Bombino - Nomad 2013

Born in northern Niger, Bombino is an ethnic Tuareg, a nomadic tribe spread out across the Sahara Desert, and if he inherited a steady urge for going, it shows in his guitar playing, which is informed by the fluid, melodic, and graceful style of so many great African guitarists. But he's also listened and studied the playing of Jimi Hendrix and Mark Knopfler closely, and maybe a little of J.J. Cale, too, another man whose guitar style embraces a sharp, dusty-tinged desert tone, and somehow out of all this, Bombino emerges as a sort of Dick Dale of the Sahara, with a guitar style that is uniquely all his own. For this, his second album, Bombino traveled to Nashville to record with the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, and the result is a marvelous set, full of grit and funky elegance, a kind of mesh of Tuareg rhythms with Deep South delta country trance blues, and psychedelic, too, as if Jimi Hendrix and John Lee Hooker somehow got spliced together. It's a wonderful listen from start to finish, with heavily echoed vocals, and layers of snaky, sinewy guitar lines that build and weave, separate and expand as each track goes on, until everything seems to burst transformed into the immense sonic space of an ocean, or a desert, for that matter. Although Bombino is a very political songwriter, he keeps his lyrics and melodies taut, giving his graceful, spiraling, and relentless guitar riffs plenty of room to do their thing. Highlights include the thickly chugging garage guitar epic "Amidine" that opens the set, the amazing serpentine guitar lines of "Imuhar," the back porch Sahara country sound of "Imidwan," and the lovely "Tamiditine," which closes things out, but everything here certainly belongs and contributes to the rich, gritty, and ultimately joyous tone of this wonderful album. AMG.

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Baaba Maal - The Traveller 2015

Senegalese singer, songwriter, and guitarist Baaba Maal hasn't recorded an album in six years, but he hasn't been idle. He's run an annual music festival, Blues du Fleuve, in his hometown of Podor in northern Senegal since 2006, and performed widely with the international unit Playing for Change. He's also been soaking up modern sounds. The Traveller, his 11th album, is drenched in electronic sounds that complement his meld of Senegalese folk and pop and offer the fruit of his journeys. It was produced by Johan Hugo (the Very Best), and recorded in Dakar and London. The Maal/Hugocollaboration first surfaced in March of 2014 with the raw dancefloor bubbler "Suma Rokia." The Traveller is simultaneously more polished and rootsier. Not (entirely) focused on the club, it leaves room for more of Maal's traditional sound even as it lets the electro flow. Opener "Fulani Rock" cooks.Mamadou Sarr's djembes thunder amid sonic vocal treatments by Hugo (AutoTune among them) as dirty, distorted guitars crisscross, creating a furious collision of rhythms that are momentarily interrupted by a martial chant in the bridge. It's followed by "Gilli Men." The acoustic guitars of Maal and Kalifa Baldi offer circular interplay amid loops and kalimbas. Maal's trance-like singing is supported by the Dakar Church Choir. Other cuts, such as "One Day," recall Maal's earlier work, but the layers of reverb, digital delay, and spiky electric guitars deliver compelling layers of texture and color. "Lampenda" commences as a simple Fulani folk song underscored by Maal and Baldi's gorgeous guitar playing (they should tour as a duo) and a church organ. But as multiple sabar drums enter the mix (by Bahkane Seck & Family), Hugo stirs in sweeping strings and keyboards, transforming it into a pop anthem -- and celebrates fishermen! The title track features an appearance by Mumford & Sons' Winston Marshallon banjo. Initially it resembles a Malian blues, playing behind multi-tracked backing vocals. But it quickly shifts into a gentle road song with a glorious four-voice male and female backing chorus adding the notion of celebration. There are big beats driving it all, but they're reined in by the canny, eclipsing interplay between Maal and Baldi. The final two cuts, co-written with author Lemn Sissay -- who speaks them in English -- are "War" and "Peace." Maal plays guitar and sings in the backdrop. The former is an urgent, drum-driven call to reject the perils of nationalism; the latter is a prayer for the healing of people and the Earth. Its peul flute, kora, guitars, and organic percussion add an emotional resonance to the lyric. Maal's embrace of technology on The Traveller isn't new: he's been open to it since 2009's Television; it's simply more pervasive here. Nonetheless, he has found a way to use it as a simple extension of his iconic sound. In these songs Maal continues to celebrate his people, his culture, and the Fulani language, even as he presents the listener with challenges to their preservation from inside and outside Senegal.

