Posts by Jim Hynes

On the heels of 2022’s The New Mastersounds’ The Deplar Effect recorded at Floki Studios at Eleven Experience’s Deplar Farm and covered on these pages; we now learn that more sessions were taking place there. Floki Sessions: Boots in Place presents an all-star gathering of legendary and contemporary funk and soul artists delivering even more […]

You’re likely already questioning why Jazz Is Dead (JID) would release an album featuring Tony Allen, one of the most formidable drummers of all time now. Checking in at number 18 in their series is curious considering that Allen passed in April of 2020. We don’t have all the answers, but we can piece together […]

Anthology draws on drummer Charlie Watts’ other love; some call it his first love – jazz. The sprawling set is available in double vinyl and double CD versions. The latter has 27 tracks, including three that are previously unreleased the pianist Ian Stewart, in an array of configurations including a quartet, quintet, tentet, orchestra, and […]

Guitarist Monster Mike Welch is entering yet another stage of his still young career by going solo and signing with Mike Zito’s Gulf Coast Records.  A guitar prodigy, Welch was an integral member of New England’s Sugar Ray and the Bluetones for 16 years until 2017 when he teamed with vocalist Mike Ledbetter, who sadly […]

Trumpeter-vocalist-composer Benny Benack III has been ascending the jazz ranks quickly and the aptly titled Third Time’s the Charm should by all accounts be a breakthrough that leads to even more solid footing. It’s no accident that the word ‘charm” appears in the title. There are few more charismatic jazz artists on the scene today […]

You Know Who is the follow-up to 2021’s Introducing…The Pink Stones for the Athens, GA-based band, made up entirely of Athens musicians who play in other bands around town (including former members of the Drive-By Truckers and The Glands). In one sense, The Pink Stones are a throwback group evoking the cosmic country sounds of […]

The travails that Lucinda Williams has suffered over the past two years would sap the strength of even the strongest individuals. Losing a new home to a storm, enduring a stroke that temporarily rendered her ability to walk, and still unable to play the guitar, Williams has sufficiently recovered enough not only to record this […]

The Baseball Project knows how to keep a good thing going even though there has been a nine-year hiatus. Just as the best baseball announcers have endless amounts of stories to draw from, these musicians have no problem generating humorous and fascinating lyrics for their original songs. The Baseball Project is comprised of guitarist Steve […]

Singer-songwriter JD Graham’s A Pound of Rust is easily one of the most devastating albums of its kind that this writer has heard in the past few years. Yes, most of us were unaware of him until he bursts in with this work that chronicles a life of addiction, a small-time criminal, and a prison […]

With her many appearances on record and in performance with Jason Isbell and His 400 Unit, along with the high profile of the super group, The Highwomen, likely have many fans of each thinking that Amanda Shires is a Nashville type or at least a true Southerner. Yet, Shires, who began playing fiddle with the legendary […]

This is just a suggestion but maybe you want to try this with your well-informed jazz friends. Put this disc on without revealing who the artist is. They may well be able to identify tenor titan George Coleman, pianist Kenny Barron, and bassist Buster Williams. Tell them the album was recorded in 1981 and ask […]

Two-time Grammy-nominated pianist and composer Orrin Evans is known, aside from his many musical talents, for his outgoing, welcoming personality. It’s not surprising to see his “open door” policy that has seven guests joining his core quintet. Together, these musicians cover plenty of ground.  The title, in this writer’s view, equates to the late Wayne […]

Long considered a tenor titan, three-time Grammy-nominated Donny McCaslin, through his many albums as a leader and sideman, his stint with Steps Ahead, and his regular appearances with Maria Schneider’s Big Band and The Mingus Dynasty Band, and his most famed sting as the musical director for David Bowie’s Blackstar, is now moving into a […]

The multi-talented, outspoken Meshell Ndegeocello marks a turning point in her storied career not only by signing with Blue Note but a self-confessed admission that this may be her most authentic recording. That’s in reference to playing music live in the studio with real musicians as opposed to computer-generated music that she’s done since her […]

Vocalist and iconoclast Bettye LaVette enters her sixth decade of recorded music with no inklings of settling down. Her signature fire and unique interpretative ability are as strong as ever. On LaVette! she chooses to cover songs of the criminally underrecognized singer-songwriter Randall Bramblett. So, it may well be both a blessing and a curse […]

Exorcist is blues singer-songwriter and guitarist Selwyn Birchwood’s sixth album and fourth for Alligator and is produced, like its predecessor, by Grammy winner Tom Hambridge. Birchwood did write all thirteen songs, borrowing just a bit from tradition as almost all blues artists do, but delivering lyrical content in today’s language. His band sound is like […]

When we last visited guitarist Tom Guarna, he was leading an all-star quintet and paying tribute to Kofi Burbridge in 2020’s Spirit Science but on this outing, his seventh, Reimagine, Guarna opts for a simpler configuration, the classic organ trio format of guitar, B3 organ, and drums. You may have noticed the word ‘classic’ appearing […]

It’s been nine years since we last heard from the former popular DJ and gifted singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell, a leading figure in NYC’s country scene, who has long had one foot in the Big Apple and the other in Nashville. Few other artists could call on such longtime friends as Steve Earle, Buddy Miller, Rosie Flores and Paul Burch, […]

If you watched the HBO Max documentary, Running with Our Eyes Closed, principally about Jason Isbell and his partner Amanda Shires, but also involving the band members of the 400 Unit, you understand the care and thought that goes into his songs which he brings to his band, to let them color in the music […]

Long considered one of the most powerful voices in roots and blues, going back as far as her Mother Earth days in the early seventies in a career that began in 1964, Tracy Nelson harnesses her many relationships and musical preferences into a career-defining album, filled with songs she’s been aching to do for some […]