Posts by Jim Hynes

The 71st Newport Jazz Festival was held from August 1 to 3, 2025, at Fort Adams in Newport, RI, featuring jazz, R&B, pop, and hip-hop performers on three stages. This is the second consecutive year that the festival sold out, meaning an attendance of 10,000 each day. The festival thrived under bright, sunny skies, comfortable […]

Earlier this year, Ben Nichols and Rick Steff of Lucero issued the duo album Lucero Unplugged. A solo album from the band’s principal songwriter and frontman seemed like a logical next step, and hence we have In the Heart of the Mountain, Nichols’s second solo album and first in 16 years. Although it is not […]

Up until recently, the consummate drummer Joe Farnsworth was primarily known as a traditionalist. Yet, he has expanded his palette to include younger musicians with a bent toward the contemporary and improvisation. His latest, and arguably his best album as a leader, The Big Room, deftly balances both of these tendencies with an intergenerational group […]

Patty Griffin’s return from a six-year hiatus is the stunning Crown of Roses. Stunning should not necessarily be viewed positively, but in terms of how remarkably bleak most of the tunes are. The best songwriters, Griffin among them, often gravitate toward dark material, and her recent run of albums has moved increasingly in that direction. […]

The term “Blues Summit” implies a gathering of guests. Whether Devon Allman was inspired by B.B. King’s Grammy-winning 1993 album of the same name or not, there are similarities in that the lineup featured contemporary artists and blues stalwarts. Here, Allman takes a break from the Allman-Betts Band and returns to Ruf Records for this […]

“Openness Trio.” Guitarist Nate Mercereau, saxophonist Josh Johnson, and percussionist Carlos Niño have joined up as The Openness Trio for their Blue Note debut. All are producers and skilled in effects and electronics. Both Mercereau and Niño have toured with Andre 3000. Johnson is known for his work with Jeff Parker and as a producer […]

Philly’s saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and educator Jaleel Shaw emerges as a leader again after 13 years. Shaw has collaborated with a wide range of jazz giants, including Roy Haynes, Roy Hargrove, Nate Smith, Christian McBride, and many others. He is currently a fixture in both Dave Holland’s Quartet and Trio. Finding time to make a […]

First Meeting is a collaboration of four top jazz artists on their respective instruments, each receiving equal billing for their three-night engagement at Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center in August 2022. Although the title “First Meeting” is accurate, pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, saxophonist Chris Potter, and drummer Eric Harland were part of the Monterey […]

Missouri-based folksinger Willi Carlisle is the living embodiment of Kris Kristofferson’s famous lines – “He’s a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.” Carlisle’s appeal is his ability to write deeply incisive, provocative, and socially relevant songs without being preachy, while taking a few lighthearted detours through these eleven songs on Winged Victory.  Carlisle is […]

Most artists signed to the premier blues label, Alligator, have established careers; however, occasionally, youthful talent emerges, such as Louisiana-born D.K. Harrell, a skillful guitarist, accomplished songwriter, and powerful vocalist. The 27-year-old Harrell is already playing blues festivals globally and was a headliner at the Chicago Blues Festival this past week. This is Harrell’s second album, having […]

The Western Kentucky singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman may be the best writer of Southern Gothic songs since Lucinda Williams first brought her genius to the forefront in the ‘90s. Goodman’s distinctive Kentucky drawl also gives us one of those singular voices. Few write and sing with the combination of vivid detail, empathy, and relativity. Planting By Signs is Goodman’s […]

Welcome back, James McMurtry. It’s been four years since 2021’s The Horses and The Hounds.  We’ve missed his wit, political insights, and unparalleled storytelling. These new songs on The Black Dog and The Wandering Boy are memories from his family’s past, an old poem by a family friend, confronting old age, outlaw sagas, and both blatant […]

About Ghosts is the fourth album from the incomparable guitarist Mary Halvorson’s sextet Amaryllis, following Amaryllis, Belladonna, and Cloudward. They were all named Jazz Album of the Year in DownBeat’s annual Critics Polls, where Halvorson was also named Guitarist of the Year in 2023 and 2024. It would be challenging to top those achievements other […]

Protest music is on the rise as it should be. We Insist! Max Roach’s “Freedom Now Suite” (1960), an important collaboration between jazz drummer Max Roach and lyricist Oscar Brown Jr., featuring vocals by Abbey Lincoln and contributions from Coleman Hawkins and Booker Little, is a defining statement of the early Black American civil rights movement. […]

Guitarist and vocalist Larry McCray takes the ‘big production’ route for “Heartbreak City.” Just as Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia enlisted the Grammy-nominated producing duo of Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith for their Blues Music Award-winning Blood Brothers, McCray not only follows suit but adds horns and background vocalists along with star-studded guests. As if […]

Grammy-nominated harpist Brandee Younger delivers her third album and first with all-original music for Gadabout Season on Impulse! Known mostly for her interpretations of her forbears on the instrument, Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby, Younger continues to mesh R&B, hip-hop, and classical influences with jazz. Gadabout Season is more personal and features Younger’s original compositions, […]

Even Van Morrison’s most ardent fans weren’t sure he could write songs like several that appear on his 43rd studio album, Remembering Now. It’s like three plus decades of duets, reissues, skiffle, blues, and otherwise uninspired R&B vanished. That’s not to say there were not a few high points in that series of records. The […]

New Vienna is the fourth concert released from Keith Jarrett’s 2016 European tour, following Munich 2016, Budapest Concert, and Bordeaux Concert, the latter two of which we covered here. It is named such because Vienna Concert was issued in 1992. While that was recorded at the Vienna State Opera, New Vienna takes place in another […]

Watchhouse, formerly Mandolin Orange, is the North Carolina duo of Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz. Now they return four years later with Rituals, this time producing in conjunction with Ryan Gustafson (The Dead Tongues). Their sound is moving even further away from the bluegrass of Mandolin Orange into dreamy folk music, with both musicians embracing […]

Marc Ribot’s Map of a Blue City is uneven, unsettling, intriguing, and surprisingly warm but not easily accessible to most. It comes off, probably just as he intended, as a late-night conversation that goes in several directions with the prevailing theme about feeling lost. Even though this is the first time Ribot has added vocals, […]