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Earthless - From The Ages 2013

The San Diego-based stoner rock trio Earthless feature the talents of Nebula guitarist Isaiah Mitchell, Electric Nazarenebass player Mike Eginton, and Hot Snakes/Clikitat Ikatowidrummer Mario Rubalcaba (who also played with Rocket from the Crypt under the alias Ruby Mars). The band's debut, a collection of jam-heavy instrumentals titled Sonic Prayer, was released on the Gravity label in 2005. It was followed in 2007 by Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky, which marked the band's first release for Tee Pee Records. Live at Roadburn appeared the following year, showcasing the band's strength as a live act. AMG.

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Ambrose Akinmusire - Prelude To Cora 2008

Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire is a forward-thinking musician with a bent toward atmospheric post-bop. Born in Oakland, California, Akinmusire showed early promise by his teens, and gigged professionally while also playing in the Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble. Early encounters with such luminaries as saxophonists Joe Henderson and Steve Coleman pushed Akinmusire to focus a keen eye on his own development. He earned his bachelor's degree from the Manhattan School of Music and later his master's from the University of Southern California. Along the way, Akinmusirestudied with such trumpet luminaries as master teacherLaurie Frink, Lew Soloff, and Terence Blanchard. Akinmusire has appeared as a sideman on many albums, including works by saxophonist Coleman, pianists Aaron Parks and Vijay Iyer, trombonistJosh Roseman, bassist Esperanza Spalding, and others. In 2007 Akinmusire won the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition and the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. A year later he released his debut solo album, Prelude to Cora, on Fresh Sound New Talent. In 2011 Akinmusire returned with his sophomore album, When the Heart Emerges Glistening, on Blue Note Records. he made session appearances on records by a wide array of artists includingDavid Binney's Graylen Epicenter, Chris Dingman's Waking Dreams, Baptiste Trotignon's For a While, and Gerald Clayton's Life Forum. His sophomore Blue Note date, The Imagined Savior Is Easier to Paint, was released in March of 2014. AMG.

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Cosmonauts - If You Wanna Die Then I Wanna Die 2012

Calling their distorted, amped sound "drug punk,"Cosmonauts are a California-based garage punk band known for their simple, physically powerful songs and punishing stage volume. Cosmonauts were formed in 2009 by guitarists Alexander Ahmadi and Derek Cowart, natives of Fullerton in Orange County. They met when a mutual friend staged a house show and the two ended up jamming together. As Cowart told a reporter, "It was almost the same fashion as when the Clash approached (Joe) Strummer. 'I like you, but I hate your band,' is pretty much what Alex told me. I was like, 'That's alright. I hate my band, too.'" Teaming with bassist James Sanderson III and drummer Cole Devine, the four became Cosmonauts, and began hashing out powerful, drone-inspired guitar jams inspired by Spacemen 3, Sonic Youth, andthe Velvet Underground. The group also discovered a simple way to get its trademark thick, reverb-heavy sound: using old amps and driving them as loud as possible. (As Cowart says, "The Kinks didn't get their tones from pedals, they just blew out their amps. It sounds cooler that way.") A few months after their first shows, Cosmonauts released their first album, a cassette-only offering issued by the hip label/record shop Burger Records that hit the street in the summer of 2010. Cosmonauts soon set out on their first tour, landed a spot at the South by Southwest Music Conference, and began releasing fresh material at a steady pace, including the cassette-only New Psychic Denim EP and a handful of 7" singles. In 2011, Cosmonauts' debut album was reissued on vinyl by Chicago's Permanent Records, and the band's many singles were compiled on a cassette-only collection, Natalie Wilson's Arm. Their second full-length, If You Wanna Die Then I Wanna Die, was released in 2012, and in 2013 the group reunited with Burger to release a third album, Persona Non Grata. AMG.

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Alan Skidmore & Amampondo - The Call 1999

b. Alan Richard James Skidmore, 21 April 1942, Kingston-on-Thames, London, England. ‘Skid’ plays soprano and tenor saxophones, flutes and drums. He is the son of Jimmy Skidmore, who gave him a discarded tenor that Alan ignored until he was about 15. At that time he decided to teach himself to play. A muscular and versatile player himself, the musicians he particularly admires include Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Michael Brecker, Ronnie Scott, Andy Sheppard and, above all, John Coltrane. Skidmore began playing professionally in 1958, and did various commercial engagements, including tours with comedian Tony Hancock and singer Matt Monro and five years in the house band at London’s Talk Of The Town nightclub.

