Album Reviews

This music not only stretches the boundaries of what a string band should sound like; it pushes indie-folk about as far as it can go. When one reviews the instruments played – three fiddlers, cello, banjo, guitar, bass and plenty of harmony vocals, it would suggest a bluegrass or modern folk approach but another look […]

Imbued with the spirit of his mentor, the late, great Johnny Adams, this is the 12th studio release and NOLA Blue debut for Gregg Martinez, aka Mac Daddy, the multi-octave Creole vocalist who has been performing for more than forty years now. Dubbed by some as the “White Teddy Pendergrass,” you’ll hear echoes of the iconic […]

As we write this, we don’t know the future of the fabled jazz shrine, The Village Vanguard. The venue has begun airing live performances sans audience, but it is unclear, like many things, when and if its historic red double doors will open again. Given that situation, Gerald Clayton’s live offering, Happening: Live at the […]

New Zealand indie-pop outfit The Beths are back with their second LP since the critically acclaimed 2018 release, Future Hates Me. Following the success of their first LP, they went on their first world tour. Elizabeth Stokes (lead vocals and guitar) wrote the new LP, Jump Rope Gazers while they were on tour. The theme […]

When the Louisville, KY-based My Morning Jacket decamped to the scenic environs of Stinson Beach, CA to record 2015’s The Waterfall they were so successful they recorded material for a second full-length offering. The band decided against a double album at the time and now during the quarantined summer of 2020, those recordings arrive as […]

Blindboss is an experimental one-man act from Orange County, California. His shows have been known to include pre-recorded bass and drums while he plays guitar or synthesizers and sings. All this while projecting images of himself on a screen behind him. Sure, it might seem like a lot of work, but it’s really no harder […]

None of the principals involved in RoundAgain need the boost in public profile this collaboration surely will provide. One-time bandmates Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride and Brian Blade all benefit already from well-established careers under their own respective names and through various other collaborations on stage and in the studio. Yet for each of […]

Listening to pianist/composer Brad Mehldau is always an intense experience, but perhaps never more so than on April 2020. As provocative in its own way as any of his previous solo, trio or larger ensemble settings, his dozen new compositions, combined with three carefully-chosen covers, represent something like a blank slate upon which the discerning […]

The diminutive, 5-foot tall Ruth LaMaster ‘s moniker “Hurricane Ruth” is not the least bit understated. She can wail like the force of nature the term connotes. For this outing, her debut on American Showplace Records, all the key ingredients are in place in terms of songwriting and backing musicians. Although this is Hurricane Ruth’s […]

The Jayhawks, one of Americana’s most enduring bands, have been with us now for three and half decades, slightly less in terms of recorded output. It only makes sense that at various points in time, the unit would need to reassess their direction and add some twists to their hallmark sound. Leader Gary Louris felt […]

Rufus Wainwright views his new album Unfollow the Rules as a bookend to his 1998 self-titled debut. That critically acclaimed album launched a career that found Wainwright veering from the pop world to cover Judy Garland, compose two operas and release a collection of Shakespeare sonnets. These musical detours alienated some fans, but the American-Canadian […]

This is young drummer Eric Binder’s third CD since he arrived in 2014. As he did on his 2018 The Malcolm Cecil Project, he works with a sax-drum-bass configuration, this time featuring Walter Smith III on tenor and Petros Klampanis on bass for Hard Bop. Usually, these kind of trio albums are led by the […]

Brazilian-born, NYC-based guitarist/composer/bandleader Ricardo Grilli likes to revisit history when developing themes for his albums. His previous 1954 began in the year of his father’s birth and centered on such topics as the Dawn of the Space Age and the height of bebop in his adopted city as well as the formative years of rock […]

The journey for Margo Price to the release of her highly anticipated third album, That’s How Rumors Get Started, was fraught with obstacles. She recorded the album in the middle of her pregnancy with daughter Ramona. Her East Nashville home barely escaped the deadly tornadoes although she and her husband, singer-songwriter Jeremy Ivey, had many […]

This past Fall, relatively recent in terms of live music shows given this health pandemic, this writer saw Boston-based pianist/composer/bandleader Anthony Geraci deliver a sizzling show with his core band that plays on this, Geraci’s third and best CD as a leader, Daydreams in Blue. Geraci, a long-time sideman in the New England blues scene […]

Originally forming in El Paso, TX, Holy Wave made their move to Austin, TX in 2008. And it’s no wonder, as Austin is a hot bed for great psychedelic rock. The 13th Floor Elevators were the first band to refer their music as “psychedelic rock” and bands like The Black Angels, The Octopus Project, Golden […]

Not just a gospel singing group, The Sons of the Soul Revivers are a bonafide band, its lineup complete with guitar, bass and drums in addition to three main vocalists. This sturdy instrumental backbone only adds to the rousing effect of Songs We’ll Always Sing so that, intentionally or not, the album serves as homage […]

Idle Joy’s second album, Your Stars, is straight rock-n-roll. There’s no affectation, waffling, or masquerading of any genre; just rock-n-roll. The California band’s debut eponymous album was released in 2019 just after changing their name from Mendonesia, which was lead singer Tom Conneely’s original solo project. Conneely started performing under that moniker in San Francisco and […]

In the mid-’90s one of the coolest and forward musically groups to arrive on the then-burgeoning west coast groove scene was the sleek funk outfit The Greyboy Allstars. So now in 2020, while promoting Como De Allstars, their first album in seven years, guitarist Elgin Park stated, “For better or worse we are the same […]

It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. The Dexateens have been around since 1998. Okay, that requires a bit of a disclaimer since the band took a hiatus from 2010 to 2013. Still, the band has been rocking for a long time, and their fans are probably happy that they are about to release a […]