Marcus Roberts has burst back onto the jazz landscape, 11 years after his last session, with “New Orleans Meets Harlem, Vol. 1” – one of the Florida-born pianist’s most celebrated recordings. A rich and explorative combining of styles from across the legacy, Roberts’ record nevertheless retains its uniquely Southern voiceRead More

This is an updated excerpt from a multi-artist piece I had published as part of the statewide Louisiana Folklife Festival’s program book in 1995. Thomas suffered a fatal heart attack later that same year, in his hometown of Shreveport, La., ending a career that spanned seven decades: On his oldRead More

by Nick DeRiso Benny Spellman’s “Fortune Teller,” a witty early-1960s story song, is one of my touchstone party records. Everything about it is perfectly New Orleans, from the pounding piano to this sizzling island-tinged percussion, from a group of yelping, mesmerizingly groovy R&B backup singers to its not one butRead More

by Nick DeRiso  To think, we almost never heard Carmen McRae sing these songs. Even though she was an early acolyte of Billie Holiday, McRae was at first better known as a pianist. (In fact, upon meeting her, Holiday was said to be so impressed that she recorded McRae’s “DreamRead More

by Nick Deriso  A remarkably open and spiritual recording, “Then Sings My Soul” reveals the most touching of sentiments for the deeply religious Ronnie Milsap. Gone is the brassy everyman bravado of familiar country-soul and pop hits like “Stranger in My House,” “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It for the World”Read More

Cassandra Wilson, unlike so many, never turns a cover tune into a math problem — trying to get it too note perfect, or make it add up. Instead, her hypnotic, sensuous contralto transforms other people’s work, often giving it a power and meaning never dreamt of before. That’s writ largeRead More

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

NICK DERISO: A crazy collision between the brassy sound of Rebirth and the great grooves of Parliament Funkadelic, LA Funk Brass Band is a party actually taking place on the bandstand. That makes sense, considering this funky roadhouse choir features a rotating set of 50-or-so performers with roots from northeasternRead More

NICK DERISO: “The Spirits of Our Ancestors,” pianist Randy Weston’s vibrant exploration of the African roots within jazz, remains a rapturous delight in any language. Legends Dizzy Gillespie, Idris Muhammad, longtime Basie sideman Benny Powell and Pharoah Sanders appear, while groundbreaking trombonist Melba Liston — then working for the firstRead More

NICK DERISO: Recorded live at the club Memory Lane in Los Angeles over a two-night stand on May 25-26, 1967, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s five-track “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac” is sometimes criticized for its brevity. Sure. There have been boxed sets produced with slighter source material. Still, Gillespie, in particular onRead More