Music
Alvin “Red” Tyler, New Orleans Jazz Master Series (Musicblok)
Tyler, an icon of New Orleans R&B, was also a great jazz saxophonist, although he didn’t get many opportunities to demonstrate it on record. Here’s an ample helping of […]
Frank Zappa, The Dub Room Special! (DVD) (Eagle Rock)
Frank Zappa is well known for political satire and compositional genius, but his singular talents as an electric guitarist are well represented on this project, which combines elements of a […]
Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers, LIVE! At Slug’s, N.Y.C. (Everest)
If you think you know Blakey from his hard bop academy including the lineup with the Marsalis brothers, this recording will make your hair stand on end. Slug’s was the […]
Lynn Miles, Love Sweet Love (Red House)
The woman who turned the phrase “Hockey Night in Canada” into an alienation anthem returns with an album of beautifully crafted songs that cast a more positive spell. Her husky, […]
Burning Spear, Our Music (Independent)
As fundamentalist Muslims and Christians drag us through global war and ancient cities are carpet bombed or abandoned to inundation, the Rastafarian message of peace and unity through music never […]
daKah Hip Hop Orchestra, Unfinished Symphony (Kufala)
One of the best fringe gigs of Jazz Fest ’05 was the TwiRoPa performance of this conceptually ambitious outfit, a big band and string orchestra driven by four percussionists, two […]
David Mooney Trio, Luckless Pedestrian (Independent)
This talented young jazz guitarist, a former member of the Hot Club of New Orleans and a finalist in last year’s Thelonious Monk competition, has a dazzling stylistic breadth that […]
What Goes On Behind the Levee?
Tommy Malone sits on an old rocking chair on the rear second story porch of his Mid-City home. It’s a balmy January afternoon in New Orleans, and Malone has his […]
Cowboy Mouth, Voodoo Shoppe (Eleven Thirty)
Fred LeBlanc gazes across the House of Blues dance floor at an audience of his peers. LeBlanc and Cowboy Mouth partner Paul Sanchez are performing an acoustic duet set as […]
Best of the Beat Lifetime Achievement in Music: Irma Thomas
In 1960 Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas showed up to audition at WYLD studio in New Orleans for Joe Banashak and Larry McKinley of Minit Records. The fledgling label was […]
