Music
Quintron: Ephemeral Ponds (Independent)
“Nature is the best drummer,” Quintron notes at the end of a short video documenting his six-week residency with Miss Pussycat at A Studio in the Woods.
Has Beans: Cookin (Independent)
What do you get when you take alumni from an assortment of Lafayette bands like Red Beans and Rice Revue, Filé, Lucky Playboys, Hadley J. Castille’s Sharecroppers, Basin Brothers, Coteau, The Traiteurs, HardHeads, Native Sons, Tortue, and countless more? You get the Has Beans, a veteran group with a quarter of a millennium’s worth of experience, give or take a month.
Andy Page Quartet: Mobius (Independent)
Saxophonist Andy Page assembled an A-list of “next generation” New Orleans jazz musicians, pianist Oscar Rossignoli, drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Robin Sherman, to explore his challenging original material for Mobius. Let’s just say his compositions and progressive approach aren’t your usual fare.
Sullivan Fortner: Solo Game (Artwork Records)
Pianist Sullivan is perhaps better known nationally than in his hometown of New Orleans. That’s because the pianist headed out so soon after graduating from the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA) to attend Ohio’s prestigious Oberlin College and Conservatory and then traveled to New York’s Manhattan School of Music.
Tin Men: Hit it! (Independent)
The Tin Men are all about making daring feats of musicology look easy. Like, how in the world do you go full-throttle P-Funk in a two-thirds acoustic band with no […]
Judith Owen: Winter Wonderland (Holiday Edition) (Twanky Records)
If Judith Owen has released this set of holiday gems to get us ready for the singalong portion of the “Christmas Without Tears” spectacular she and hubby Harry Shearer will be hosting at the Orpheum on December 19, then she has a real cruel streak. Might as well ask us to go one-on-one with Zion Williamson.
Smoky Greenwell: Blues For Democracy (Greenwell Records)
Give props to Greenwell for his socially conscious “Homeless Christmas” (from Smokin’ Christmas) for an ugly subject that’s easy to look the other way.
The Continental Drifters: Live at the 2023 Jazz & Heritage Festival (Munck Music)
The Continental Drifters never made a proper live album during their original tenure, and finally got around to it during their reunion at Jazz Fest last spring.
Johnny Angel and Helldorado: Long Days, Short Pay (Independent)
When Johnny Angel gets into something, he immerses himself so deeply he might as well be a Luddite off the grid.
The Rolling Stones: Hackney Diamonds (Polydor)
The Rolling Stones have not mellowed with age. Not by a long shot. Proving time, time, time is on their side, they shatter the glass ceiling of age on the aptly titled Hackney Diamonds, Brit slang for the shards of broken glass car thieves scatter in their wake. On track after track of their first album of originals in 18 years, Keith starts me up harder than ever with his iconic riffs, while Mick has never sounded more petulantly pouty than he does spitting out the lyrics on Hackney. Like he sings on “Whole Wide World,” one of many instant-classic additions to the canon: “When you think the party’s over … it’s only just begun.” And boy, is it a rager.
