The concert had been over for hours, forever. But B.B. King was just getting started.

NICK DERISO: The story goes: Someone asked Fats Waller what jazz is. His reply? “If you don’t know, don’t mess with it.” Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown messed with it on “Just Got Lucky,” and with fine results. In fact, it seemed his string-bending solos found themselves most at home in theRead More

NICK DERISO: Dug up from some old dusty box in brother Ira’s attic, this scratchy, other-worldly epiphany issued by BMG is remarkable for its ethereal emotion, ageless grace and surprising reliance on (gasp!) commercialism to push art. The first 12 tracks are acetates from “Music by Gershwin,” 15-minute radio programsRead More

NICK DERISO: A trip through the Mississippi Delta this week had me thinking about the old Rooster Blues Records label. Located from 1988-98 inside the Delta Record Mart on Sunflower Avenue in Clarksdale, Rooser Blues releases can still be found in a riverboat-shaped downtown building called Dela’s Stackhouse. “Coahoma theRead More

NICK DERISO: This release came in the wake of an ambitious year that saw Connick issue both a big-band swing record and a three-piece jumping jazz record without vocals. Not only do I not have to tell you which one sold, I don’t have to tell you which style HarryRead More

The hard-punching Charles Thompson is best known, if he’s known at all now, as a deep-background member of the Coleman Hawkins/Howard McGhee band from this period. On “Takin’ Off,” however, Thompson’s frisky rhythm and round-house experimentation are a constant reminder of just how underappreciated he remains. Thompson wasn’t simply aRead More

In anybody else’s hands, this new Mavis Staples album would have been a museum piece, interesting but ultimately dust-covered and remote. Not that “We’ll Never Turn Back” (to be issued on Tuesday by Anti- records) doesn’t have plenty of right things to say, and certainly plenty of righteous things, inRead More

This summer’s reunion of those pop perfectionists Crowded House had me back listening to this terrific mid-90s release, which — like the new tour — does not include longtime frontman Neil Finn’s brother Tim. From its completely realized debut with producer Mitchell Froom to the transformations when Neil and TimRead More

Editor’s note: This column ran as part of an obituary package on the national Gannett News Service wire upon Dizzy Gillespie’s passing in 1993. People told him those bullfrog cheeks would ruin his playing. The embouchure, very important. Flinty, yet funny, John Birks Gillespie was insightful enough to understand thatRead More

NICK DERISO: Guitarist Buddy Guy, a Baton Rouge-area native, has a presence hardly in need of defining. From bar-walking solos (thanks to that old 150-foot amp chord), to his clean, percussive style on a polka-dot guitar, Guy has since the 1960s cut a wide swath, image-wise. Yet “Southern Blues” illuminatesRead More