Music
Juice, Fortified (Independent)
Juice is the newest addition to the healthy New Orleans funk scene, dominated most recently by Galactic. Hoping for some of Galactic’s local and national success, Juice adds what they […]
Donald Harrison, Free To Be (Impulse!)
Free To Be is the natural successor to Harrison’s 1997 release, Nouveau Swing, which won some attention for the alto saxophonist’s elegantly liquid playing and a conception based on straight […]
Various Artists, Medicine Show Live at Grant St. Dancehall (Acadian Art Council)
Here’s a pure slice of the vibrant southwest Louisiana cultural scene that has given rise to, among others, the Grammy-winning Cajun Renaissance group, Beau Soleil. Recorded mainly at a live […]
Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, The Odyssey of Funk & Popular Music, Vol. 1 (Atlantic)
Trickster or saint? Ever since the ’60s, trumpeter Lester Bowie has plied the art of the avant-garde, trying to get us to hear the music we call jazz with new […]
Coolbone, Brass Vibes (Jenjaz)
Coolbone may have lost its major label deal with Hollywood Records, which produced 1997’s Brass-Hop and offered the surreal hope that a New Orleans brass band playing jazzy hip hop […]
Mahalia Jackson, In My Home Over There (Peacock Gospel Classics)
It’s easy enough to forget about the root of all roots music. As Cyril Neville reminds us on his Uptown Allstars CD, “Here in New Orleans, home to the greatest […]
Marva Wright, Bluesiana Mama (Aim)
This album from “The Blues Queen of New Orleans,” was recorded in Switzerland in 1994, and its domestic release is long overdue. Fans who’ve been hungering for the material Wright […]
Charmaine Neville, Queen of the Mardi Gras (Ten Birds)
Charmaine Neville has it all… a honey-sweet-molasses voice, good vocal chops, a pedigree to die for, knowledge of her musical roots, and a real showman’s flair. Unfortunately, that last talent […]
Miles Davis, The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions (Columbia Legacy)
Bitches Brew, Miles’ best-selling album, still has the ability to mystify even the experienced listener; in its day the double-LP, released in late 1969 and played primarily on rock and […]
Cyrus Chestnut, Cyrus Chestnut (Atlantic Jazz)
The take on pianist Cyrus Chestnut, a Betty Carter alum, was dull brilliance, a charge his label has set out, successfully, to reverse after a string of admirable but unimpressive […]
