vinyl Archive
23 Nov 2021
Album Review: Blue Glass – Jardin des Étoiles
The placid aural landscape that opens Jardin des Étoiles sets the tone for this collection: contemplative, slightly woozy and with a hint of danger. The artist describes the album as seven mood-orientated spaces and starting points for travel and exploration.” I’d say that’s a description that exhibits some healthy self-knowledge; these pieces are evocative, yes,
19 Nov 2021
Album Review: James Booker — True: Live at Tipitina’s, April 25, 1978
Though he passed at age 43, New Orleans pianist James Booker earned quite a reputation during his lifetime. The self-anointed Piano Prince of New Orleans had his own brand of r&b-meets-jazz, and counted Dr. John and Harry Connick Jr. among his admirers. Booker’s early career as a musician focused primarily upon live performance, with a
06 Nov 2021
Album Review: Dave Liebman Expansions — Selflessness
Selflessness isn’t saxophonist Dave Liebman’s first tribute to John Coltrane, but as Lewis Porter’s liner notes explain, it’s the first of those in which he works with his current band rather than a one-off assemblage. And the result of this approach is a natural, unforced session in which there’s a kind of preternatural, unspoken communication
31 Oct 2021
Album Review: Andrew Gold’s Halloween Howls
Musician, singer and songwriter Andrew Gold combined a commercial (read: broadly accessible) sensibility with superb songwriting chops. With so many years having passed, many forget (if they knew at all) that Gold was Linda Ronstadt’s band leader through one of her most creatively fertile periods. Speaking of forgetting, it’s too often forgotten now, but his
19 Aug 2021
Album Review: Greg Antista and the Lonely Streets — Under the Neon Heat
When we last checked in with this South California rock quartet about two years ago, they had released their debut album, Shake, Stomp and Stumble. As I wrote at the time, that record featured “concise, taut songs played with verve and conviction.” Two years and a world pandemic later, one thing has changed: guitarist Jessica
18 Aug 2021
Nina Simone is #trending in 2021
Nina Simone is trending in 2021. Nearly two decades after her death, the Tryon, N.C.-born musician, vocalist songwriter and civil rights activist is as popular as ever. Just over a year ago, the Nina Simone Project launched a fundraising campaign to establish an official Nina Simone Archive in Tryon. In June of this year, a
04 Aug 2021
Thirty Years with the Mother Hips (Part Three)
Continued from Part Two … “We started in Wisconsin and ended near San Francisco at the Shoreline Amphitheater,” Tim Bluhm recalls. “And by that time, we were headlining the side stage. It was a big moment for us: a lot of people say that’s the first time they saw us.” In 2007, around the time
03 Aug 2021
Thirty Years with the Mother Hips (Part Two)
Continued from Part One … Tim Bluhm concedes that the Mother Hips fan base isn’t as large as the following of some other groups, but he believes that their followers’ loyalty more than makes up for their numbers. “They’re very dedicated to what we do,” he says. But that doesn’t mean that they accept everything
02 Aug 2021
Thirty Years with the Mother Hips (Part One)
Popular West Coast Band reissues its entire studio catalog, on vinyl for the first time Some artists have made a successful career out of establishing a signature sound and then sticking with it over the course of their entire catalog. Other artists take a potentially riskier approach, following their muse wherever it takes them. The
16 Jul 2021
Album Review: True Loves — Sunday Afternoon
If you have an appreciation for – heck, even an awareness of – the sort of kinetic soul jazz that formed the musical component of late ‘60s and early ‘70s crime film and television, then ohmygoodgracious do I have something to tell you about. True Loves’ Sunday Afternoon is a 21st century answer to that