In 1961 he made the first of many appearances on BBC Radio’s Jazz Club, and also met his idol, Coltrane. In the following years Skidmore worked with numerous important and/or successful bands, including Eric Delaney, where he replaced his father when Jimmy decided to leave (in 1963), Alexis Korner (1964), John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers (1964), Ronnie Scott (1965), Georgie Fame And The Blue Flames (1970), Mike Westbrook (1970-71), Mike Gibbs (1970-71), and Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood Of Breath (1971). In 1969, he formed his own quintet (Kenny Wheeler, Tony Oxley, John Taylor and Harry Miller), with which he won the best soloist and best band awards at the Montreux International Jazz Festival and gained a scholarship to Berklee College Of Music, although he did not take this up.

In 1973, he co-founded S.O.S., probably the first all-saxophone band, with Mike Osborne and John Surman. He has subsequently formed various small groups of his own, including El Skid (co-led with Elton Dean), SOH, and Tenor Tonic, and has worked with the George Gruntz Concert Band, the Elvin Jones Jazz Machine, the Charlie Watts Orchestra, Stan Tracey, Mose Allison, Van Morrison, Georgie Fame again, and with the West German Radio Band as featured soloist from 1981-84. In April 1991, he was reunited with Surman when they played as a duo at a benefit for Osborne. In 2002 he was once again blowing some magnificent saxophone for Georgie Fame And The Blue Flames. Unquestionably one of the best jazz saxophonists Britain has ever produced. AMG.

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Brian Blade Fellowship - Perceptual 2000

With this second date from the Fellowship, Brian Blade proves that while he is one of the most in-demand session drummers of the '90s, his skills as a bandleader and composer are not to be overlooked. Blade composes songs as if he were painting a broad mural. He sculpts landscapes of sound, orchestral in their feel and truly breathtaking in their grandeur. His own playing, sinuous and breathy, ties the septet together in ways that recall the best progressive jazz of the 1960s, as well as the fusion of the 1970s. Inspired by childhood memories of fishing the Louisiana bayous of his youth on "Evinrude-Fifty (Trembling)"; or ethnic strife around the world, as on the three-part epic "Variations of a Bloodline"; or by the violent world that children must face every day "Steadfast," Blade broadens the scope and ambition of his music even further, almost matching its melodic breadth. New guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel adds dynamic colors to the group's sound, and the solos from pedal steel player Dave Easley are again transcendent. For Perceptual, Blade even handled production duties himself, and in all honesty, turned in a finished product more complete and engaging the group's Daniel Lanois-produced debut. Lanois plays spooky fuzz guitar on one track, and former Blade employer Joni Mitchell adds a willowy vocal on another. AMG.

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Amina Claudine Myers - Country Girl 1986

A very original pianist who displays her gospel roots when she plays organ or sings, Amina Claudine Myers started studying music when she was seven. She sang with gospel groups in school. After moving to Chicago, Myers taught in the public schools, played with Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, and joined the AACM. She moved to New York in 1976 (where she would record with Lester Bowieand Muhal Richard Abrams), formed her own group, spent a few years in the early '80s in Europe, and toured with Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra in 1985. Amina Claudine Myers has recorded a diverse variety of music as a leader for Sweet Earth, Leo, Black Saint, Minor Music, and Novus. AMG.

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Betty LaVette - Child of the Seventies 2006

Exemplifying that it is truly "better late than never," it has taken over 30 years to finally get soul divaBettye LaVette's oft-rumored Child of the Seventies out to eager ears. Granted, much of the material was released as Souvenirs on the French indie Art & Soul label in 2000. However, this CD sounds markedly better and the project is served up in its entirety alongside four 45s that the artist recorded during two distinctly different periods of her career. She was credited as "Betty LaVett" in 1962 when "My Man -- He's a Lovin' Man" b/w "Shut Your Mouth," and (the following year) "You'll Never Change" b/w "Here I Am" were licensed and distributed internationally by Atlantic Records, with the former title making it all the way to a very respectable number seven on the R&B charts. LaVette joined forces with producer Brad Shapiro, and in late 1972 found herself signed to the Atlantic Records spinoff Atco, recording what should have been her great breakthrough album at the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. Yet, when all was said and done, only her cover of Neil Young's " Heart of Gold" b/w "You'll Wake Up Wiser," which was followed several months later by "Your Turn to Cry" b/w "Soul Tambourine," would make it onto store shelves. Originally planned for inclusion on Child of the Seventies, for years the latter two songs remained the album's only remnants; finally, they are presented in their original context as well as in separate mono mixes. Had wiser heads prevailed, Child of the Seventies may have meant Bettye LaVette's name would be as universally acclaimed by R&B lovers as that of, say,Aretha Franklin. AMG.

