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Various Artists: I Never Meta Guitar
by Mark Corroto
There are no fans of the guitar in today's creative music--they are better described as fanatics, or devotees. But then the guitar has always caused listeners to choose sides. I'm a fan of Jimmy Page and you, Pete Townshend--or do you prefer Wes Montgomery to my Jim Hall. John McLaughlin or Pete Cosey? Some of these debates have, thankfully, carried on for years.With a new century comes new names, and allegiances are redrawn as new techniques are introduced ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Music of Central Asia, Volumes 7 - 9
by Greg Camphire
Various ArtistsMusic of Central Asia, Volumes 7--9Smithsonian Folkways2010 The three 2010 CD/DVD releases covered here are just a taste of a stunning and comprehensive nine-volume Music of Central Asia set from Smithsonian Folkways that spans various musical traditions and innovations from a vast, overlapping region including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and more. Each volume contains a CD, DVD and 40-plus-page booklet, with a wealth of information that details the history, ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Latin Party
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
The redoubtable Putumayo programmers have already released ¡Baila! A Latin Dance Mix (2006), ¡Salsa! (2009) and Afro-Latin Party (2005), as well as nationally-themed but party-ready collections from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Are they perhaps scraping the bottom of the Latin party barrel with Latin Party? Ah, that would be to mistake the inexhaustible profundity of that barrel.As it is, Latin Party conveys a convincing party message. It also conveys an interesting ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Cuban Funk Experience
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
UK mixologist John Armstrong has compiled a collection of “Cuban funk" recordings from the coffers of two record labels: Havana's Egrem and Miami's Sound Triangle, between 1973 and 1988. Like Típica '73's Johnny “Dandy" Rodríguez did back in the 1970s, Armstrong is arguing that Cuban music in the US and in Cuba are two branches of a single family tree. He makes a good case. An interesting experiment is to try to identify which of these cuts comes from which ...
Continue ReadingAfrica: 50 Years of Music - 50 Years of Independence
by Chris May
Various ArtistsAfrica: 50 Years of Music: 50 Years of IndependenceSterns2010 “In my country alone, there are 80 ethnic groups and 200 dialects," says the Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango in an interview in the booklet enclosed with this box set. “So it's hard to talk about Cameroonian music in the singular. There are thousands of types of African music." To provide a fully comprehensive survey of African music is, ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Jimmy Dawkins Presents the Leric Records Story
by Nic Jones
The term “stalwart" wasn't invented for Jimmy Dawkins, but as far as the Chicago blues scene is concerned that's just what he is. His stinging, succinct guitar has graced too many sessions to mention, while back in the 1980s he owned the label that's compiled on this title. Now the 1980s wasn't a decade that was kind to the blues anymore than it was to a number of other musical forms, but with that proviso in mind, ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Larkin's Jazz
by Bruce Lindsay
Philip Larkin is one of the best-loved British poets of the twentieth century--the man who claimed in Annus Mirabilis that “Sexual intercourse began in nineteen-sixty-three..." A librarian at the University of Hull in the north-east of England, he was a complex character whose poems were often witty and well-observed but could also appear cynical and contemptuous. He was also a lifelong jazz fan, declaring in the opening line to The Dance: “Drink, sex and jazz--all sweet things, brother..."
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