Pan Alley

David Keenan is a twenty-six year old solo artist from the border-town of Dundalk in Ireland. His burgeoning reputation in his native country has been fuelled by a handful of self-released EPs and live shows which border on religious experiences. He counts Hozier, Gary Lightbody, Glenn Hansard and Dermot Kennedy among his growing number of fans. A Beginner's Guide To Bravery is his debut album. Recorded live in the studio, it is an audacious, unfettered introduction to his singular sound world.

One Planet Jazz is a collection of singer songwriters in the tradition of Tin Pan Alley. This release features some of their original material. Thoughtful and fun, with an eye toward the planet, and love and life. Steve Marx grew up in Los Angeles, the grandson of songwriter Gus Kahn (''Makin' Whoopee,'' ''It Had to be You'') and Groucho Marx. His first professional song, a Kingston Trio parody, was performed on the New Steve Allen Show. Ellen Marx in a previous incarnation earned a national reputation for her banjo playing, now she has turned to jazz and songwriting, after having studied composition, piano and vocal jazz improvisation. Miles Feinstein grew up in Englewood, NJ, and was raised listening to the music of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fats Waller, and Earl Hines.

As you can see from the cover for this CD, it is being marketed on Paul Schoenfield’s name—not because he is the only composer on the disc (which you’d be led to believe) or even the most famous composer (all in all, I’d think that Jacques Ibert is probably the biggest name here, though Nino Rota and Cesar Cui are also well known), but because Last Silence is the sequel to his biggest hit as a chamber music composer, Café Music. Although this is true, it’s a bit of deception.Nonetheless, the music is all good and, more importantly, played well by our three intrepid soloists. Since all of them are named individually on the cover and inlay, they apparently don’t have a name as a working group, but as the tight ensemble in the opening of the Rota Trio will show you, they are certainly as good as any name trio out there. The music of this trio is generally of a light nature, much of it using fast, repeated 16th-note figures in the piano part around which the flute and violin revolve like spinning tops.

Stevie Ray Vaughan's second album, Couldn't Stand the Weather, pretty much did everything a second album should do: it confirmed that the acclaimed debut was no fluke, while matching, if not bettering, the sales of its predecessor, thereby cementing Vaughan's status as a giant of modern blues. (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG)

Recorded at Red Roacks on June 17, 1985 this soundboard has, in my opinion, the best Little Wing I have ever heard. Stevie was still in his using days here and the pain that flows out of him through his fingers is simply staggering. It also makes for one of the most incendiary performances of his career. Essential Listening

This live 1995 recording from New York's Village Vanguard club features drummer Paul Motian, guitarist Bill Frisell, and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano turning in a stellar set of jazz covers and Motian originals (this is the same trio the drummer led in the late '80s and recorded high-profile tributes to Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, and Tin Pan Alley with).