Love Letter

Maryland-born saxophonist Kim Waters is a gifted performer known for his romantic, cross-over jazz style. Influenced by both bluesy jazz and soulful R&B, Waters debuted in 1989 with Sweet and Saxy. His next several albums, 1991's Sax Appeal, 1993's Peaceful Journey, and 1994's It's Time for Love, found him moving in a more smooth jazz direction. It was a creative transformation that culminated in 1998's Love's Melody and 1999's One Special Moment.

The sounds of New Orleans have always been in Maria Muldaur's blood and catalog. Dr. John appeared on her first solo album back in 1974 and she arguably hit a career high point on her first full-fledged love letter to the city, 1992's Louisiana Love Call. She returns to the Crescent City for this 2011 release, employing veteran New Orleans keyboardist Dave Torkanowsky as musical director and "facilitator" and returning to the swampy "Bluesiana music" sound that includes heavy doses of gospel and blues along with touches of jazz, soul, and funk. This is a major shift from her past two acoustic jug band releases and plays to her sultry strengths as a vocalist who can convincingly sing any style of music she feels passionate about. Muldaur revisits a few tracks she has previously recorded (an earlier version of "As an Eagle Stirreth in Her Nest" was included on 1976's Sweet Harmony) but with a band that features guitarist Shane Theriot and Subdudes bassist Johnny Allen, they and the rest of the handpicked material boil with fresh enthusiasm.

Sade’s longest absence yet did not prevent their return from being an event. It at least seemed eventful whenever “Soldier of Love,” released to radio a couple months prior to the album of the same title, was heard over the airwaves. Even with its brilliantly placed lyrical allusions to hip-hop past and present and its mature sound, the single stuck out on stations aimed at teens and twentysomethings, as well as points on the dial that court an older audience. It was the most musical and organic, while also the most dramatic yet least bombastic, song in rotation. Crisp snare rolls, cold guitar stabs, and at least a dozen other elements were deployed with tremendous economy, suspensefully ricocheting off one another as Sade Adu rewrote “Love Is a Battlefield” with scarred, assured defiance.

Bibio's Stephen Wilkinson is no stranger to revisiting and updating the past on his albums, whether it's the history of music in general or just his own. On Silver Wilkinson, he returned to the folktronic idylls of the Vignetting the Compost era with a newfound purpose; on A Mineral Love, he dissects the fusion of 21st century electronic music and '70s and '80s R&B, funk, and pop that made Ambivalence Avenue so compelling. The warmth of the bubbling keyboards and easy grooves on songs like the summery "Town & Country" suggest that Wilkinson spent hours crate-digging for the perfect samples. However, he actually created each and every sound in the studio, a traditional approach that reflects - and enhances - that this is one of Bibio's most song-oriented albums…

Anyone who's engaged disco with the same depth and seriousness that Hercules & Love Affair ringmaster Andrew Butler has, knows that by its nature and at its finest, this is a music of balances made in the spirit of losing one's balance. And among disco's glories is how these contrasting fundamentals play out: the celebratory and the elegiac, the social politics and personal emotions, pop songwriting and club functionality, the traditionally soulful and the technologically modern.

In their debut recording for harmonia mundi, the young viola prodigy Timothy Ridout and his musical accomplice Frank Dupree celebrate the power of love, with selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, performed in Borisovsky’s popular arrangement, and with their own transcription of Schumann’s Dichterliebe. The voice of the heart and the soul of candour, here the viola displays an astonishing range of emotions and expressive colours – from boisterous to tender or introspective in the Prokofiev excerpts, while also mirroring the myriad nuances of Heine’s poems in Schumann’s sublime musical love letter to his Clara.

It might be tempting to dismiss this Ralph Towner effort as New Age fluff, but the music is so gorgeous that any such considerations fall to the wayside. Yet the wayside is precisely where Towner sets his sights, which is to say that his interest lies in edges where musical idioms meet. He explores these lines, not unlike the blotted cover, with an ease of diction at the fret board that is recognizable and comforting. Drummer Peter Erskine shares the bill, but Towner adds a few synth touches for broader effect, as in “The Sigh,” which opens the session in a cleft of fluid energy.

In chemistry, when certain galvanizing elements come together, they become quite explosive. In music, when certain galvanizing artists come together, they become Flying Colors. In fact, whenever the five gentlemen who encompass Flying Colors — guitarist Steve Morse (Deep Purple, Dixie Dregs, ex-Kansas), drummer/vocalist Mike Portnoy (Winery Dogs, ex-Dream Theater, Transatlantic, Sons Of Apollo), keyboardist/vocalist Neal Morse (Transatlantic, ex-Spock’s Beard, and a prolific solo artist in his own right), bassist Dave LaRue (Dixie Dregs, ex-Joe Satriani), and powerhouse vocalist and songwriter Casey McPherson (Alpha Rev, The Sea Within) — are able to conjoin their collective talents, the result is a sweet sonic bouillabaisse that reflects where their inherent mastery of melody intersects with top-shelf progressive musicianship. With Third Degree, Flying Colors continue to fire on all cylinders — and, in the process, they also handily prove the third time’s an unquestionable sonic charm.