The Phoenix Foundation - Buffalo 2010

The drowsy/easy psych-drone-pop amble of "Eventually" starts the Phoenix Foundation's 2010 full-length album on an agreeably understated pace, as good a way to set a tone as a full-on blast might be. The main guitar line, a little Feelies and a little post-punk epic art, mixed with a bit of classic rock imagery thanks to the lyrics, finds a kind of happy blend that the band has worked to make its own. The similar sense of gentle fusion and picking among the ruins of the past crops up throughout Buffalo -- the polite Velvets/pub rock chug of "Flock of Hearts" shaped by some sweet chimes and a bit of distant Mellotron/vocal chorusing along with a very glammy guitar break. Songs like "Skeleton" find a more direct hook/lyric approach, while the sweet uptempo pep of "Orange & Mango" shades into a swirling series of guitar loop breaks and shuddering keyboard surge. "Wonton" captures another sense of understated ease, almost breezy in feeling and sound. Samuel Flynn Scott's vocals often come across as nondescript but aim to be familiar rather than remarkable, suiting the sense of easy immediacy here -- the appeal of being what you expect. Then again, on "Pot" the chorale effect is higher pitched and warmly inviting, so a little twist can do nicely. Some fun lyrical touches abound: "All of these spots are being turned into gallery spaces" on "Bitte Bitte" leads into a nice little observation of the necessity of difference -- the line "Please don't be my friend" could almost be from an early Flying Nun band instead of a current one. "Golden Ship" ends the album on a nice full-bodied punch. AMG.

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Slow Poke - At Home 2007

Well-known indie jazz label Palmetto Records made its first foray into the digital only market with this raw and rootsy, blues influenced post-bop jam project by the N.Y.C. based avant-garde quartet. It's a safe project to create such an experiment with, a homemade session recorded back in 1998 at the Brooklyn home of group bassist Tony Scherr and later remastered in 2006. Despite the release of one official CD, Redemption in 2000, the group was, even years later, popular on more or less a grass roots level. Heavily influenced by singer/songwriters, Scherr, saxman and keyboardist Michael Blake, slide and baritone guitarist David Tronzo, and drummer Kenny Wollesen have a ball exploring the psychedelic blues-rock potential of Eddie Harris' "Listen Here" and reaping a slow, soulful "Harvest" from the Neil Young classic. Along the way, they're "Rockin' in Rhythm," bringing a blues jam sensibility to Duke Ellington, and dive into the hypnotic swamp on Kurt Wagner's "The Saturday Option." At Home also offers a glimpse at Blake's free-form compositional prowess on three originals, including the molasses paced "Dry Socket," which lets the listener know that this band is intent at times on living up to its name. AMG.

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Anders Osborne - Bury The Hatchet 2002

Swedish-born Anders Osborne has made the city of New Orleans his own, immersing himself in its idiosyncratic ways. Certainly one of the most unique subcultures in the city is that of the Mardi Gras Indians. Osborne has teamed up with one of the best-known Mardi Gras Indians of them all, Monk Boudreaux, to create this CD with its appropriate title of Bury the Hatchet. The songs on the album are a mixture of Mardi Gras Indian tunes and Osborne originals. The recording starts right in with Boudreaux announcing, "I Am the Big Chief," which, of course, he is. Formerly performing with longtime friend Bo Dollis and his Wild Magnolias, Monk Boudreaux is now chief of his own tribe, the Golden Eagles. The listener will hear songs from the street tradition, including the obligatory "Meet de Boys on de Battlefront," as well as "Dive in That Gumbo" and "Smoke It Right." The sonorous voice of Boudreaux is accompanied by fancy guitar and banjo work by Osborne, as well as some outstanding contributions by piano wizard David Torkanowsky and Kirk Joseph on the saxophone. The album also contains some folksier tunes by Osborne, such as the evocative "Summertime in New Orleans" and the pensive "Letters From Rome." The aggregation performs an interesting cover of Neil Young's "Ohio," as if to say that they know all is not right with the world. But they have not forgotten the party spirit for which the Crescent City is renowned. A rousing rendition of "Junco Partner" extols the virtues of excess in a way that would make Dr. John and James Booker proud. Fans of Anders Osborne will appreciate the lyrical qualities of their man on the CD. Perhaps the exposure will bring some new fans to the fantastic Mardi Gras Indian tradition that well deserves it. AMG.

