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Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Regular Reviews; Created: 01 August 2011

Zoho Roots ZM 201105
Format: CD

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You wouldn’t be surprised to see the photo on the cover of the Mike Eldred Trio’s new disc, 61 and 49, on the door of your local bar advertising an upcoming Saturday night show. Eldred is a California-based guitarist and singer who plays and writes the kind of roots music you’d hear in smoke-filled taverns, back when you could still smoke in them. "She’s a Rocket" is an old-time rocker, with Ike Turner sitting in on a rollicking barrelhouse piano, and "Jake’s Boogie" is a shuffling blues-guitar workout that lets Eldred throw out a lot of quick notes and string bends with little effort and a good deal of feeling. Bassist John Bazz and drummer Jerry Angel both played in the Blasters and know this music cold. "For a Girl" evokes a Stones-like radio friendliness, while "Mr. Newman" hints at a strong storytelling ability that Eldred should develop further. Guitar great Scotty Moore helps out on "Ms. Gayle’s Chicken House," and Cesar Rosas from Los Lobos adds a simple but effective solo to "This Old Train," which also includes a terrific Jordanaires-style backing vocal from The Job’s Quartet. Eldred and Kid Ramos trade licks on "Louise," a great jump blues track, but the most affecting song on the disc might be "Don’t Go Down There," a field holler with Eldred on vocals accompanied by the Emmanuel Church Gospel Choir. You’ve heard the music on this honest, unfussy recording before, but you’ve rarely heard it done this well.

Details: Written by: Rad Bennett; Category: Regular Reviews; Created: 01 August 2011

Azuline Music
Format: CD

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Aimée Allen has law degrees from Columbia University and the Sorbonne in Paris and has pursued a career in music since she was very young. Now she’s a practicing attorney by day and a jazz singer on the New York scene at night. She has a warm, honeyed voice, a singular sense of pitch, and a vivid imagination that lets her see such disparate songs as "Bye, Bye, Blackbird," and "It Could Happen to You" as a good performance pair. On Winters & Mays she sings covers of tunes like "Peel Me a Grape," "Two for the Road," and "Samba em Preludio," alternating between her own compositions and one by her brother, guitarist David Allen. For me, the best original is "That Day," which aptly describes the moment of falling in love as a life-changing experience. "Second Time Around" and "Stardust Reunited" also make for highly enjoyable listening. A lot of the music sways in a gentle bossa nova, with Allen’s backup band showing its mettle. The recording is just close enough and very warm while retaining definition, but when accordionist Victor Prieto first joins the group on "Samba em Preludio," he sounds detached, as if he’s in another audio world. This disconnect is odd because his other two appearances on the disc are well integrated with the other musicians.

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Featured Releases; Created: 01 August 2011

Adventure Music AMA1066-2
Format: CD

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Scottish harpist and singer Maeve Gilchrist writes songs by injecting a healthy dose of jazz into the folk music she heard growing up. She studied classical piano and Celtic harp in Edinburgh before moving to Boston to study jazz and world music at Berklee College of Music. She has such a wide background in so many traditions that she’s comfortable in all of them and able to weave them together without effort. The songs on her second disc, Song of Delight,lean toward the sophisticated pop of singer-songwriters like James Taylor, Norah Jones, and Joni Mitchell. Gilchrist’s voice has a charming hint of Scottish brogue, and her phrasing, as with her songwriting, has the rhythmic playfulness of jazz mixed with pop’s accessibility.

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Featured Releases; Created: 01 July 2011

Elvis Costello Video Service Corp. TRI 1769
Format: DVD

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A talk show with Elvis Costello interviewing other musicians could have been unbearably precious, but Costello is such a formidable songwriter, and so obviously bright and quick, that he keeps his equilibrium even with three of rock’s biggest stars: Bruce Springsteen, and U2’s Bono and The Edge. The highlight of the second season of Spectacle: Elvis Costello with . . . is doubtless the two shows with Springsteen. In the first, Costello reaches back to the songwriter’s first two records, prompting the Boss to remember his early days, when he and his band hustled for work in bars along the Jersey shore. Nils Lofgren and Roy Bittan join Springsteen onstage for "Wild Billy’s Circus Story," a song from his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.

Details: Written by: Shannon Holliday; Category: Shannon's Select Sounds; Created: 01 July 2011

Terri Lyne Carrington Summer is here, and my soundtrack is as varied as the temperature, which dips (to my relief) and rises (with a vengeance) by night and day. To get you through the dog days in style, I recommend a little jazz, a little rock, and some sweet Southern blues.

Drummer and composer Terri Lyne Carrington’s new album, The Mosaic Project (CD, Concord Jazz, released July 19), brings together some of the finest women in contemporary jazz for a potent 14-song set of artistic collaboration. The cross-cultural, cross-generational mix features established legends like Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, and Shelia E. alongside such up-and-coming players as bassist Esperanza Spalding and vocalist Gretchen Parlato, and showcases some of the greatest musicians in modern jazz. Classics and standards are given renewed vigor -- like the very first track, "Transformation," a jazzed-up rearrangement of Nona Hendryx’s song, which Hendryx performs with soulful flair. Carrington is the skilled chauffeur behind the wheel of this album: her drumming, supersharp and tasteful, steers the momentum and vibe throughout. Poetry, politics, and love comprise the themes of the tracks with vocals, which are sung equally impressively with sultry smoothness (Wilson’s "Simply Beautiful") or octave-bending improvisation (Parlato on "Crayola"). The balanced recording showcases the subtle nuances of each musician’s playing; the resulting mosaic is a rich, multifaceted masterpiece.

