Smith was so far outside the domestic blues loop that this Chicago-cut set only found release on a British logo, JSP. It was our loss – Smith is typically brusque and ominous, threatening to "Play the Blues on the Moon" and "Addressing the Nation with the Blues" as only he can. Nothing derivative about his lyrical muse – he's intense to the point of allowing his words not to rhyme to make his points, while his lead guitar work is inevitably to the point. Strictly judging from the lyrical sentiment of his recordings, it might be wise not to make Chicago guitarist Byther Smith angry. Smitty's uncompromising songs are filled with threats of violence and ominous menace (the way blues used to be before the age of political correctness), sometimes to the point where his words don't even rhyme.
Rendezvous With the Blues marks another step in the normalization of Melvin Taylor. With Lucky Peterson on keyboards, Taylor is much more the featured lead guitarist in a straight-band context that too often finds him fighting for room to move in the full arrangements. He takes a jazzy lead on the opening "Coming Home Baby," but that runs counter to the measured, mid-tempo groove that dominates the first three tracks and seems like a move to court the contemporary rock-blues audience. So does some of the material – no originals, with ZZ Top, Stephen Stills, and Carlos Santana's tribute to John Lee Hooker in the songwriter credits on one side and Charles Singleton and Prince for contemporary black funk/rock relevance on the other. Horns kick in to punctuate the slinky, clavinet-anchored funk on "I'm the Man Down There," but Taylor's solo gets cluttered up by a duel with Peterson (on guitar here). Taylor is better-served when he escapes the rock beat straitjacket on "Tribute to John Lee Hooker" – the Latin-tinged rhythms give his guitar more freedom to float and sting.
Peter Green was a great talent but put out very erratic records, and never recaptured the brilliance of his best work with the early Fleetwood Mac. This compilation, though drawing from both solo and Fleetwood Mac recordings, is far from the best way to sample or even gain some appreciation for his music…
Early Fleetwood Mac from 1970, plus 4 tracks from 1969 by the pre-Mac Christine Perfect Band. Mixture of studio and live tracks concentrating on the post-Peter Green Fleetwood Mac with Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan…
Chopin melodies used as a basis for jazz improvisation? In the wrong hands, the results could be truly catastrophic. Yet it’s a notion with great appeal for celebrated Dutch piano marvel Peter Beets. It's a happy coincidence that the fifth Criss Cross CD under Beets' leadership arrives during the bicentennial year of Chopin's birth. But it’s clearly not a project haphazardly thrown together at the last moment. Instead, Peter recruited three of New York’s premier jazzmen - guitarist Joe Cohn, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Greg Hutchinson - as co-conspirators. Together, this quartet wrings extraordinary measures of beauty, excitement and yes, fun from eight of Chopin’s most memorable pieces. Their collaboration is, in a word, breathtaking.
Born in 1965 in Chicago Bernard Allison was introduced into the roots of black music and playing electric guitar by his father, the living blues legend Luther Allison. At the age of 20 he played with the "Queen of Blues" Koko Taylor for two years and took part in countless sessions with musicians like Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jeff Healy.
He joined the tourband of Luther Allison in 1989 after a furious collaboration of "Father & Son" at the '89 Chicago Blues Festival. A recording of this formation is to be heard on the Luther Allison album "Let's Try It again". Bernard released his first solo album in 1990 with the significant title "The Next Generation"…
History has proven that Willie Nelson will duet with pretty much anybody who comes along, and while this open-hearted open mind sometimes backfires, more often than not it results in some of his most sublime recordings. Two Men with the Blues, his album with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis recorded over a two-night stand at Jazz at Lincoln Center on January 12 and 13, 2007, belongs in the latter category, standing as truly one of the most special records in either Nelson's or Marsalis' catalog. If the pair initially seem like an odd match, it's only because Wynton long carried the reputation of a purist, somebody who was adamant against expanding the definition of jazz, which cast him as the opposite of Willie, who never found a border he couldn't blur.