Album Reviews

Craft Recordings has relaunched Original Jazz Classics, originally put out by Fantasy Records. The first in the series was Workin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet. Second up for the series is Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane. Both are cut from the original master tapes (AAA) by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and are pressed on […]

Started in 1982 by Fantasy Records, Original Jazz Classics became the go-to source for jazz enthusiasts looking for reissues of jazz classics and long-out-of-print titles. They churned out more than 850 titles over three decades. As the quality of these pressings was so superior, they have long been sought out by serious collectors. Now, thanks […]

There is a lot of buzz circling the music of Kassi Valazza. Since her self-released debut in 2019, the singer/songwriter has captivated audiences with her natural sense of melody and vulnerable, poetic lyrics. It is almost impossible for every album with high anticipation around its release to match our lofty expectations but on Valazza’s latest […]

There was a time in Austin, TX that the name Roger Sellers was ubiquitous on the NPR radio station KUTX and for good reason. Austin has long celebrated its independent artists and Sellers epitomizes the do-it-yourself attitude, releasing his self-produced music and gaining a sizable following around town. Having released three albums under his own […]

Nicholas Jamerson is half of Sundy Best, a duo that blends rock with the Appalachian sounds of their native Kentucky. Considering Sundy Best also released an album this year, it’s pretty fair to say that Jamerson is a busy and prolific artist. On his five previous solo albums, Jamerson has incorporated his Appalachian roots into […]

Grammy winning guitarist/vocalist/ songwriter Eliades Ochoa, a quarter century removed from the landmark recording of the Buena Vista Social Club helmed by Ry Cooder, returns as “the elder” and for the first time with his own album of mostly original songs, Guajiro. Cuban music took the world by storm in 1997 when Ochoa, then already […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on Forgive The City, the new album from Country Westerns, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

Mike Clark, who began as a drummer in mostly Bay Area organ trios in the late ‘60s, will forever be associated with Herbie Hancock in The Headhunters when he took over for Harvey Mason and appeared on Thrust. Eventually, though Clark began to favor acoustic music and moved to NYC and became an in-demand drummer […]

The Ironsides’ debut studio album Changing Light is a collection of eight ready-made soundtrack songs without a film. The newest release from Colemine Records is another sonically rich collection of mini-symphonic soundscapes.   The Bay Area outfit worked with Louis Robert King, a New York-based maestro, and a host of Northern California musicians to bring the […]

On his debut LP, To Whom It May Concern, New York-based singer Alexander Wren certainly didn’t shy away from some of life’s biggest themes regardless of how personal. On “The Long Way,” one of the more earnest tracks on the record, for example, he leans into the issue of losing his faith. Across a soft […]

This late-era lineup of Yes, spearheaded by guitarist Steve Howe, has crafted a competent and at times brilliant follow-up to 2021’s overlooked The Quest. As the producer of this twenty-third studio album, Howe has stepped in and helped create a soundscape in the vein of their classic material, once again recruiting Paul K Joyce to […]

With their tenth studio album, jamgrass pioneers Leftover Salmon are paying homage to some of their earliest and most formidable musical influences.  Grass Roots, the group’s follow-up studio effort to their critically acclaimed 2021 release, Brand New Good Old Days, represents a unique entry in Leftover Salmon’s discography as it stands as the first LP […]

Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale are back with The Milk Carton Kids seventh studio album, and first since 2019’s The Only Ones, titled I Only See The Moon. Self-produced and stripped down, the eleven-song effort eases out majestically around the duo’s vocal harmonies and light acoustic instrumentation.   The Southern California-based, modern-day version of Simon and […]

Constantly active, The Murlocs follow up their 2022 release Rapscallion with the excellent Calm Ya Farm. Originally the Melbourne-based outfit thought their new record would focus on country/Americana, but during recording things took a sideways detour into catchy English pub rock, and apparently had too much fun to leave.  This also being The Murlocs (lead […]

The Memphis-born tenor titan and NEA Jazz Master George Coleman has certainly evolved since his blues playing days with the likes of B.B. King and Ray Charles in the ‘50s, and as a core but brief member of Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet in the ‘60s, not to mention sideman appearances with Herbie Hancock, Lee […]

Four years after his last LP, Texas Piano Man, a powerful record that saw him switch from guitar to piano and play some of his most boisterous songs yet, Robert Ellis is back and again completely reinventing his sound. He picks the guitar back up for this, his first release on his own label, but […]

It’s probably fair to say that the immensely positive response to Detroit tenor saxophonist Dave McMurray’s 2021 Grateful Deadication was as unexpected as the project itself. Yet McMurray has seized on that opportunity to again thrill fans in that magical spot where Deadheads, jam band fanatics, and inquisitive jazz fans can meet with his sequel, […]

At one point Americana legends, Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale both shared that they were listening to Tinariwen quite often. So, there were connections with the blues, especially the riveting trancelike guitar sounds, but the Americana and country linkages were there too.  Now that connection between the desert lifestyle and rural music has become a […]

This is UK saxophonist and composer Duncan Eagles’ second turn as a leader on the Ropeadope label, this time leading a quartet instead of a quintet as on 2019’s Citizen, which we also covered on these pages. Gone is the guitarist and while longtime returning collaborator, bassist Max Luthert, who is also his bandmate in […]

Marty Stuart and his almost two decades-running band Fabulous Superlatives have continually impressed with their command of multiple genres and  Stuart’s expert guitar skills. With their new album Altitude, the band is broadening its magical intersection of cosmic country and twang, the psychedelic and the traditional, the expected and the unexpected.  The songs here were […]