When Bettye LaVette opens her mouth, you can see down into her soul. She’s willing to allow you that glimpse, but be careful how you describe what you witness. “I am a rhythm and blues singer,” she says to those […]
When Bettye LaVette opens her mouth, you can see down into her soul. She’s willing to allow you that glimpse, but be careful how you describe what you witness. “I am a rhythm and blues singer,” she says to those […]
Almost half a century after her landmark recording with the late Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln’s voice remains as beguiling and insistent as ever. Abbey Sings Abbey is retrospective in that the tracklist draws from her vast catalogue, but this is […]
In the days before artists approved liner notes, jazz critic Nat Shapiro asked the following questions on the back jacket of the epochal Nina Simone In Concert: “Certainly there is no possibility — not the slightest — of being indifferent […]
This reissue of Soul On Top finds James Brown singing mostly pop standards in front of a big-band orchestra. It’s a pairing that perhaps sounds, on first blush, like just about the stupidest idea ever: Why in the world would […]
If the notion of the ukulele as a serious jazz instrument strikes you as no more feasible than playing Beethoven’s Fifth on a comb-and-tissue-paper harmonica, think again. Long out-of-print, Lyle Ritz’s How About Uke? fell on deaf ears upon its […]
FRESH TRACK: Mackenzie Shivers – ‘a cautionary tale’Check it out
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