Hope Rides Again

First up, the return of the Herd for “The Herd Rides Again In Stereo” ten or so years after the First Herd roared across America between the years 1945-1948. Original members like Chuck Jackson are joined by the likes of Bob Brookmeyer who had played with the Herd for 7 weeks way back in 1952 and other fine musicians like Billy Bauar, Nat Pierce, Al Cohn and Don Lamond. A year later and another reunion of sorts as “The Fourth Herd” stampede into town! This time, however, we have a band playing within a band!? That is, an octet featuring Woody Herman, Zoot Sims, Nat Adderley, Eddie Costa and the big band rhythm section all basking in the “inspiring warmth” of the big orchestra”…

Dancer, actor, and singer Fred Astaire worked steadily in various entertainment media during nine decades of the 20th century. The most celebrated dancer in the history of film, with appearances in 31 movie musicals between 1933 and 1968 (and a special Academy Award in recognition of his accomplishments in them), Astaire also danced on-stage and on television (garnering two Emmy Awards in the process), and he even treated listening audiences to his accomplished tap dancing on records and on his own radio series. He appeared in another eight non-musical feature films and on numerous television programs, resulting in an Academy Award nomination and a third Emmy Award as an actor. His light tenor voice and smooth, conversational phrasing made him an ideal interpreter for the major songwriters of his era, and he introduced dozens of pop standards, many of them written expressly for him, by such composers as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Burton Lane, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, and Vincent Youmans.

A double CD collection of Blue Note recordings mainly hard bop tracks from between 1953 and 1958. There are many great periods in Jazz music, and the five years covered on this collection is no exception. New York was a Jazz mecca and this collection features the best of Blue Note's roster creating music that sounded, felt and smelled like New York. 20 tracks from the likes of Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, Johnny Griffin, The Jazz Messengers, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Burrell, Sonny Clark, Lee Morgan, Clifford Jordan and others.

The third album from Detroit post-punk outfit Protomartyr ups the ante considerably from the first two. Their grim but compelling songs highlight a place where violence hovers constantly at the periphery, where peace and hope gradually curdle and turn ugly, and the desperate people who once clung to them eventually fall prey to their worst impulses.

Kurt Cobain made plenty of mistakes in his life, but loving the Vaselines was not among them. Nirvana covered three of their songs, and as Kurt might tell you if he were alive today, from 1986 to 1989 the Vaselines were the best pop band around…

Before lockdown halted their tour in early 2020, singer Stuart Staples was already nurturing seeds for a different kind of Tindersticks album. If 2019’s No Treasure but Hope saw these mavens of intimate, expansive mood song rediscovering themselves as a unit, the follow-up reconfigures that unit so that everything familiar about Tindersticks sounds fresh again. Released through City Slang on February 19th, Distractions is an album of subtle realignments and connections from a restless, intuitive band: rich in texture and atmosphere, it lives between its open spaces and filigree details, always finding new ways to connect with a song.