Posts by Doug Collette

[rating=8.00] Gov’t Mule has never made a record that sounded more like a Warren Haynes solo album than it previous studio work, By A Thread. In contrast, the band’s debut on Blue Note Records, Shout!, is a seamless piece reminiscent of their best work on stage and in the studio. In fact, The Mule almost […]

Like its Northeastern cousin festival, Gov’t Mule’s Mountain Jam, Grace Potter& The Nocturnals Grand Point North has grown by leaps and bounds in each successive year of its three-year existence. Once executed as a combination homecoming and adieu to summertime touring as the Vermont-based band elevated its profile nationwide, the event has approached maturity in […]

[rating=8.00] The North Mississippi Allstars have never strayed too far from the blues of their native South (apart from the mainstream rock of Polaris that is). But not since the raw, gutsy likes of their debut recording have they immersed themselves so fully and unabashedly in their main influences as they do on World Boogie […]

As issued in multiple packages including CD and vinyl, The Allman Brothers Band’s Brothers and Sisters deserves its 40th anniversary recognition. The 1973 album stands as a pivotal point in the iconic Southern group’s evolution in the wake of the eerily similar motorcycle deaths of founder/guitarist Duane Allman and charter member/bassist Berry Oakley (who was […]

[rating=7.00] Baltimore Civic Center, Baltimore, MD – 9/17/72 As the first set of this September 1972 show in Baltimore closes, notes peal from Jerry Garcia’s guitar while Bill Kreutzmann kicks the band into a gallop, both actions emblematic of the surety permeating the playing of the Grateful Dead captured on this reissue of the 2001 […]

Keyboardist/composer Robert Walter is nothing if not modest in talking about his playing, composing, performing and recording. On his own with The 20th Congress, as a founding member of contemporary funkmeisters The Greyboy Allstars, as accompanist to the likes of drummer Stanton Moore and guitarist Will Bernard or as a collaborator on music for film, […]

[rating=8.00] Überjam Deux provides proof positive of the chemistry of John Scofield’s Überjam Band. Some ten years since they last worked together–actually under the moniker the John Scofield Band on Up All Night–this new studio set flows as effortlessly as the musicianship at its foundation. The album begins in leisurely enough fashion with “Camelus,” a […]

As The Rolling Stones evolved from blues purists and made a concerted attempt to commercialize themselves for the pop market, their manager Andrew Loog Oldham posited them as bad boy alternatives to the cuddly mop-tops that were The Beatles. It only makes sense then, that instead of the semi-fictionalized presentation of the latter with their […]

The Saratoga Performing Arts Center has long been a favorite venue for Phish to play and never more so than in recent years where the quartet have offered some absolutely scintillating performances. The first two nights of three this year vividly illustrated again how the quartet functions, the group essentially starting up and revving its […]

Given that John Scofield’s distinctive guitar style is a perfect cross between the staccato of vintage electric blues and the fluidity of classic jazz guitar, it’s little wonder he so effortlessly traverses as broad a musical expanse. His eclectic approach compels asking whether there’s a more adventurous contemporary jazz guitarist? Just scan the projects the […]