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Archie Bell - I Never Had It So Good 1981

Archie Bell & the Drells scored a left-field number one hit in 1968 with "Tighten Up," which epitomized the virtues of their music: funky, exuberant, danceable soul out for a rousing good time. Born in Henderson, TX, Bell grew up in Houston and began singing in church. In junior high, he joined a vocal group called Little Pop & the Fireballs, and formed the Drells in high school with friends James Wise, Huey "Billy" Butler, and Joe Cross (later replaced by Willie Pernell). The Drells won several local talent shows, performing a repertoire dominated by Chicago soul, and were discovered by local DJ Skipper Lee Frazier, who became their manager and producer. Bell & the Drells cut a single for Frazier's Ovid label, "She's My Woman," which became a regional hit in 1966.

Unfortunately, Bell was drafted in 1967. Before he was shipped overseas, he managed to record a few more tracks with the Drells, including the single "Dog Eat Dog." The B-side was a dance tune called "Tighten Up," the title of which came from Butler; backing the Drells was an instrumental R&B combo from Texas Southern University called the T.S.U. Toronados. Frazier was talked into playing "Tighten Up" on his radio show, and it became a smash hit in Houston, drawing the attention of Atlantic. With major-label distribution, "Tighten Up" took the country by storm in early 1968, hitting number one on both the pop and R&B charts. Bell learned of the song's success while recovering from wounds suffered in Vietnam, and with Atlantic requesting a full album, he began traveling to and from the States on leave. Meanwhile, several promoters took advantage of Bell's absence to send fake Archie Bell & the Drells lineups out on the road. The real Bell was granted leave to tour with the Drells that summer, and after a show in New Jersey, the group was approached by a fledgling Philadelphia-based songwriting/production team, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. Bell & the Drells started recording heavily with the duo, a partnership that produced several more danceable R&B hits in "I Can't Stop Dancing," "Do the Choo-Choo," and "(There's Gonna Be A) Showdown" (the former two in 1968, the latter in 1969). Also in 1969, Butler left the group and was replaced by Lee Bell, Archie's brother, who became the Drells' choreographer.

In spite of the fact that Bell received his discharge from the Armed Forces and was finally free to pursue his career, "(There's Gonna Be A) Showdown" proved to be the last Top 40 pop hit he ever had. Bell & the Drells left Atlantic in 1970 and signed with the smaller Glades label, where they had a minor hit with "Dancing to Your Music." Overall, though, the Glades stint was disappointing, and in 1973 the group reunited with Gamble and Huff on their flourishing TSOP/Philadelphia International imprint. Working with producers like Bunny Sigler and McFadden & Whitehead,Bell & the Drells landed on the R&B charts with some regularity over the next few years, their still-danceable sound now a hybrid of lush Philly soul and disco. They had several substantial R&B hits from 1975-1976 with "I Could Dance All Night," "Soul City Walk," and "Let's Groove," all of which helped Dance Your Troubles Away become a Top Ten album on the R&B charts. Three follow-up albums through 1979 didn't prove quite as successful, however, andthe Drells gave their last performance just before Christmas 1979. Bell subsequently cut a solo album,I Never Had It So Good, for Becket in 1981, and had a minor hit with "Anytime Is Right," but disappeared from the scene afterward. With a new set of Drells, Bell later became a staple of the East Coast's oldies-centered beach-music circuit. AMG.

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Cafe Tacuba - Re 1994

For Re, Café Tacuba experimented with different styles and sounds, resulting in one of the most wildly varied releases of the '90s. "El Ciclón" is a clavinet-driven funk track that echoes Billy Preston, while "Esa Noche" is a tender ranchero ballad. The raucous "El Borrego," which simultaneously mocks and salutes other Mexican rock acts (Maldita Vecindad gets a name-check), could give Ministry a run for their money in the electro-metal department. If there is a flaw, it's that the band's reach sometimes exceeds its grasp. The album occasionally seems too ambitious, and the songwriting could stand to be a bit more focused; the band's power is sometimes diluted by the diffuse energy. Still, Re proves thatCafé Tacuba is lyrically and musically more adventurous than most of its '90s peers. AMG.

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