Articles by C. Michael Bailey

Bailey's Bundles

The Led Zeppelin Papers: Presence, Deluxe Edition

by C. Michael Bailey
August 15, 2026

By 1976, the monolithic machinery of Led Zeppelin was running entirely on fumes, adrenaline, and fractured bones. Recorded in a frantic eighteen-day blitz while Robert Plant was confined to a wheelchair, Presence is often chronicled as Jimmy Page's last stand of pure guitar orchestration. Yet, when considering the wider oeuvre of Led Zeppelin, two entirely separate bands fall out of the discussion, making Presence a fascinating historical collision point. The first iteration was the British blues ...

Bailey's Bundles

The Golden Era of Art Pepper on Contemporary Records (1957-1960)

by C. Michael Bailey
August 10, 2026

The arc of alto saxophonist Art Pepper's early career is one of the most dramatic narratives in jazz history--a relentless tug-of-war between transcendent musical genius and the devastating grip of heroin addiction. Between 1957 and 1960, Pepper recorded a sequence of five albums for Lester Koenig's Contemporary Records that redefined the jazz capabilities of the alto saxophone and the genre “West Coast Jazz." Operating within the sunny confines of Los Angeles, Pepper was fighting a dark, private war against narcotics, ...

Bailey's Bundles

With Time No Longer an Issue: The Rolling Stones' Hackney Diamonds and Foreign Tongues

by C. Michael Bailey
July 31, 2026

The standard critical frameworks used to evaluate late-career popular music--nostalgia, institutional legacy, and the search for one last masterpiece--have become increasingly inadequate for understanding the Rolling Stones' most recent work. Such approaches inevitably turn new recordings into epilogues to a completed career. The remarkable fact is not that musicians in their eighties remain productive. It is that Hackney Diamonds (Polydor/Geffen, 2023) and Foreign Tongues reveal the emergence of a genuinely new creative period in the band's history. That ...

Book Review

Cool Heat: Anita O'Day And Her Dangerous Jazz Life

by C. Michael Bailey
July 22, 2026

Cool Heat: Anita O'Day and Her Dangerous Jazz Life James Gavin 214 Pages ISBN: # 978 80050 309 0 Equinox 2026 The last words James Gavin writes of the jazz singer, Anita O'Day in Cool Heat: Anita O'Day and Her Dangerous Jazz Life are in thanking the Equinox publication staff for ..."paving the way for me to tell one of the greatest stories in jazz." For more than two decades, James Gavin ...

Album Review

Ma Rainey: Mother of the Blues, The Complete Paramount Recordings, 1923-1928

Read "Mother of the Blues, The Complete Paramount Recordings, 1923-1928" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 18, 2026

Many music writers and historians consider Gertrude “Ma" Rainey the matriarch of American blues. Beginning her career in the dust of Southern tent shows and minstrel circuits, she became one of the first professional entertainers to bridge the raw, rural folk traditions of the deep south with the theatrical polish of vaudeville. Known for her commanding contralto voice, gold-capped teeth, and openly bisexual lyrics--most famously in “Prove It On Me Blues"--Rainey did not just perform the blues; she codified them ...

Album Review

Peggy Lee: Too Marvelous for Words

Read "Too Marvelous for Words" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 30, 2026

“Every musician in town wanted that gig... She got whoever she wanted, because she was so good." --pianist Lou Levy, as quoted by James Gavin in Is That All There Is?: The Strange Life of Peggy Lee (Atria Books, 2014) Born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, in 1920, Peggy Lee survived a harsh childhood through music. In 1936, she began singing on KOVC radio in Valley City, North Dakota. She later hosted her own ...

Album Review

Robyn Spangler: Robyn Spangler

Read "Robyn Spangler" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 18, 2026

Award-winning vocal stylist, songwriter, and actress Robyn Spangler is a fourth-generation performer whose deep musical roots trace back to an Indiana childhood of circus musicians, military band players, and a mother who sang in big bands. After taking piano lessons from former Steve Miller Band keyboardist Jim Peterman and fronting professional cover bands at age 17, Spangler moved to Los Angeles to study theater and music. She quickly built a diverse bi-coastal career working both behind the scenes and in ...

Album Review

Louise Alexandra: Crazy World of Love

Read "Crazy World of Love" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 1, 2026

The release of Crazy World of Love marks a new chapter for Louise Alexandra, a jazz vocalist whose artistry is as deep as her background is unconventional. Splitting her time between the vanguard of medical science and the timeless traditions of jazz, Alexandra is a Dutch-American vocalist, songwriter, and active cancer research scientist. For over 15 years, she built a formidable reputation within Boston's highly competitive biotech and jazz circuits before returning to the Netherlands, where she continues to develop ...

Bailey's Bundles

Alma Mićić's Balkan Soul in the Brave New World

by C. Michael Bailey
April 8, 2026

After having released four recordings between 2004 and 2017, the Serbian-American vocalist Alma Mićić (pronounced “Mee-cheech") took the COVID-19 pandemic off in the studio, returning in 2024 contributing vocals for “Evergreen" on tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander's release Timing Is Everything (Cellar Live/La Reserve Records). Mićić's collaboration with Alexander jumpstarted the singer's return to the studio, which resulted in two new recordings, both on Venus Records: You're My Thrill (2024) and Lilac Wine--Tribute to Helen Merrill (2025). This is the definition ...

Album Review

Linda Dachtyl: Waves of Change

Read "Waves of Change" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 26, 2026

Linda Dachtyl is a noted jazz organist who has been recording since the release of her debut recording, Blue Bop, on Tony Monaco's Chicken Coop Records in 2006. She has remained closely associated with Monaco and his label since. Dachtyl followed her debut with the well-received For Hep Cats (2008). In 2015, she released A Late One before taking a decade off and a hard left into her love of progressive rock with Waves of Change. Waves of ...