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380

Article: Album Review

Champion Jack Dupree: Junker Blues

Read "Junker Blues" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

Jack Dupree was one of the barrelhouse champions. Weaned on the coarser piano styles of the brothels and speakeasies of his New Orleans youth his utilitarian approach on the instrument always favored volume and vigor over skill and polish. But the attribute that set him most apart from the legion of juke joint ivory ticklers was ...

105

Article: Album Review

Various: Mississippi Blues

Read "Mississippi Blues" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

The Mississippi Delta is commonly revered as the American birthplace of the Blues, both figuratively and factually. The porous soil of the regions vast cotton fields and the hot humidity of the Mississippi sky were catalytic ingredients that sparked an alchemical reaction between the poverty and repression felt by Southern Blacks and their more ancient musical ...

180

Article: Album Review

Roosevelt Sykes: Nasty But It's Clean

Read "Nasty But It's Clean" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

The Honeydripper, Willie Kelly, Easy Papa Johnson, and Dobby Bragg- just a few of the aliases ascribed to one Roosevelt Sykes, the prodigal juke joint pianist. Sykes was one of the few stylists whose successfully straddled the decades. From his beginnings in the 1920s and he continued to wax records into the 60s after his relocation ...

144

Article: Album Review

Von Freeman & Frank Catalano: You Talkin' To Me?!

Read "You Talkin' To Me?!" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

Break out the party hats and cut the celebratory cake; another Von Freeman jam session is out of the can and ready for the grasping hands of Windy City jazz fans! Vonski is cat so good at what he does that even the most callous critical eye can’t help becoming weepy in admiration. The man has ...

109

Article: Album Review

John Fahey: The Great San Bernadino Birthday Party

Read "The Great San Bernadino Birthday Party" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

Relatively few musicians can lay claim to creating an entire school of music. John Fahey is among the number who can though his reclusive nature has often been at odds with the accompanying celebrity his earlier innovations engendered. Fahey gathered the seemingly disparate genres of European classical, country blues, religious music and even free improvisation, and ...

174

Article: Album Review

Leroy Carr: Sloppy Drunk

Read "Sloppy Drunk" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

The title of this generous collection doesn’t mince words about the principal vice of its subject. Carr was one of the most famous and self-debasing artists in the history of the blues. So much so that his battles with the bottle are nearly as legendary as his talent. Forming one of the first high profile partnerships ...

200

Article: Album Review

Sir Charles Thompson: Robbin's Nest

Read "Robbin's Nest" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

In his youthful years during the 1940s Sir Charles Thompson was fortunate enough to be situated at ground zero for the collision between swing and bebop. High profile sessions with Charlie Parker, Illinois Jacquet, Coleman Hawkins and others ensued as well as stints with Lester Young, Roy Eldridge and Don Byas. How’s that for a resume? ...

153

Article: Album Review

Various: Rare & Red Hot Gospel

Read "Rare & Red Hot Gospel" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

Pre-War gospel is one of the most emotively charged forms of expression in the American musical diaspora. There’s something indescribably moving about a singer or congregation shouting out devotion to a higher spirit regardless of denomination. It’s a music that communicates across religious, social and demographic boundaries and can stir the emotions in sanctified and secular ...

317

Article: Album Review

Ron Carter: Parade

Read "Parade" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

The decade of the 70s was a time of artistic uncertainty in jazz. Faced with a dwindling audience many musicians buckled under to commercial pressures and diluted their sounds to fit into the frameworks of popular trends. While this is nothing new in music, there was something particularly bromidic about 70s pop and remaining economically viable ...

147

Article: Album Review

Kahil El'Zabar w/ David Murray: One World Family

Read "One World Family" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor

Jazz musicians are among the most prolific artists around. It’s not uncommon, particularly in the freer strains of the idiom, for an artist to have a half dozen albums under his or her belt on an annual basis. Sales of course are an entirely different matter and even the busiest artists in the music frequently go ...


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