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Willie Tee - Teasin' You 2002)

The list of great soul singers who never received the kind of fame and fortune commensurate with their extraordinary talent could fill a phone book, but even so, the obscurity heaped upon Willie Tee is a crime -- a graceful and fluid vocalist equally adept with poignant ballads and saucy deep soul, he assimilated the jazz traditions of his native New Orleans to forge a sophisticated sound completely distinct from his contemporaries. The title cut was Tee's biggest single if not necessarily his best, inaugurating the shuffling, Caribbean-inflected approach followed by much of his early material -- its B-side, "Walking Up a One-Way Street," is his masterpiece as much for its buoyant horn arrangement and stutter-step rhythm as for Tee's swooping, searing vocals. But just because he quickly fell off the charts doesn't mean the quality of his records fell off, too -- shifting easily from sweet ballads ("Dedicated to You") to Motown-esque pop ("Please Don't Go") to blistering funk ("Swivel Your Hips"), Tee mastered every idiom he tackled but just never clicked with listeners. Teasin' You seems mastered directly from vinyl, and in some cases it sounds as if the grooves were worn right off the original singles -- audiophiles should proceed with caution, but Night Train nevertheless deserves kudos simply for making these records available again. AMG.

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Chris Bell - Blues 2001 (2000)

Chris was born in Washington, DC, and raised in Massachusetts on down-home cooking as well as on blues, jazz, rhythm & blues, and gospel music by his New York City dad and North Carolina mom. Before starting to play guitar at fourteen years old, he studied in Germany, where his dad was a visiting professor of American and African American Cultural Studies. Later, as an art and music major at the University of Massachusetts, Chris participated in jazz workshops with Archie Shepp and in a summer session at Berklee. He also studied guitar with Tony MacAlpine. His major influences range from B.B. King and Albert Collins to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Songwriter, lead guitarist, and vocalist, Chris Bell, Silver Bridge Recording blues artist from North Hollywood, California, is now on tour featuring his latest CD release “Real Bluesman” with his band, 100% Blues. They have also just recently released their live concert DVD "Stage on Fire", filmed locally in Tujunga, CA. Chris and his band "100% Blues" features Chuck Maithonis on bass and backing vocals, Stephen "DJ Sticks" Marshall on drums, and Dan Pulos on Hammond Organ. They have been successfully touring the Western US, and regularly head out to the East Coast every summer. They have received rave reviews of their latest album "Real Bluesman" in such magazines as Blues Revue, Living Blues, Southland Blues, Big City Rhythm & Blues, and more. Jim Santos of Southland Blues Magazine wrote - "Bell comes up with a winner that will undoubtedly wind up among this year's top ten blues albums." Of his previous album - “ ‘Hell Is Too Hot For Me’ is easily the best original blues guitar album to inhabit my CD player this year,” writes the reviewer for the Centre Daily Times, “maybe the best blues album period.” Chris Bell’s earlier two CDs, “Blues 2001” and “CHRIS BELL & 100% Blues: LIVE” and his live performances of mostly original songs have received rave reviews. “Mixing up the mood with catchy lyrics and some dark lowdown blues,” says the reviewer for Southwest Blues, “Bell shows a flair for blues styles past and present.” “Bell played guitar dirtier than dirt,” the Southland Blues reviewer writes about Bell’s performance at the Irvine Lake Blues Festival. “His biggest and coolest trait is his grit and grimy voice that is so distinctive it’s in a class alone.” His single “Elevator to Heaven” was been among the top downloaded songs on MP3 in 1999. Chris is also currently the producer and host of "100% Blues," a cable access TV show in the Los Angeles area.

