wetlands, a young Cajun kid from Baton Rouge walked into a Houston studio and produced some of the most refreshingly honest rock-tinged swamp blues ever heard. Yet, one worried that Benoit would go the way of may bluesmen who’ve tasted success and eventuallyRead More

Lucinda Williams brings a brave, riveting vulnerability to Essence — and, for me, it’s her masterpiece. Yet you are more apt to find it in the cutout bin at a big-box department store than at the top of most people’s desert-island lists. Perhaps the sensual melancholy of Essence was tooRead More

by Nick DeRiso While much of Tony Joe White’s new recording “The Shine” feels so bare-bones as to be undercooked, the muscular “Tell Me Why” bubbles up with the rough moral drama of a storyteller’s yarn. Still standing, despite years unjustly spent outside fame’s spotlight, White hasn’t stopped believing inRead More

by Nick DeRiso News this week that Buddy Guy had been Grammy nominated for best contemporary blues album had me revisiting the scalding blisses of Living Proof. I loved it from the first solo, this sharp outburst of gnarled sexuality on “74 Years Young”: “There ain’t nothing I haven’t done,”Read More