Ollabelle - Riverside Battle Songs 2006

Ollabelle's second album, Riverside Battle Songs, arrives on the heels of 2004's self-titled debut, one of the more celebrated Americana releases of the new millennium. That album combined classic gospel material with T-Bone Burnett's sparkling production and a fresh vocal approach featuring five gifted singers who could shine both individually and collectively. Where the debut album was skewed toward traditional songs with a smattering of originals, Riverside Battle Songs reverses the ratio. Nine of the 13 songs are Ollabelle originals. The traditional songs fare best here. Namesake Ola Belle Reed's "High on a Mountain" is given a spirited reading, while the familiar spiritual "Down by the Riverside" is updated with ambient touches that recall Daniel Lanois' production work. The Appalachian gospel song "Gone Today" arrives via spine-tingling a cappella singing, departs via a fiddle and Dobro hoedown, and is one of the album's highlights. The originals are more problematic. The mournful "Everything Is Broken" is a starkly lovely ballad, while "Troubles of the World" offers an impressive and surprising raga-tinged coda on what is otherwise a standard gospel song. However, producer and multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell adds some too-familiar alt-country pedal steel work on "Heaven's Pearls" and "Blue Northern Lights," songs that are certainly pretty, but which overstay their welcome. More disturbingly, the five members of Ollabelle simply sound too polite and well-mannered for songs that are intended to convey spiritual desperation and heavenly joy. It's a charge that could have been leveled at the debut album, but the universally strong material offset the lack of funk and fire. But Riverside Battle Songs, with slightly weaker material, is The Gospel According to NPR and PBS, and as such it will appeal mostly to fans who like their fire and brimstone diluted with a strong dose of slick professionalism and urbane refinement. Undeniably well crafted and well sung, and occasionally moving, Riverside Battle Songs is nevertheless something of a disappointment. AMG.

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Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen - Mo Hippa 2008

Jon Cleary & the Absolute Monster Gentlemen consist of Cleary on keyboard and vocals; Derwin"Big D" Perkins (born 1974) on guitar; Cornell C. Williams (born 1962) on bass and backup vocals; and Jellybean on drums. All of the band members, except for Cleary, were born in New Orleans.

The band is generally well received, drawing large crowds of locals at classic New Orleans venues like Tipitina's and the Maple Leaf Bar. They are also a mainstay at the annual Jazz and Heritage Festival and have played at Bonnaroo as well as other music festivals. Rolling Stone's David Fricke wrote of the Pin Your Spin album: "Cleary can be an absolute monster on his own, but Cleary’s full combo R&B is as broad, deep and roiling as the Mississippi river, the combined swinging product of local keyboard tradition, Cleary’s vocal-songwriting flair for moody Seventies soul and the spunky-meters roll of his Gentlemen".

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Merl Saunders - Fiesta Amazonica 2010

Hammond B-3 player Merl Saunders has recorded with numerous renowned artists since the early '70s and has led many of his own dates in a variety of genres from jazz to blues to new age to rock. Born on Valentine's Day, 1934 in San Mateo, CA, Saunders began learning to play the piano at the age of 10. He was a classmate and bandmate of Johnny Mathis through junior high school. Saundersdecided on music as a profession after seeing how much fun was had by audience and performers alike at concerts by such musicians as Cab Calloway. He apprenticed early on with Jimmy Smith for a time, and attended various music schools. Starting in the 1960s, Saunders collaborated on and off withJerry Garcia, and the Grateful Dead. He also began working as a jazz keyboardist in the early '70s, and since has performed and recorded with Harry Belafonte, Frank Sinatra, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt and Paul Butterfield. One of his several albums with Jerry Garcia, Blues From the Rainforest, hit the Top 5 of the U.S. Billboard New Age charts in the early '90s.Saunders runs his own label, Sumertone, which includes much of his catalogue, as does the Fantasy label. In 1998, Saunders released his 20th album as a leader, Merl Saunders With His Funky Friends: Live! (Sumertone), which includes guests Garcia, John Popper (of Blues Travelers) and Trey Anastasio (of Phish). In addition to his active touring schedule, the San Franciscan has also written scores for TV and movies, including Tales From The Crypt, Twilight Zone, Heavy Traffic and Fritz The Cat. In early 2000, Merl Saunders became the first recipient of the lifetime activist award from a Florida environmentalist group for his environmental activism that goes beyond just the titles of albums likeSave the Planet So We'll Have Someplace to Boogie and Blues from the Rainforest. Later that fall, Saunders released Struggling Man in November.
There are few musical boundaries that pianist Merl Saunders hasn't ventured into. For Fiesta Amazonica, a follow up to his classic Blues for the Rainforest, he continues to blend of world beat, new age, blues, funk, and jazz. Guests on the recording include Jerry Garcia, Steve Kimmock, Rob Wasserman, Bob Weir, and Vince Welnick. Songs on this album were inspired by a trip Saunderstook to visit the rainforests in South America. The title track attempts to capture the energy of an Amazon tribal celebration. It features a brilliant guitar solo by Zero and Other Ones guitarist Steve Kimmock. Perhaps the most intense tune, "Ayahuasca Zone" was based on a ceremony in which rainforest natives ingested a powerful psychedelic drug. An eclectic and dissonant tune, it brings the wild ceremony to life. With its strange directions and brilliant songwriting, this album is a testament toSaunders' long and diverse career.  AMG.