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Acoustic Syndicate - Rooftop Garden 2013

North Carolina's Acoustic Syndicate consists of vocalist/banjo player Bryon McMurry, vocalist/percussionist Fitz McMurry, vocalist/guitarist Steve McMurry, guitarist Roger Padgett, bassist Jay Sanders and flautist Gaines Post. The group formed in 1992 and released two albums regionally, including 1998's Tributaries; their self-titled album received national release in 1999. Their third release, Crazy Little Life, followed a year later. AMG.

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Joyce & Banda Maluca - Just A Little Bit Crazy 2003

This 2003 album by Brazilian bossa nova diva Joyce and her Banda Maluca is every bit as strong as her last outing for Far Out, Gafieira Moderna in 2001. Just a Little Bit Crazy takes the jazzier aspects of that album and mixes them up with some modern electronic keyboard work courtesy of the Norse keyboard whiz Bugge Wesseltoft. Wesseltoft and drummer Tutty Moreno construct a series of spacy bossa and jazz soundscapes with gorgeous reed and woodwind work from Nailor Proveta and Teco Cardoso. The saxophones and flute work not so much as punchy accent devices or melodic constructs but as elements that float inside Joyce's well-constructed melodies.
They hover around her voice and fill space with lilting, drooping, sometimes floating lines when she is not singing. Joyce's guitar playing and the bass work of Rodolfo Stroeter are the absolute bedrock, or pillow cases, for this breezy, shimmering, summery bossa. But the deft improvisations Joyce works in vocally as well as the small-space ideas that come from the band are what make these 13 songs so revolutionary. This is pop music of the highest order, but it is also jazz vocalizing on a similar level. Take a listen to "Na Paz" or "Samba Do Joyce," her idiosyncratically beautiful version of the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night," for examples. Joyce's singing is better than ever and her guitaristry is growing by leaps and bounds; she may be a master now, but she is also becoming a great innovator and stylist. On the spookily gorgeous "Tufão," Wesseltoft's keyboards create a quiet, swirling, sucking sound as a backdrop before Joyce's guitar, Moreno's cymbals, and Robertinho Silva's wispy, unobtrusive, constant percussion work enter just ahead of her voice in full plaintive moan. In the bridge, Wesseltoft on acoustic piano engages the horns, flute, and Joyce in a bit of harmonic interplay that adds layers to the already texturally rich palette. The melody moves from pastoral over to urban night song, from ballad to nearly midtempo jazz groover, and the emotion is one of serenity balanced by sadness. This is an amazing and very tender little album that offers further proof that the most creative and exciting music scene in the West is in Brazil. AMG.

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Kudsi Erguner - Ottomania 1999

Along with his brother, Suleyman, Kudsi Erguner is one of the top players of the ney, a Turkish reed flute. In addition to his own recordings, Erguner has performed with Peter Gabriel, Maurice Bejart, Peter Brook, Georges Aperghis, Didier Lockwood, and Michel Portal. His compositions and collaborations have been heard in the films The Last Temptation of Christ and Meetings with Remarkable Men, theater piece and film Mahabharata, and the ballets Le Voyage Nocturne and Neva. Erguner's band, the Kudsi Erguner Ensemble, was formed in 1988, as Fasi, with the goal of preserving the classical music of the 16th century Ottomon Empire. 

Erguner hails from a musical family. His father, Ulvi Erguner, and grandfather, Suleyman Erguner, were well-known players of the ney. In addition to what he learned from his father and grandfather, Erguner learned from the older musicians who often visited his childhood home. Erguner's knowledge of Turkish classical music was enhanced through his studies of the Sufi brotherhoods.

Launching his musical career in 1969 as a member of the Istanbul Radio Orchestra, Erguner moved to Paris six years later to study architecture and musicology.The following year, he worked on Peter Brook's movie Meetings with Remarkable Men, filmed on location in Afghanistan. Erguner later renewed his collaboration with Brook, composing and performing the score for a theater piece and film Mahabharata.

