Why wasn’t Roland Hanna, a first-rate piano improviser and brilliant accompanist, more famous? Newly unearthed sessions for the IPO Recordings release Colors From a Giant’s Kit, again first-rate, again brilliant, don’t do anything to solve the riddle. You May Also Like: No related posts.

You’ll have little difficulty in finding jazz recordings that seek to transform popular songs into standards. That’s been part and parcel of the tradition from the very beginning. More unusual, however, is someone like saxophonist Miguel Zenon, who so personalizes the shopworn idea on Alama Adentro. Each of the tunesRead More

Productive and consistently good are two attributes that don’t usually go together in the record making business, but it’s been John Hiatt’s hallmark for a while, now. You May Also Like: No related posts.

The best pop songs are about more than their surface allures — the hook, the voice, maybe the lyric. The best pop songs are bound up both in simplicity and mystery, bringing you over a ridge to these stunning emotional vistas, even as you are still trying to get theRead More

Debut albums can often be fun to explore, since you’re not just exploring the music, but the artist, too. They’re funner still when the artist bolts out the gate with his/her own unique plan of attack You May Also Like: Peter Brotzmann + Heather Leigh – Ears Are Filled WithRead More

by Fred Phillips When I reached into the envelope from B Side Music Group and felt something fuzzy, I wasn’t sure what, exactly, was going on. It soon became clear You May Also Like: Steven Tyler – We’re All Somebody From Somewhere (2016)

Stan Killian’s Unified is an attractive album right from the first listen. Actually, even before that first listen. Checking out the names of horn players playing alongside Killian listed on the back cover of the CD case, I saw there was already a recipe for success You May Also Like:Read More

Canned Heat, the doomed boogie-blues revivalists, only made a lone appearance at the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival. Yet they still managed some star-crossed magic. You May Also Like: William Shatner and Canned Heat, “Let’s Work Together” (2020): One Track Mind

André Vasconscellos is, like Leonardo E.M. Cioglia, a forward thinking acoustic bassist and composer from Brazil. 2 is, you guessed it, his second album, but the first one released in the U.S. Heading up a five or six piece band (depending on whether Torcuato Mariano’s guitar is included), Vasconscellos leadsRead More

Tommy Keene is still making what sounds like lost power pop gems from decades back, except they are brand new. You May Also Like: Tommy James and the Shondells – Cellophane Symphony (1969): Forgotten Series The Doughboys – ‘Running For Covers’ (2019) The Click Beetles – ‘Pop Fossil’ (2020)