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Cécile McLorin Salvant - WomanChild 2013

The U.S. debut album from jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, 2013's WomanChild is a bewitching, exuberant introduction to this immensely talented young singer. The winner of the 2010 Thelonious Monk jazz vocal competition, Salvant has the technical ability, lyrical sense, and undeniable charisma to sustain a career that could undoubtedly match those of her idols -- who include Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Ella Fitzgerald. And while the distinctive influence of all three of these singers is evident here, with WomanChild Salvant reveals herself to be a genuinely original vocalist with a distinctive timbre, a singer steeped in tradition but with a style and phrasing all her own. And it's not just older artists whom she brings to mind; her reworking of "There's a Lull in My Life" evokes the sultry R&B influence of Sade. All of this merely speaks to Salvant's broad musical appeal and ability to integrate influences into her own sound. And it doesn't hurt that she's backed here by an all-star rhythm section of Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra regulars, including pianist Aaron Diehl, bassist Rodney Whitaker, guitarist James Chirillo, and drummer Herlin Riley. Primarily here, Salvant delves into a superb selection of lesser-known standards and original compositions, putting her stamp on such songs as "Nobody," "You Bring Out the Savage in Me," and "Jitterbug Waltz." Salvant even taps into her French heritage on her original composition "Le Front Caché sur Tes Genoux," which features lyrics culled from Ida Faubert's poem "Rondel." However, it is the title track, also an original song, that showcasesSalvant the best. A bluesy, roiling torch song, "WomanChild" is Salvant's declaration of womanly independence in the face of self-doubt. She sings, "WomanChild falters/Clumsy on her feet/Wonderin' where she'll go/When her time has come/Good she'll never know/Until she comes undone." WithWomanChild, Salvant's time has definitely come and despite whatever fears she may have, it's clear she has the talent to go very far indeed. AMG.

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Neal Casal - Fade Away Diamond Time 1995

The story of Fade Away Diamond Time is as rocky as one of the roads in Casal's rural country-rock songs. After a number of years as a struggling musician, including a stint as guitarist in the Southern rock band Blackfoot, he was signed in 1991 to a publishing contract with Warner/Chappell Music. He had enough songs at the time for an album, but it was felt they were not ready for release yet. In 1994,Bud Scoppa, who had been an ardent supporter of Casal's music, heard a tape of demos recorded that same year (of which one, "Don't Turn Your Back on Me," can be found on the 1997 outtakes releaseField Recordings) and felt the time was right for Casal to be signed to the label he had just joined, Zoo Records. Yet, only five weeks after the signing, Scoppa was ousted from Zoo due to corporate downsizing. The label, surprisingly, let plans for the album continue, but basically ignored it. With a lesser experienced or talented artist, this might have resulted in a shoddy album, but it worked toCasal's advantage, as he was free to do whatever he wanted. Recording was done with producer Jim Scott and a fine array of musicians, including veteran session musician Bob Glaub on bass, in Palacio del Rio, a Spanish mansion near Santa Barbara that used to be Dean Martin's house. The idyllic setting proved perfectly suited for the music that resulted. Relaxed, timeless-sounding songs mixing elements of rock, country, and folk comprise the album. Casal's songs strongly evoke Jackson Browneand the Eagles' Southern California country-rock, along with the harder edge of Neil Young andYoung's folk side.
This is predominantly a band recording and the interplay of the musicians is very tight. It sounds like they're all playing together in a living room because, well, they are. Lyrically, the songs focus on interpersonal relationships and well-crafted character studies. The warm, bright "These Days With You" echoes Neil Young's "Long May You Run," while "Detroit or Buffalo" is an impassioned, take-no-prisoners song of restlessness and wanderlust. Despite his often-present influences, Casal is an adept songwriter in his own right, covering varied ground from the majestic rock of "Day in the Sun" to the introspective folk of "Bird in Hand" and the album-closing slow waltz of "Sunday River." The album was released to critical acclaim, but conversely, almost no support from the record label. Within a few months Casal was notified by phone in the Nashville bar where he was performing that he had been dropped from Zoo Records and that the tour was abruptly over. Within two months after that, Zoo itself was out of business. Though temporarily set back, Casal released Rain, Wind and Speed not long after in 1996. AMG.