After conducting research in Turkey through a grant from UNESCO in 1980, Erguner returned to Paris and founded Mevlani, an institute for the study of the classical music and teachings of the Sufis. Between 1986 and 1987, Erguner spent lengthy periods in Pakistan recording and documenting traditional music for Radio France and France Musique. In late 1987, Erguner performed a concert of Ottoman music at the Royal Albert Hall in London. 
In 1988, Erguner collaborated with Peter Gabriel on the soundtrack of The Last Temptation of Christ. The same year, he recorded an album with his brother, The Mystic Flutes of Sufi, featuring preludes to ceremonies of the Whirling Dervishes. Kudsi and Suleyman Ergenur renewed their partnership in 1990, releasing a second album together, Sufi Music of Turkey. The following year, Erguner released three albums -- Turquie: Musique Soufi with Ilahi and Nefes N. Uzel, Oriental Dreams with Mahmoud Tebrizizadeh, and, together with the Kudsi Erguner Ensemble, was one of several artists featured on Gazel: Classical Sufi Music of the Ottomon Empire. In 1997, Erguner joined with Derya Turkan to record Chemins. Two years later, he formed the Kudsi Erguner Sufi-Jazz Project, with Christof Lauer, Michel Godard, and Marc Nauseef, and recorded Ottomania. AMG.

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Papa Mali - Do Your Thing 2007

Papa Mali's second album, Do Your Thing starts with the freaky psych-funk vibe of the spooky title track, which wouldn't sound out of place on Funkadelic's Maggot Brain. That druggy vibe continues on the Hendrixian "Early in the Morning," a veiled rewrite of "Hey Joe," and the grinding, fuzz bass-powered "I Had the Dream." Throughout the album, deep soul and blues elements like the Delta slide guitar on "Little Moses" and the playful shuffle beat of "I'm Getting over It" clash intriguingly with distorted vocals, jagged feedback explosions, oddball lyrics and other indie rock accoutrements. It makes for a more interesting and entertaining listen than the usual Chicago blues clichés from guys who think nothing of interest has happened in the blues since before Howlin' Wolf died: gems like the menacing, reverb-heavy instrumental "Girls in Bossier City" and the heavy, fuzz-drenched groove of "Sugarland" are too weird for the average fan of polite white-boy blooze, but they're also way closer to the roots of the Delta than the likes of Jon Spencer and Jack White. Do Your Thing is the meeting point between those two opposing sides, taking the best of both while ignoring most of the annoying bits. AMG.

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Slow Poke - Redemption 1999

Many bop snobs would have us believe that all avant-garde jazz is nothing more than mindless, directionless noise. But it's foolish to make sweeping generalizations about any musical idiom. While there's nothing wrong with atonal free jazz, some of it is brilliant, listeners need to realize that not all avant-garde jazz is atonal. Avant-garde jazz can, in fact, be very melodic. A perfect example is Redemption by Slow Poke, an East Coast quartet that includes tenor and soprano saxophonist Michael Blake, bassist Tony Scherr, drummer Kenny Wollesen, and a guitarist who simply goes by Tronzo. If Cecil Taylor, Charles Gayle, and Anthony Braxton are extremely avant-garde, Slow Poke is only mildly avant-garde. This diverse, generally impressive CD takes an inside/outside approach -- a lot more inside than outside -- and all of the tunes have discernible melodies. Much to its credit, Slow Poke as eclectic as it is musical; everything from North African and Middle Eastern music to blues, funk, and rock has influenced this 1998 session. Meanwhile, Slow Poke puts its interpretive powers to work on imaginative versions of Johnny Cash's "Redemption," Nirvana's "Been a Son," and the Rolling Stones' "Shine a Light," all of which lend themselves nicely to jazz makeovers. While many other jazz artists are content to inundate us with the same old Tin Pan Alley standards, Slow Poke realizes that rock and country songs can, in fact, be relevant to jazz. Redemption falls short of innovative, but it has a probing, adventurous spirit that was missing from many of the jazz recordings of the late '90s. AMG.