Read more: Hiromi: "Voice"

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Regular Reviews; Created: 01 June 2011

Eagle Records ER202072
Format: CD

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In Life, his autobiography, Keith Richards writes "I don’t think the Stones would have actually coagulated without Ian Stewart pulling it together." Keith, Mick Jagger, and Brian Jones played with Stewart, a great blues and boogie-woogie pianist, before they ever played with Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman. Andrew Loog Oldham felt Stewart didn’t fit the Rolling Stones’ image, so Stewart served as the band’s road manager and played on nearly all their recordings until his death in 1985. Ben Waters, a 35-year-old British pianist, put together this tribute to Stewart, enlisting the help of some of his blues- and jazz-playing kinsmen, among them Watts (who plays on six tracks), Wyman, Richards, and Ronnie Wood. Jagger joins them, along with a great horn section, for a swinging version of Dylan’s "Watching the River Flow." The high point of the disc is a live performance of "Bring It on Home to Me" from 1984 by Stewart and his band at Montreux. Stewart displays an ease in his playing that Waters hasn’t quite achieved, but Waters is game and he plays with great feeling. The whole disc is easy and unforced, and another highlight is Richards and Wood trading vocals on "Worried Life Blues." The sessions were warmly recorded at Jools Holland’s studio, and expertly mixed by Glyn Johns. Proceeds benefit the British Heart Foundation.

Details: Written by: Rad Bennett; Category: Regular Reviews; Created: 01 June 2011

Analogue Productions CAPP 782 SA
Format: Hybrid SACD

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Analogue Productions continues its SACD traversal of Nat "King" Cole’s Capitol recordings by issuing After Midnight, which presents Cole with his stellar trio, adding a musical guest on each track. Today, Cole is remembered by the general public as one of the greatest pop music balladeers in history. But Cole got his start as a jazz piano player and leader of a jazz trio. This recording, made in 1956 and released in 1957, finds Cole enjoying the best of both worlds. Cole’s voice floats effortlessly over the sounds of the small instrumental group, and it has a clarity often partially obscured in his later recordings with large string sections. His trio consists of John Collins on guitar, Charlie Harris on bass, and Lee (Leonidas) Young on drums. The guest roster includes Willie Smith (alto saxophone), Harry Edison (trumpet), Stuff Smith (violin), and Juan Tizol (trombone). The song list mixes the tried and true ("Sometimes I’m Happy," "It’s Only a Paper Moon," "Caravan," "Route 66") with the less familiar ("Lonely One," "Don’t Let It Go to Your Head"). Virtuoso musicianship runs high for these sessions, but the overall mood is mellow and close. The sound is mono, but it’s so clean, clear, and balanced that it might strike you, like it did me, as absolutely wonderful. The copious notes include an enthusiastic essay by Ralph J. Gleason. This was one of those rare studio recordings where everything went right, and the careful mastering from Analogue Productions lets you hear that everything with absolute accuracy.

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Regular Reviews; Created: 01 June 2011

Hear Music/Concord Music Group HRM-32814-02
Format: CD

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With a long career full of accolades and awards (and sales), Paul Simon could be forgiven if he decided to coast for a while. He’d just rather not. He brought Brian Eno in to co-produce his last disc, Surprise (2006), and while the result showed a playful interest in Eno’s use of soundscapes and studio effects, the songs and the vision were unmistakably Simon’s. So Beautiful or So What continues some of that sonic experimentation. "Getting Ready for Christmas" includes a sample from the 1941 sermon of the same title by Rev. J. M. Gates, and Simon uses bits from the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet in "Love and Blessings" and Sonny Terry in "Love Is Eternal Sacred Light." So Beautiful or So What takes mortality and spirituality -- or, more specifically, the afterlife -- as its themes, but Simon’s gentle touch, humor, and humanism ensure that his observations are never merely cynical. Aural delights abound, whether it’s the Indian percussion from Karaikudi R. Mani and his associates on "Dazzling Blue," the kora, a West African string instrument, on "Rewrite," or Vincent Nguini’s guitar playing. All those instruments would sound even more delightful were it not for the compressed sound, which cries out for audiophile mastering.

Details: Written by: Rad Bennett; Category: Regular Reviews; Created: 01 June 2011

Concord Picante CPI 32761-02
Format: CD

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Brazilian born Eliane Elias is no stranger to recordings, having produced over 20 albums in a wide variety of styles. In addition to her jazz pedigree as a respected keyboard player, singer, and arranger, Elias also has a classical music background and composes original music. Light My Fire contains four of her originals and several lightly swinging laid-back bossa nova tunes. What’s likely to attract the most attention are the remarkable covers of the title song and Paul Desmond’s "Take Five." "Light My Fire" is re-imagined as a sexy samba, and whereas Jim Morrison’s original performance demands and pleads, Elias slyly cajoles and invites. "Take Five" features wordless vocals and a new development section that Elias created. Often, her vocal line is doubled by Randy Brecker’s trumpet. The recording clearly places Brecker behind Elias, and the unanimity of phrasing makes for a somewhat eerie, ghostly impression. I was hearing this sound in my head long after I’d shelved the disc. The balances on the rest of the tracks are exemplary and satisfying, with tight bass and warm upper frequencies. All in all, this is an appealing CD that would be a perfect summertime companion.