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Fabiano do Nascimento - Dança dos tempos 2014

Dança dos Tempos is the debut album from thrilling, young Brasilian guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento, and it features legendary percussionist Airto Moreira in his first album project in over ten years. Dança dos Tempos follows folkloric Brasilian music as experienced through the mind and able fingers of an expansive musician, not yet thirty years old, and combines the heady ‘60s and ‘70s experimentalism of Hermeto Pascoal and Baden Powell with the childlike elegance of music played and passed down by native Brasilians for generations. It is the second Brasilian album released on Now-Again, following Seu Jorge and Almaz.

Moreira, the bandleader, songwriter and producer who recorded a bevy of titles under his own name, with his wife Flora Purim, and whose resume contains the names of – seriously – every musician worth mentioning from America or Brasil from the past 50 years – plays percussion on the album and is joined by do Nascimento’s long time drummer, Ricardo “Tiki” Pasillas on trap drums. Do Nascimento and his girlfriend handle vocals on what is otherwise an airy instrumental album that allows the guitarist’s virtuosity to shine through originals, folkloric Brasilian songs, and select covers by the likes of Pascoal and Powell, both formative influences on the guitarist.

These duets show the camaraderie that two master Brasilian musicians – of two different generations, but of the same spirit – share with comrades of ages past as they imagine music for the years to come. These tracks were recorded live in the studio with no overdubs by producer Luther Russell and engineer Jason Hiller – straight to 2” analog-tape, and only sparingly mastered to focus on the subtleties of the performances.

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Patty Griffin - Living With Ghosts 1996

Patty Griffin's major-label debut was actually recorded as a demo cassette. A&M executives were so impressed with this raw display of talent that they snatched up the tape and threw it, unaltered, into the marketplace. Griffin recorded her songs exactly as she performed them live, armed with only her acoustic guitar and a voice that can rattle fences. While dozens of folk artists have attempted to bend the ear of the major labels by coating their acoustics with radio-friendly keyboards and drums, Griffintook the gutsy "band? I don't need no stinking band" approach. It's primarily a testament to her voice that A&M was so taken with her minimalism; as a guitarist, Griffin isn't much more than an energetic strummer. Her songwriting is only occasionally exceptional -- her word choices are as minimal as her arrangements, and her melodies are engaging but conventional. But she is nonetheless a striking and intriguing storyteller, because her tales of chronically lonely people are told with such passion. Griffin's Nashville-tinged warble has tremendous emotional range, one minute cracking with brittle vulnerability, the next minute blasting with passionate intensity. Occasionally it seems Griffin's demo engineers were unequipped to handle her vibrant transitions, setting the microphone level for a whisper then cringing as the speakers bristle and the needles slam into the red. But this subtle idiosyncrasy only adds to the charm of the album, lending to the impression that no stereo is big enough to contain this voice. AMG.

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Famoudou Don Moye, Baba Sissoko, Maurizio Capone - Folk Bass Spirit Suite 2004

Although he's played with many other prominent free jazz musicians, Don Moye is far and away best known for his work with the most highly acclaimed avant-garde combo of the '70s and '80s, the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Moye immediately added a more explicit rhythmic sensibility upon joining the previously drummer-less group. The band's ability to groove was greatly enhanced by his presence.Moye was capable of swinging in a conventional jazz manner, but it was his mastery of various African and Caribbean percussion instruments and rhythmic techniques that set him apart from other jazz drummers of his generation.

