Jazz Articles

My Morning Jacket: The Waterfall II

by Doug Collette
October 17, 2020

My Morning Jacket's The Waterfall II is a logical step in the progression of this Kentucky band's career. It's a path that's taken a decidedly zig-zag pattern since the debut of The Tennessee Fire (Darla Records, 1999) and its follow-up At Dawn (Darla Records, 2001), arguably reaching its apogee with It Still Moves (ATO Records, 2003). From that point on, through successive records including Z (ATO, 2005), Evil Urges (ATO, 2008) and Circuital (ATO, 2011), as well as the namesake ...

The Old 97s: Graveyard Whistling

by C. Michael Bailey
April 5, 2017

Much of the evolution occurring within a given genre of music occurs in response to predominant movements within that music. For example, in jazz, bebop was a response to the swing era, the latter emphasizing ensemble charts over individual virtuosity and the former celebrating the individual soloist in improvisation. Bebop stimulated the cool jazz movement, featuring music equally as technical, but with a softer texture and finer arrangements. These trends in jazz occurred between 1945 and 1950. The behemoth that ...

Jim James: Eternally Even

by Doug Collette
November 5, 2016

With the very announcement of Eternally Even, My Morning Jacket's titular leader Jim James telegraphed the topical nature of his solo album, a somewhat disingenuous gesture to be sure, but ultimately a telling one. The sentiments as voiced in such a sing-song fashion on “Hide in Plain Sight" and “Same Old Lie" sound as superficial as the production and arrangements he's fashioned here with co-producer Blake Mills. The latter is an artist in his own right, but has ...

Garcia Live Volume Seven: Sophie's, Palo Alto, November 8, 1976

by Doug Collette
September 4, 2016

The openness and vulnerability within Jerry Garcia's singing voice is an often-overlooked virtue among all the others for which he's distinguished, including his ever-so-precise (acoustic and electric) guitar playing as well as his songwriting collaborations with lyricist Robert Hunter. Nevertheless, those vocal qualities also resonate in the best of his solo work and Garcia Live Volume Seven is a prime example.A palpable sense of comfort radiates from this show, recorded at Sophie's in Palo Alto in November of ...

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders: Garcia Live Volume Six: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders July 5 1973, Lion's Share

by Doug Collette
July 16, 2016

A cursory review of Garcia Live Volume Six reveals much that's familiar about such titles including personnel (keyboardist/vocalist Merl Saunders, bassist John Kahn and drummer Bill Vitt) and material ("I Second That Emotion," “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"). But a closer perusal uncovers elements that make July 5, 1973 Lion's Share a distinctive entry in the solo discography of guitarist/songwriter/vocalist Jerry Garcia. Rare choices of song, such as “She's Got Charisma," suggest an expansive approach to ...

Jerry Garcia: Broadway: Act One: October 28th, 1987

by Doug Collette
August 30, 2015

The deliciously relaxed air of the music on these three discs belies the precision in the musicianship as much as it does the operations necessary for a two week run on a Broadway theater. And all this attention to detail, well-served as it is, gives the lie to the moment of serendipity from which it sprung:an offhanded, good=humored exchange between Jerry Garcia and late impresario Bill Graham. Dennis McNally's perceptive recounting of the experience in New York at ...

Garcia Live Volume Five: Keystone Berkeley December 31, 1975

by Doug Collette
December 7, 2014

Garcia Live Volume Five begins appropriately and propitiously enough as the band slowly, inexorably coalesces around the changes of chuck Berry's “Let It Rock," weaving an insinuating rhythm and melody mix that becomes proportionately more dramatic as the leader of the band begins to sing, seeming off-mike (or perhaps he's just not turned up?), at which point the quartet drops confidently into the pocket of the groove they've only suggested to that point. John Kahn's bass pops and pulses emphatically ...

The Old 97s: Most Messed Up

by C. Michael Bailey
September 20, 2014

How great is it to discover a band that has been here all along? The Old 97s are nothing new. Coming together in Dallas in 1993, the popular quartet led by the aptly-named Rhett Butler has recorded 15 studio CDs since 1994's Hitchhike to Rhome (Idol Records). The band emerged as part of a larger resurgence in alternate-Americana/Country music that included Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt and The Bottle Rockets. Imagine my surprise ...

Dawes: Nothing Is Wrong

by Doug Collette
June 8, 2011

In the process of redefining rootsy rock and roll out from the West Coast, Dawes has had its profile heightened by association lately, with props from Jackson Browne in the pages of Rolling Stone and as accompanists for The Band's Robbie Robertson. But if the group's second album, Nothing Is Wrong, proves anything, it's that this quartet can stand on its own. No question the group owes some obvious debts, but it's not for lack of ideas; rather, ...

Gov't Mule: Gov't Mule: Mighty High

by Doug Collette
December 12, 2007

Hearing a Gov't Mule reggae album is no big surprise if you've seen the band with any regularity over the years. Interpretations and teases of Bob Marley songs sprinkle their set lists; nouveau reggae icons Spearhead with Michael Franti have been co-billed with the group frequently; and Warren Haynes' signature song, “Soulshine, has been arranged for reggae in the last year.

Germinating, no doubt, from a confluence of those circumstances, 2006's New York New Year's run, which included one night ...