NICK DERISO: With “New Orleans Meets Harlem,” pianist Marcus Roberts explores the connections between two of jazz music’s most elemental tributaries — building on familiar ideas put in place by Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. The record, Roberts’ first in eight years, hitsRead More

Irma Thomas, whose Louisiana legend of a voice has darkened into a more expressive place, is taking a similar career tack. The new “Simply Grand,” in fact, finds Thomas moving deeper into the emotional underpinnings of her best work at a time when safer environs would probably be more profitable.Read More

by Nick DeRiso Snooks Eaglin, who had been battling prostate cancer, shot to prominence on the strength of 1959’s “New Orleans Street Singer,” a record that even today is a revelation. Mostly, because it sounds nothing like Eaglin, who was as modern and as inventive and as non-traditional as theyRead More

NICK DERISO: “The Ultimate Session” might not completely live up to the billing. Forgive us, however, if we cherish its sense of hip-shaking fun, anyway. Assembled are a who’s-who group of New Orleans musicians who played nearly five decades before with the likes of Little Richard, Fats Domino and ProfessorRead More

NICK DERISO: “I’m Having Fun” arrives as advertised. That is to say, it’s a bubbly, rollicking party record, featuring King Curtis — the Fort Worth native was one of the last of the great R&B saxists — shaking a bandstand to its foundations while keyboardist Champion Jack Dupree lays inRead More

Nick and I have both been on a long-running campaign here to get Allen Toussiant his due. His imprint on New Orleans R&B, and American music in general is hard to escape but since he’s been more of a behind-the-scenes guy, his name doesn’t usually come up as often asRead More

NICK DERISO: Funny thing about that modern-day romantic Harry Connick Jr.: Before this decade-old release, he hadn’t ever explored a song cycle about, and only about, love. Oh, Connick would take his shots, now and then. But always with a dash of popcraft crooning, light New Orleans funk or swash-bucklingRead More

NICK DERISO: You would call Johnny J.’s stuff rockabilly, but that’s too small of a space. He’s got some blues in one corner, some echoey 1950s-era balladry in another. Carl Perkins, Fats Domino and Buddy Holly are party guests. This is the point where blues, jazz, country and rhythm musicRead More

As Mac Rebbenack, aka Dr. John the Night Tripper, says: He’s done “whatever I had to do to get the job did.” Over the years, this amounts to a list of jobs including, but not limited to, snot-nosed duck-tailed rocker, record producer, songwriter, way-out psychedelic pop star, reliable recording-session sidemanRead More

Ellis Marsalis’ ‘Whistle Stop’ served as an important reminder that New Orleans’ jazz patriarch was still a hat-tipping, oh-so-swinging piano man.