Posts by Jim Hynes

Even the title of singer-songwriter Jeffrey Martin’s Thank God We Left the Garden induces curiosity. The phrase turns the guilt-ridden dogmas of so many religions on their head. Maybe we were supposed to fail, maybe sinning was more pre-ordained than having us all be angelic humans. Without failure, how can we possibly even revel in […]

As this writer begins this review, bluesman Robert Finley is appearing on CBS Saturday morning. That alone indicates that Finley’s star continues to rise. His new album, Black Bayou, his third, and its accompanying European tour will steepen this steadily rising trajectory. By now, you likely know his story – Army veteran, and carpenter who […]

The Third Mind is a group of musicians that qualifies as a supergroup but would probably resist such an accolade and its accompanying trimmings, preferring instead to revel in the joy of improvising. It worked for their 2020 self-titled debut, so the gang is back for Third Mind 2. Led by co-founders, The Blasters guitarist […]

The humble pianist and composer Dan Karlsberg leads a slightly unconventional quintet spanning at least three generations on his sixth album, Holding the Wheel of Life. We use the descriptor ‘humble’ as Karlsberg presents his music more democratically than most, composing for his ensemble, and eschewing the limelight with relatively few piano solos. His name […]

Picture yourself in the northern reaches of mountainous, sparsely populated Iceland. Close your eyes and imagine the sounds you might hear and then open them and take in the vast snow-covered vistas. The soundtrack you would associate with such a situation might well be that delivered by the new improvisational Selcouth Quartet, headed by drummer […]

Coyote is the first album singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Dylan LeBlanc produced and he has harnessed what he learned from Dave Cobb who produced his 2019 Renegade and taken it to a higher level. Similar themes of outcast people seeking a better future remain, but he pulls them into a cohesive narrative that is as much […]

This collaboration of the Athens, GA-based collective TaxiCab Verses helmed by Jim Wilson and the group of musicians from Accra, Ghana, Kofi Atentenben and the Warriors, became a regional treasure when first released in 2016 (with only 200 homespun CDs) but now gets the full treatment of vinyl and digital release for the ten-track set […]

The recently unearthed The Love Suite: In Mahogany was commissioned for and performed only once by the legendary trumpeter Roy Hargrove at one of the earliest performances of Jazz at Lincoln Center in Alice Tully Hall in 1993. At that time Hargrove was a then 23-year-old rising star. This was several years before the trumpeter […]

Twice Juno-nominated Canadian singer-songwriter Terra Lightfoot continues her steep trajectory, with her third album, Healing Power. While the word ‘trajectory’ connotes a high altitude, the album covers and jacket photos that depict a lone tree in the meadow of the Austrian Alps is more than symbolic. It was the only tree living at that altitude […]

Jonah Tolchin built his reputation as an Americana artist and even more so as an acclaimed producer. Due to several life-changing events, and his newfound Buddhism, Tolchin has transformed himself into a blues artist, at least for now but likely for the foreseeable future. Born Jewish, Tolchin seems intent on picking up the mantle, or […]

Once hailed in some quarters as the most powerful new live band in 2015, the Bay Area’s Con Brio return with their third album, Scream At It, following the success of 2017’s Paradise and 2018’s Explorer. The time gap is explained by the departure of vocalist Ziek McCarter and keyboardist Patrick Glynn. In their place […]

In January of this year, 2023, Margo Price issued the highly acclaimed and much talked about Strays, partially written during a formative six-day psilocybin trip that she and her husband Jeremy Ivey took in the summer of 2022. They are likely not the first to do this but maybe the first to publicly admit so.  […]

The surprise double album, Live in London, by the young bluesman, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, was recorded June 6, 2023, in at London’s SRO The Garage. The guitarist/vocalist performs 17 tracks, including many from his two studio albums, 2019’s GRAMMY-nominated debut Kingfish, and his GRAMMY winner, 2021’s 662.  This pared down to the support of his […]

Candice Ivory, “The Queen of Avant Soul,” dedicates an entire album to the music of Memphis Minnie.  Collaborating with the jazz/R&B/hip-hop guitarist/bassist Charlie Hunter, the two put a heavily percussive, raw, and primitive sound, unlike any done before, to the legend’s music on When the Levee Breaks: The Music of Memphis Minnie. Sometimes being long […]

In the increasingly crowded field where jazzy funk, jam, and hip-hop bands meet, the Richmond, VA-based Butcher Brown may well be the most eclectic of the bunch, and unequivocally the most generous based on the numerous guests that grace their latest, Solar Music. The title itself is meant to be ‘music for everybody’ and these […]

Jolie Holland, the renowned L.A.-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist shares some of her deepest, at times uncomfortable thoughts in song on Haunted Mountain. With one harrowing autobiographical story to tell Holland uses that platform to discuss many forms of oppression from capitalism to colonialism to fascism to patriarchal control. She approaches it from a credible place, having grown […]

Like many bands before, the outlaw/southern rock band Steel Woods, faced a critical decision upon the passing of co-founder Rowdy Cope in January 2021, whether to disband or co-forward. Cope and co-founder Wes Bayliss were the principal songwriters and dual focal points of the group. Deciding to march forward, although it took some time to […]

Jeff Plankenhorn

Just last week we brought you a trio recording with the bass-drum tandem of Scott Colley and Brian Blade. While those two have long been trio mates to saxophonist Benjamin Koppel, this is their second album, although it’s Blade’s fourth with the Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel. Dance of the Elders follows the acclaimed 2020 Angular […]

We’re splitting hairs taking issue with singer-songwriter Jerry Joseph’s producer choices. On Baby, You’re the Man Who Would Be King he opts for the respected producer, the hard rocking, alt-country Eric “Roscoe: Ambel and the best roots rockers in NYC versus the literate songwriter Patterson Hood and the rugged attack of the Drive-by Truckers on his […]