Only the second major career-spanning retrospective of the Dead, The Best of the Grateful Dead – released in the spring of 2015, just before a series of farewell shows in the summer – takes advantage of the extra disc 2003's The Very Best of Grateful Dead lacked. Weighing in at 32 tracks – a full 16 cuts longer than Very Best – The Best of the Grateful Dead also follows a strict chronological sequence, so it takes a little while for the psychedelic haze to lift and the Dead to settle into the rangy, rootsy groove that characterized so much of their existence – right around "St. Stephen" and "China Cat Sunflower," both from 1969's Aoxomoxoa. From there, many – but by no means all – of the group's warhorses are marched out, all in their studio incarnations.
Jazz might be a niche genre but that hasn't stopped a new breed of local musicians from dabbling in it. From a sultry jazz diva who used to be a bookworm to an energetic funk quintet that will play its biggest-ever show in London and a musical prodigy who went from best-kept secret to regional star, a new generation of jazz-influenced musicians is adding diversity to the scene. WINNING the Sing Jazz Emerging Jazz Vocalist of the Year award this year isn't what Melissa Tham would call her biggest accomplishment. Her greatest achievement was taking the plunge and applying herself completely to becoming a professional musician upon finishing secondary school…
An odd catalog repackaging timed to coincide with the spring 2015 release of Tokyo Dome in Concert, Van Halen's first-ever live album with David Lee Roth, Deluxe contains that two-disc set and adds the new 2015 remasters of Van Halen and 1984, all housed in a simple little box. It's an affordable way to get good-sounding remasters of two of VH's best, along with a solid latter-day live album, but the lack of so many other great Van Halen records only makes you wonder why this couldn't feature all of the band's Warner albums with Diamond Dave.