Posts by Jim Hynes

Anticipation had been building for two days when fans got word through social media and the Philadelphia Inquirer that Don Was and The Pan Detroit Ensemble (PDE) were going to play the Graterful Dead’s Blues for Allah in its entirety in tribute to the late Bob Weir at Ardmore Hall. The sold-out audience however got […]

Inevitably, two camps will form over Lucinda Williams’ latest, World’s Gone Wrong. Some will praise her for taking on America’s socio-political crises head-on. The ‘shut up and play” crowd, on the other hand, will argue that we didn’t need Lucinda Williams to inform us of how chaotic things are. Yet, neither camp can deny that […]

Renowned drummer Antonio Sanchez again finds himself in an unconventional trio after convening last year’s BEATrio with Bela Fleck and Edmar Casteneda. This time, Sanchez collaborates with conquero/vocalist Pedrito Martinez and the multi-instrumentalist leader of Snarky Puppy, Michael League, in a rare configuration that features two percussionists and League’s array of instruments. Their mission is to unite cultures and musical genres, […]

Minneapolis-based folk rockers, The Pines, have always been led by the insightful songwriting of David Huckfelt. On “I Was Born, But…”, we don’t get his songwriting; instead, we get inspired interpretations of mostly lesser-known works by a wide range of North American songwriters.  In some respects, the album reads much like Dylan’s Self-Portrait. In fact, both have a version […]

It’s hard to believe that James Hunter has been recording for almost four decades now. His Off the Fence is his eleventh studio album and debut for Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound after years in the Dap Tone stable. Ironically, Daptone’s co-founder, Gabriel Roth, produced, not Auerbach. It’s refreshing to see an album without multiple […]

At this point, we should treat singer-songwriter/poet/visual artist Courtney Marie Andrews’ music as evolving and taking on more polish with each release. Her previous release, 2022’s Loose Future, came with these words in our headline – “Breezier and Poppier.”  Her latest, Valentine, is not anywhere near as uplifting, but some of the vulnerability and fragility […]

Motion II is the second batch of tracks from the session that produced last year’s highly acclaimed Motion I (covered here). In 2024, Blue Note celebrated its 85th birthday with a touring quintet of its leading contemporary musicians. At some point during the grueling tour, the members found time to enter a Hollywood studio to […]

Singer-songwriter Tommy Womack is at heart a rock ‘n roller. Accordingly, it makes sense that he teams with Eric “Roscoe” Ambel for his latest release, his ninth, Live a Little. Ambel collaborations have worked for Steve Earle, Jerry Joseph, Sarah Borges, Freedy Johnston, and more. Combine Ambel’s rocking edge with Womack’s tunes, which run from […]

Live at Smoke is the last of the living birthday celebrations for the late, great drummer, Al Foster. These celebrations had been ongoing for more than a decade, and fortunately, the 2025 session was recorded on January 18 and 19, 2025. Foster passed away on May 28, 2025,  before the music could be released, but […]

The music world has never seen anyone like Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The blind multi-instrumentalist could play three horns at once through his amazing circular breathing technique. He was a master of every woodwind instrument, and used unusual instruments like the manzello, the strich (a straight Eb alto saxophone to which he added a French horn […]

Singer-songwriter Afton Wolfe is arguably the most conceptually artful troubadour that we have heard since Tom Waits. The reference to Waits is rather obvious in Wolfe’s deep, gravelly voice and in his off-the-beaten-track concepts. Yet, Wolfe also possesses the fearlessness of Bruce Cockburn, the intellectualism of Leonard Cohen, the deep woods poetry of the late […]

‘Somni’ from Catalan translates to ‘Dream’ in English, so immediately there is no mystery about the album theme, a cinematic series of dreams, both of the relaxing and nightmarish kind. It’s the second collaboration between Michael League’s Snarky Puppy and Metropole Orkest, the Netherlands-based ensemble renowned for its symphonic fusion of jazz, pop, and classical […]

Saxophonist Dave McMurray departs from his last two Grateful Deadication albums with I LOVE LIFE even when I’m hurting, his fourth Blue Note album. Well, almost. He does have one Grateful Dead tune on the record. Beyond that, the album is eclectic. There are vocal, jazz,  soul, and funk tracks. In many ways, it is […]

Don’t be misled by the generic-sounding album title, Hill Country Folk Music. Singer-songwriter Terry Klein’s eleven songs therein are those of a master craftsman. It’s Klein’s fifth album and third with producer/guitarist Thomm Jutz, a collaborative pair as strong as any in roots music. Jutz didn’t even listen to the demos before agreeing to book […]

The album graphics for Aaron Parks’ By All Means provide an immediate clue, as the typography evokes Jackie McLean’s 1965 Blue Note album It’s Time. Even McLean’s sentiment at the time mirrors Parks’ thinking for this record. When we last heard Parks on 2024’s Little Big III, he was purveying electric music that blended Radiohead, […]

Apart from hip-hop and the occasional rock or country song, these times of protest and divisiveness lack the musical voices of the Civil Rights or anti-Vietnam War movements of the ‘60s.  No longer do we hear the power of those classic songs such as “We Shall Overcome,” “I Shall Not Be Moved,” Respect Yourself,” and […]

We’ve long marvelled at Jano Rix’s ability to play drums and keyboards simultaneously with The Wood Brothers. Now we know that it’s all part of his DNA as his lookalike dad and mentor, Luther Rix, proves to be a talented drummer and composer. The father-son duo records together for the first time on RIX: Legacy, […]

The real attraction(s) of the Little Feat reissues in recent years have been the live recordings of the band at various stages of its career, and the four-compact-disc-plus package of The Last Record Album is no exception. But the studio inclusions here are equally enticing and intoxicating on their own terms. As with its companion pieces, concert […]

There are times on Brandi Carlile’s new album, Returning to Myself, where she is comfortably easing into the material, and other times where one can almost sense the challenges of new sounds and the influence of three different producers. The latter is that ‘the air is out of the balloon’ feeling that runs through the […]

The Jazz Detective, Zev Feldman, does not confine his unearthed treasures to Black Friday and April’s Record Store Day. He’s been busy this fall with several projects and now presents arguably Blue Note’s most important artist for three decades, pianist and composer Horace Silver in his prime, with a never-before-issued 1965 live recording – Silver […]