There is this deeply personal texture to A Lifetime, a redemptive 10-track journey through love’s rocky terrain. French jazz-pop singer-songwriter Dawn Harden wrote or co-wrote, with pianist Patrick Pernet, all but one of the songs, giving the record a lasting resonance. She starts with “Traces,” a lovelorn tale of aRead More

Bill Summers shares thoughts on a new album, his rejuvenated collaboration with Irvin Mayfield and some of those classic Headhunters sides.

Too often, it was like Jon Anderson didn’t want to make a solo record that sounded too much like Yes. As interesting as these sideroads no doubt were, they gave few clues to how his own voice fit into the wider topography of the band. You May Also Like: JonRead More

Over the course of the striking, stripped-down Medicine, former Detroit autoworker Solomon King returns to that moment when the blues moved inexorably away from the uplift that defined gospel music, and ultimately toward rock ‘n’ roll and then hip hop. You May Also Like: How B.B. King Left Us WithRead More

In most big bands, the guitarist functions as nothing more than a member of an expanded rhythm section — and for a while it seems like Richard Nelson (even though it’s his band, and all) had fallen into the same role on his forthcoming album You May Also Like: HenryRead More

Intense and beautiful, Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s new Fe’ … Faith, is this meditative wonder. Like the earth making its inevitable yearly circle, Rubalcaba returns time after time to themes and thoughts — but never approaches things exactly the same twice. You May Also Like: Journey, “Faith in the Heartland”Read More

Bill Champlin discusses his contributions to Chicago, working with Toto, and how lounge-singer Robert Goulet almost got one of his gigs.

Bill Champlin, who co-founded the Bay Area’s Sons of Champlin, is perhaps best known for a nearly three-decade tenure in Chicago.