Let’s circle back to a key moment from Larry Young, the John Coltrane of the jazz organ.

by Pico We were, of course, a little saddened that the historic season of Louisiana’s NFL team, the New Orleans Saints, came crashing to an ugly end last Sunday. With apologies to U2 and Green Day, the song most associated with this team remains “When The Saints Go Marching In”.Read More

by Pico I finally got around to listening to Tom Waits’ sprawling odds-and-ends collection Orphans and it occurred to me that Australian-born/England-residing singer-songwriter Nick Cave has a lot of similarities to Waits. Both have scary sounding voices (Waits a whiskey-scarred growl and Cave a deep baritone), write detailed narratives delvingRead More

With Koko Taylor’s sassy wailing, “Merry, Merry Christmas” provides a great excuse to sway to some prime, funky electric Chicago blues done right by one of its living legends.

“Lovin’ Cup” illustrated a passion for Paul Butterfield long before Robben Ford released a celebrated album in tribute to the late bluesman.

by Pico It was a tough call to make: do I pimp Papa Mali’s entire 1999 release Thunder Chicken or just quickly gush over just one of the tracks? There’s certainly enough tasty bits in Chicken to justify the full unpaid advertisement (and come to think of it, I alreadyRead More

Some people think ‘Straight Life’ is the gem of Freddie Hubbard’s epic early-’70s run with the CTI label. I gotta go with ‘Red Clay.’

The foundations laid down here set up the Pat Metheny Group for commercial success on 1985’s ‘The Falcon and the Snowman’ and 1987’s ‘Still Life (Talking).’

For me, Dave Holland is one of those guys who has stood for excellence in almost four decades of recording, dating back to the In A Silent Way recordings and before. Yup, it’s time to devote space giving him mad props. Put on your raincoat and rain boots, ‘cos I’mRead More

Miles Davis’ ‘Tribute to Jack Johnson’ is less than perfect in many respects, but the imperfections are such that they only add to the intrigue.