Jazz Articles

Larry Coryell: Improvisations: Best of the Vanguard Years

by Josef Woodard
February 6, 2023

There have been many smoother operators in the world of jazz guitar than Larry Coryell, the brainy rough rider who was a natural-born fusioneer, in the best sense. There have been cleaner technicians on the instrument, with a more lucid sense of identity and careers that have followed a logical, rolling landscape. But not many have quite attained Coryell's strange, madly eclectic state of grace: into music he came, he saw and heard things not yet articulated, he conquered on ...

The Essential Vic Dickenson

by Mark Barnett
March 15, 2017

Getting Started If you're new to jazz, go to our Getting Into Jazz primer for some hints on how to listen. CD Capsule Timeless, straight-ahead 1950's jazz, played with passion and elegance by seasoned musicians at the top of their game. Don't look for bebop or coolness here. These guys weren't interested in revolutions. Background Although the 1950's are generally viewed as a period of Father-Knows-Best comfort and conformity, that ...

Larry Coryell: Spaces

by Sacha O'Grady
June 5, 2016

The origin of Spaces can be traced back to when Larry Coryell saw John McLaughlin performing at Count Basie's nightclub with the Tony Williams Lifetime ensemble. Apparently he was so impressed with what he heard, that he invited McLaughlin to join him in the studio and record what would turn out to be arguably one of the very first jazz-rock/jazz-fusion records made at that moment in time. Not that they would have known it. But as Bob Dylan sang, the ...

The Word: Soul Food

by Doug Collette
May 30, 2015

Right from the cover graphic depicting an audio speaker as a source of spiritual sustenance, The Word's Soul Food continues one of the most unusual but profoundly successful and satisfying collaborations in contemporary roots music. Bluesrockers the North Mississippi Allstars so deeply bonded with keyboardist John Medeski and pedal steel wunderkind Robert Randolph on their initial eponymous collaboration (Ropeadope, 2001), a followup was probably inevitable, but this album is far from merely de rigeur. Quite the contrary, as ...

Levon Helm: Ramble at the Ryman

by C. Michael Bailey
July 30, 2011

The Arkansas delta grit is gone from his voice, replaced by age and disease with the well-sanded twang of an American Southern Isaiah, if Johnny Cash were a stern Elijah. Levon Helm was the first voice among equals in The Band, sharing vocal duties with the equally distinctive vocals of bassist Rick Danko and pianist Richard Manuel. The only American (necessarily Southern) in a band of Canadians, it was Helm's dusty tenor that lent an American authenticity to the Band's ...

Patty Larkin: Watch the Sky

by Eyal Hareuveni
January 28, 2008

Patty Larkin is considered a rare bird among today's singer/songwriters. The Boston-based Larkin is more literate than her fellow bards; she is an inventive and experimental musician who likes to push the sonic envelope of her songs with subtle and sophisticated arrangements; an excellent guitarist--on all guitars, acoustic and electric--and a musician whose preferences are more varied than that of the common folk singer. She's wrote that she enjoys listening to John Coltrane “with the volume turned up to ten" ...

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy: Everything You Want For Christmas

by Mark Sabbatini
December 2, 2004

Even as a ho-hum host, it's hard not to have fun at a Big Bad Voodoo Party.

Everything You Want For Christmas may not quite live up to its name, but it's a lively and reliable collection for those holiday mixers. The band adopts the eleven songs reasonably well to their horn-heavy modern swing, but somehow the result feels more professional than inspired--sort of like a quality team dismantling a poor foe methodically, but with their eye ...

Garrison Starr: Airstreams & Satellites

by C. Michael Bailey
February 11, 2004

Garrison Starr follows Mindy Smith onto the Vanguard Records roster. Vanguard has been carefully crafting an artist list with smart, edgy female singer/songwriters who are more Lucinda Williams and less Shawn Colvin. With Ms. Smith they have mostly been meeting with success. Now Hernando, Mississippi native Garrison Starr mixes things up with her new release, Airstreams & Satellites, a collection of moody, slickly produced in-your-face-songs about complicated love and the hopeful ahead.

Ms. Starr first reached the airways ...

The Rooftop Singers: The Best of The Vanguard Years

by C. Michael Bailey
February 3, 2004

The immediate appeal of the Rooftop Singers is their innocent yet informed style. Popular in the mid-'60s, this group predated the Hippie Movement and the Summer of Love. They arose during the searing career of the similar Weavers (the group guitarist/vocalist Erik Darling belonged to before joining the Rooftops). Where the Weavers became political lightening rods, the Rooftop Singers were content to make white folk covers of black blues, ragtime, and spirituals. At a time when Elvis Presley, the Beatles, ...

Robert Bradley and Blackwater: Still Lovin

by C. Michael Bailey
December 22, 2003

Soul music is back. First Al Green resurfaces after thirty years to take us all back in time, then Detroit native and street singer/shaman Robert Bradley and his crack band Blackwater launch a throughly updated brand of soul for the 21st century. Despite the group’s D-Town roots, they owe much more to Memphis and Muscle Shoals than to Motown.

The 53-year-old Bradley is a curious combination of Otis Redding, Al Green, and Big Joe Turner. His voice is ...