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Eivind Opsvik - Overseas IV (2012)

Eivind Opsvik is known as a jazz bassist, but Overseas, Vol. 4 (like the others in the series) is perhaps closer to soundtrack music than traditional jazz. He seems to be more interested in creating a mood than a lasting melody. To this end, he assembled a very sympathetic band (Tony Malaby/sax, Brandon Seabrook/guitar and mandolin, Jacob Sacks/harpsichord, piano, Farfisa, and Kenny Wollesen/drums, percussion, etc) that really understands what Opsvik is going for. The album starts with a piece that almost sounds like some kind of classical processional with its timpani and harpsichord. The opening pieces favor long tones and lots of space. Kenny Wollesen is one of the tastiest and most musical drummers out there and a real asset to Opsvik's compositions. "1786" starts slowly with just Wollesen. Sacks joins on harpsichord for a while but switches to piano when things start to pick up. The drums become more insistent as Opsvik joins with a great bass ostinato. Malaby enters and turns in a killer solo over the groove, eventually joined by Seabrook. It's a stunning piece. The bowed bass and harpsichord of "Silkweavers' Song" again evokes classical music, as does "Men on Horses." Then they decide to rock out a bit. "Robbers and Fairground Folk" has Seabrook wailing over Malaby's sax riffing. "Michelle Marie" and "Nineteen to the Dozen" give Seabrook a bit more room to stretch out. After that, things take a turn back toward the cinematic (and slightly ominous) with "Det Kalde Havet" and finish up with some chain-gang call-and-response between bass and guitar. The prominent harpsichord helps make Overseas, Vol. 4 a unique-sounding album that's also an unqualified success thanks to Opsvik's vision and a great band. AMG.

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The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project - Axels & Sockets 2014

It seems sadly fitting that Jeffrey Lee Pierce (best remembered as the founder and leading light of the fabled band the Gun Club) is better recognized in Europe years after his death in 1996 than he was in his native United States in the final decade of his short life; it was just the sort of fate that met many of the innovative blues and jazz artists and outlaw poets that were his heroes and role models. Though audiences overseas more eagerly embrace Pierce's vision, there was something strongly and defiantly American in his lyrical voice and his fusion of blues, punk, jazz, folk, country, and nearly any other native musical strain that crossed his path. Thankfully, a handful of Pierce's friends and admirers have kept the flame alive with a series of albums that offer fresh, sometimes radical interpretations of his songs, with Pierce's old running buddy Cypress Grove contributing guidance and a cache of old demo cassettes that held a treasure trove of unrecorded Jeffrey Lee Pierce compositions.  The third album from the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project, Axels & Sockets, offers more rare and unheard Pierce tunes performed by a rotating cast of musicians, ranging from folks who knew and worked with Pierce (Debbie Harry and Lydia Lunch) to like-minded left-of-center rock icons (Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Thurston Moore), and young upstarts who see Pierce as an influence and kindred spirit (Black Moth, Honey). While a number of these performances are rave-ups in the Gun Club's tradition of punk informed by rootsy blues and country accents -- notably Honey's version of "Thunderhead" and Slim Cessna's Auto Club's romp through "Ain't My Problem Baby" -- many of the participants put different spins on his work, showing how diverse his songs could be in the right hands. Iggy Pop's wiry vocals fit "Nobody's City" like a glove, Primal Scream's electronic overhaul of "Goodbye Johnny" transports the song's swampy vibe into cyberspace, Nick Cave's duet with Debbie Harry on "Into the Fire" reinforces both the beauty of the melody and the emotional intelligence of the lyrics, Mark Lanegan finds something both lovely and ominous in "Desire by Blue River," and Lydia Lunch's spoken word duet with an old recording of Pierceon "The Journey Is Long" is effective enough that it ought to be longer than just over a minute. (Pierce's vocals also pop up on Mark Stewart's reworking of "Shame and Pain," with Thurston Moore adding his own brand of dissonance.) In their third round, Cypress Grove and his colleagues are still finding fascinating things in the Jeffrey Lee Pierce archives, and Axels & Sockets is a potent reminder of the strength and imagination of his songwriting, making a powerful case for his status as an overlooked visionary. AMG.

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