Sometimes, the music you don’t understand is the music that touches you most deeply. I’ve never been much of a jazz listener; I’ve skirted around it for years, essentially avoiding bebop in its myriad permutations, and enjoying traditional jazz, some … [read more]
The wonderful first album from Madeleine Peyroux, a jazz singer whose music and voice sound somewhat like Billie Holiday. This is very well-recorded and engaging music. Her two subsequent albums are also good. I like this for dinner parties, in … [read more]
This is simply incredible music. I dearly love really old, pre-bebop jazz, and Louis Armstrong invented much of it. More than a trend-setter, he was an inspiration to generations of musicians (of any genre). These British remasters of the early … [read more]
I think I’ll start a new type of post on this blog – “Today’s Desert Island Disc”. They’ll be short because I just want to quickly point out a much-loved, much-returned-to record in my collection without providing a full review. I’ll … [read more]
It’s odd – sometimes there’s an artist who, despite my best efforts to take an inclusive view, slips through my fingers for years. I may know about them but – for whatever reason – I’ve never really listened to them. … [read more]
Reggae from Germany. Why not? Is it surprising that Germans can get their groove on and sound indistinguishable from Jamaicans? Francophone Europe has a long tradition of embracing reggae, particularly reggae from Africa (Alpha Blondy, Lucky Dube, etc.). Germany has, … [read more]
This is a really great little compilation that neatly summarizes an era and a particular sound. Compass Point was Island Records’ founder Chris Blackwell’s studio in Nassau in the Bahamas. It was a very popular recording studio in the early … [read more]
The New Yorker recently ran an article about American Idol in which its (very perceptive) rock critic, Sasha Frere-Jones, observes that “pop is too old to have a single, collective memory anymore.” He saw evidence of this during the show’s … [read more]