Jazz Articles

Los Lobos: The Town And The City

by Doug Collette
September 16, 2006

The Town And The City is music for the head, heart and soul. Its sound is deeply atmospheric, its songs emotionally resonant and its concept keenly intelligent. This is the work of a great band uniting its musical and cultural roots in a song cycle imbued with universal relevance.

That might sound pretentious if Los Lobos themselves weren't such down to earth musicians and The Town and The City (titled the same as Jack Kerouac's first major novel) so understated. ...

Freestylers: Pressure Point

by AAJ Staff
January 1, 2002

America was introduced to London's Freestylers back in the late '90s after Fatboy Slim's hedonistic big beat made electronica 'the next big thing'. Freestylers' debut We Rock Hard was indeed a harder, but equally infectious take on the big beat phenomenon, born of the group members' love of hip-hop as well as dance music. Fast forward to 2002. Big beat is all but forgotten and trance is the current ambassador of electronica to the mainstream. But the Freestylers are back ...

Katharine Whalen: Katharine Whalen's Jazz Squad

by AAJ Staff
September 1, 1999

After six years as a featured vocalist for the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Katharine Whalen launches her solo career with this CD, which finds her backed by her own band, the Jazz Squad. While the Zippers were never a hardcore jazz act--a lot of their music was jump blues and early R&B with a pop outlook--this is essentially a jazz recording. But it isn¹t a very good one, and most of the time, Whalen comes across as a poor woman¹s Billie ...

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band: Buck Jump

by John Sharpe
August 1, 1999

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band may have been raised in New Orleans, but with Buck Jump they've definitely moved on to Funkytown. While producer John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin & Wood fame) retains some of their original brass band sound, he has also added heavy slabs of his own Hammond B-3, plus assorted percussion and bass. Buck Jump is a raucous, funky, fun-filled mix of traditional New Orleans blues, R&B and modern jazz. This CD has the loose, up-front feel ...