Moye studied percussion at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he worked with trumpeterCharles Moore's Detroit Free Jazz. Moore's band traveled to Europe in May of 1968. Once there, Moyetraveled the continent and Northern Africa, working with such players as Steve Lacy, Sonny Sharrock, and Pharoah Sanders. In 1969, the Art Ensemble arrived in Paris. The band had been performing without a drummer in the two years since their inception. In Paris they decided to hire a full-time drummer and found Moye at the American Center for Students and Artists. Moye's extremely active, pattern-based polyrhythmic style lent the group a drive and cohesion that they had (to some degree) lacked. Along with Jarman and Favors, Moye took to wearing African face paint and clothing in performance with the Art Ensemble.

Moye has long been active in contexts apart from the Art Ensemble. Before moving to Chicago in 1971, Moye played with musicians associated with the Black Artists Group in St. Louis. In the '70s, he played with pianist Randy Weston and formed a percussion duo with fellow AACM member Steve McCall. Moye played and recorded in a variety of jazz settings, from modal to bop to free. In 1984, he became a member of the Leaders, a collection of avant-jazz all-starsLester Bowie, Chico Freeman, Arthur Blythe, Don Cherry, and Kirk Lightsey. Moye recorded as a leader himself, notably on the Art Ensemble's own AECO label: in 1975, as a solo percussionist (Sun Percussion, Vol. 1); in 1993, as co-leader of the Joseph Jarman/Famoudou Don Moye Magic Triangle Band (Calypso's Smile); and in 1996, as co-leader, with Enoch Williamsonof the Sun Percussion Summit (Afrikan Song) . AMG.

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Papadosio - Observations 2009

Mesmerizing, spellbinding and genre-defying: With their fourth full-length studio release Extras In A Movie, Papadosio reveals a striking cinematic cornucopia of sounds: orchestral, electronic, organic, acoustic, psychedelic and celestial. The 16 selections that comprise the song cycle are concise and structured – launch pads for the improvisational excursions that are a hallmark of the band’s celebrated concert performances.

“The writing process was a challenge for us, to see if we could integrate some songs that were shorter than five minutes,” notes the band. They envisioned the title Extras In A Movie as a concept connected to themes of interpersonal interactions and relationships.

Hitting virtually all major and secondary U.S. music locales and select festivals across North America, Papadosio tours on a massive scale but maintains a close intimacy with their fans. With the new project they are expanding their collective stylistic palette. “We like to have a lot of colors,” they explain. “We’re starting to push that envelope in the way we want to go – to give the people who are at the shows more of a variety of emotions. We don’t have filters. We record what’s happening.”

Originally from the creative collegiate hotbed of Athens, Ohio, the band is now centered in Asheville, North Carolina. Not that they are homebodies as they clarify. “For the past five or six years we’ve done maybe 150 dates a year and have been gone for 200 days. We were cutting back a little, but now with the new project the number of shows is about to go way back up.” Papadosio.com

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Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver - Light On My Feet, Ready To Fly 2010

Ultra-prolific (he manages an album a year, at least) bluegrass gospel kingpin Doyle Lawson brought a new lineup to the studio for 2010’s Light On My Feet, Ready To Fly, a typically spirited and well-executed collection of front-porch spirituals and holy rollers. Lawson (who appears on both the front and back covers sporting one of the finer purple, pink, green, and peach colored suits ever encountered), along with guitarist/vocalist Corey Hensley, bassist Jason Leek, banjo player/guitarist/bass vocalist Dale Perry, resophonic guitarist Josh Swift, and fiddler Jason Barie may not bring anything new to the table, but they certainly know how to make perfectly seasoned comfort food. AMG.

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Nick Gravenites and John Cipollina - Live In Athens At The Rodon 1987-88 (1991)

The name Nick Gravenites is probably familiar mainly to aficionados of '60s Chicago blues and San Francisco blues-rock and psychedelia of the same era, but not to a wider audience, because although Gravenites was an important contributor to the music during its heyday, he has unfortunately been sparsely recorded and often worked behind the scenes over the years. More people are likely to know him for the dozens of great songs he wrote: "Born in Chicago" (Paul Butterfield), "Buried Alive in the Blues" (Janis Joplin), "East-West," "Work Me Lord," "Groovin' Is Easy," "Bad Talkin' Bluesman," and literally hundreds of others. Gravenites' compositions have been recorded by Paul Butterfield, Janis Joplin, the Electric Flag, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Musselwhite, Big Brother & the Holding Company, James Cotton, Otis Rush, Jimmy Witherspoon, David Crosby, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Tracy Nelson, Howlin' Wolf, Roy Buchanan, Pure Prairie League, and others. He also made quite a name for himself as a producer, working on albums by Otis Rush, James Cotton, Michael Bloomfield, Janis Joplin, and others. Gravenites' sessionography is extensive; he's contributed to more than 50 albums as a singer, guitarist, bandleader, and/or producer.

