After spending nearly nine months as a guest of the Texas penal system, veteran rocker David Crosby emerged from his incarceration sober and brimming with ideas that had previously been stunted due to decades of substance abuse. In many ways Oh Yes I Can (1989)—Crosby’s second solo effort during his two-decade-plus career—is a musical rebuttal to his equally vital debut effort, If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971). Even the album’s title appears to indicate his newly achieved success and freedom from the haze that so indelibly influenced the earlier compositions.
As two of the most distinctive artists from the '60s and '70s given their work in CSNY, Crosby & Nash also did great work as a duo act. Wind on the Water was released in 1975 after the previous year's CSNY reunion tour and the dissolution of their contract at Atlantic. In many respects, this alliance made perfect sense.
Igbó Alákọrin (a phrase in Yoruba which can be loosely translated as The Singer’s Grove) is the realization of pianist David Virelles’s long-held dream to document the under-sung musicians of his birthplace, Santiago de Cuba. Virelles, who was named the #1 Rising Jazz Pianist in the 2017 Downbeat Critics Poll, is one of the most in-demand pianists on the contemporary jazz scene, recording with the likes of Henry Threadgill, Chris Potter, and Tomasz Stanko. He also has four prior releases under his own name, including Continuum, which topped the New York Times best album list for 2012.