Jazz Articles

Taj Mahal: Savoy

by Steve Yip
June 10, 2023

Folk/blues practitioner Taj Mahal's Savoy is to be savored. As one of the custodians of the blues, Mahal has long been a legend in his own time. This collection traverses a cultural-musical continuum in an indispensable residency in the annals of Black American music. The namesake of this album--the Savoy on Lenox Avenue in Harlem--was known as The World's Finest Ballroom and Home Of Happy Feet. In the pre-Civil Rights era, the North claimed formal equality, but segregation ...

Taj Mahal: Savoy

by Dave Linn
May 3, 2023

Savoy, from Taj Mahal, is the latest entrant in the crowded field of pop music artists trying their hand at the fertile songbook of old big-band, swing-era standards. Unlike most, Mahal's roots show he's well suited to the task. He was born in Harlem in 1942. He grew up in a musical family, and his parents were both involved in the arts. His father was a jazz pianist and arranger, working with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Fletcher Henderson among ...

New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers: Vol. 2

by Doug Collette
March 21, 2021

The New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers Volume 2 is replete with the same instinctual camaraderie and musicianly savvy as its predecessor. Likewise culled from sessions recorded in 2007, this sequel is decidedly not comprised of mere leftovers or otherwise sub-par tracks originally left unreleased. On the contrary, the alternately upbeat and reflective atmosphere reaffirms the realism and presence of Kevin Houston's recording of these eleven cuts at the Zebra Ranch studios that were subsequently produced to authentic effect by ...

Colin Linden & Luther Dickinson: Amour

by Doug Collette
February 23, 2019

On Amour, Colin Linden (of Blackie & The Rodeo Kings) and Luther Dickinson (from North Mississippi Allstars) offer a collaborative paean to romantic love that is not entirely sentimental. Even on such an otherwise earnest effort, there is an inherent danger that might come across as campy, but the two guitarists/vocalists demonstrate an abiding loyalty to their blues and country roots that grounds this music. In addition, the pair exhibit a musicianly pragmatism that precludes kitsch by assembling a group ...

Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters: Good News

by Mike Perciaccante
July 19, 2014

Ronnie Earl first gained national attention in 1979 when he replaced Duke Robillard as the lead guitarist for Roomful Of Blues. After spending eight years as the main axeman in that group, Earl decided it was finally time to completely branch out on his own. Though Earl had released his first solo disc, Smokin', in 1983 and followed it with They Call Me Mr. Earl in 1984 (both on Black Top Records), it wasn't until 1987 that he decided to ...

New Guitar Summit: Shivers

by Mike Perciaccante
August 10, 2008

The second album from the triumvirate of virtuoso guitarists J. Geils, Duke Robillard and Gerry Beaudoin is another set of vintage jazz-blues in which the three guitarists improvise while prodding, teasing and pushing each other to greater heights. While only four of the tracks are originals written by one or more members of the group, each track fits comfortably within the swing-bop-jazz-blues context of the album.

On Shivers the three are joined by yet another brilliant guitarist, Randy ...

Jeff Healey & The Jazz Wizards with Chris Barber: It's Tight Like That

by Ivana Ng
September 26, 2006

In the United States, the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties yielded a brand of upbeat jazz saturated with sexual innuendo and heedlessness. Across the northern border, Jeff Healey, a Canadian blues-rock guitarist, felt the significance of this traditional jazz. In his latest outing, he and his eight-piece band, the Jazz Wizards, conjur up some old magic. Healey, who has been blind since infancy, plays the trumpet vivaciously on the earlier pieces. “Bugle Call Rag best displays his ...

Jay McShann: Hootie Blues

by Michael P. Gladstone
August 10, 2006

Okay, it is true that ninety-year-old legend Jay McShann was only 85 when he recorded this live album in early 2001 at the Montreal Bistro in Toronto, intending it for broadcast on CBC Radio. But I think it's safe to conclude that his powers haven't dimished a bit since that event.

McShann (aka Hootie) is a Kansas product who made his name in Wichita and Kansas City in the 1930s and is likely the only survivor of those ...

Jay Geils/Duke Robillard/Gerry Beaudoin: New Guitar Summit

by Michael P. Gladstone
October 11, 2004

This album has a rather presumptuous title, but then the completed effort has produced some pretty good results. Although the three guitarists have known each other for a long time, the only common bond is their New England heritage. Jay Geils founded the J. Geils Band, one of the most popular rock bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s, based out of Boston. Geils reports that he was a jazzer as a youth and was musically distracted by the ...

Duke Robillard and Herb Ellis: More Conversations in Swing Guitar

by Dan McClenaghan
April 7, 2003

On the surface, the pairing of these two guitarists from different generations might seem an odd match. Duke Robillard is the founder of Roomful of Blues, has played with Eddie “Cleanhead" Vinson, Big Joe Turner, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Bob Dylan. Herb Ellis, the elder half of this duo, has played with everyone from Louis Armstrong to Oscar Peterson, from Billie Holiday to Ella Fitzgerald. But from the very opening notes of More Conversations in Swing Guitar (the follow-up to '99s ...