The son of first-generation Greek immigrants, Gravenites grew up on Chicago's South Side and entered the University of Chicago in 1956. He began to play guitar in college, was immediately drawn to the university's large folk music club, and shortly thereafter began hanging out in the blues clubs. He met Paul Butterfield, who was still in high school, through the university's folk music club, though Butterfield never attended the University of Chicago. They began playing acoustic blues and folk songs together at campus-area coffeehouses. Also in the late '50s, he became friends with both black and white blues players then hanging out in the Chicago blues clubs, musicians like Muddy Waters,Howlin' Wolf, Mike Bloomfield, and Charlie Musselwhite.

A mid-'90s album with his group Animal Mind, titled Don't Feed the Animals, was released by Taxon Records, andGravenites joined Bob Margolin and others in a Kennedy Center tribute concert to bluesman Muddy Waters, taped in the fall of 1997 for airing on PBS. During the 2000s Gravenites could be found along with a host of other blues and blues-rock luminaries -- including Harvey Mandel(Canned Heat, John Mayall), Barry Goldberg (Electric Flag), Tracy Nelson (Mother Earth), Corky Siegel (Siegel-Schwall Band), and Sam Lay (Butterfield Blues Band) -- inChicago Blues Reunion, an aggregation featured on the CD/DVD set Buried Alive in the Blues (recorded at an October 2004 concert in Berwyn, IL), released in 2005 by Out the Box RecordsIn the late '50s he began making periodic trips to San Francisco, and spent nearly ten years commuting between Chicago and San Francisco before finally settling in Northern California in the mid-'60s. Gravenites was a key player and impresario on both the Chicago blues scene and the emerging blues-rock and psychedelic rock scene in San Francisco. In 1967, he formed a short-lived but legendary band, the Electric Flag, with guitarist Bloomfield, organist Barry Goldberg, bassist Harvey Brooks, and drummer Buddy Miles. the Electric Flag made their first performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and their first album, A Long Time Comin', made the Top 40; the group continued to record into the mid-'70s. Gravenitescontinued to perform through the 1970s and '80s around San Francisco and Northern California, filling his live shows with raw, burning, very economical guitar playing and soulful singing. His solo and collaborative albums during this period include My Labors (CBS, 1969), the Steelyard Bluessoundtrack (Liberty, 1973), Junkyard In Malibu (Line, 1980), and Blue Star (Line, 1980). As a founding member and lead guitarist for Quicksilver Messenger Service, John Cipollina helped shape the psychedelic sound of San Francisco in the 1960s. Most musicians on the scene were folkies who eventually turned acid rock, but Cipollina and fellow guitarist Gary Duncan were hard rockers when they formed Quicksilver Messenger Service in the mid-'60s. The band's self-titled 1968 debut brought them some attention, but it was the live, louder, and looser follow-up that made Cipollina a guitar legend. Guitarists would study 1969's Happy Trails for years to come. Cipollina also became famous for the strange amp stack he toured with, which included six Wurlitzer horns on top. Unfortunately, lineup changes would keep Quicksilver from finding firm footing until years later andCipollina would be gone by then, having quit the band in 1970.

The guitarist would go on to spend time in Copperhead, Raven, Terry & the Pirates, Zero, and the Frank Novato Band. He was still a guitarist's guitarist and could be found on stage more often than not, but none of these projects were to be as successful as Quicksilver. In the mid-'80s his health began to decline and he often needed a cane or a wheelchair. He fought respiratory problems hard for the next few years and still kept a busy schedule. On May 29, 1989, Cipollina was preparing for a show at San Francisco's Chi Chi Club when he died at the age of 45 from emphysema. The show ended up being a tribute to the guitarist with Cipollina's brother Mario -- bassist for Huey Lewis & the News -- leading an all-star lineup of Bay Area musicians. His famous amp stack and Gibson SG guitar are on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, OH.

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