The Ragged Edge of Silence

David Crosby, Jeff Pevar & James Raymond - Live At The Wiltern (1998) {2CD Set, Samson Records ‎GC 0148}
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© 1998 CPR / Samson Records | GC 0148
Rock / Classic Rock / Folk Rock / Soft Rock

CPR released as their second record an equally excellent two-CD live concert recorded in November 1998 at Los Angeles' Wiltern Theatre. In his liner notes, Samson Records owner Norman Waitt, Jr. refers to the palpable joy that emanated from the stage that night, and most of that joy translates to this almost celebratory-like recording as well. David Crosby is in excellent voice here, perhaps the best he had sounded since his '60s and '70s heyday; still choirboy sweet, but not without the world-weariness that comes with the rocky life he had lived up to that point.

Jethro Tull was a unique phenomenon in popular music history. Their mix of hard rock; folk melodies; blues licks; surreal, impossibly dense lyrics; and overall profundity defied easy analysis, but that didn't dissuade fans from giving them 11 gold and five platinum albums…

Rice Miller (or Alec or Aleck Miller – everything about this blues great is somewhat of a mystery) probably didn't need to take the name of the original Sonny Boy Williamson (John Lee Williamson) to get noticed, since in many ways he was the better musician, but Miller seemed to revel in confusion, at least when it came to biographical facts, so for whatever reason, blues history has two Sonny Boy Williamsons. Like the first Williamson, Miller was a harmonica player, but he really sounded nothing like his adopted namesake, favoring a light, soaring, almost horn-like sound on the instrument…

Mostly Other People Do The Killing - Shamokin!!! (2007) {Hot Cup 063}
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© 2007 Moppa Music / Hot Cup Records | Hot Cup 063
Jazz / Post-Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz

Bassist Moppa Elliot is clearly fond of Ornette Coleman's music, and this second quartet date with his unctuously titled band Most Other People Do the Killing, or MOPDTK for short, expands on that influence. Free swing and funk with a piquant edge, a taste for harmelodics, ragged rhythm, and approximate note phrases identify their sound. Trumpeter Peter Evans and alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon, two notable rising star jazz improvisers, create the tension-and-release elements that spark this music, backed by Elliott's playful and bold basslines and the loose, craggy drumming of Kevin Shea.

New England blues guitarist Ronnie Earl has spent his recording career, which began in 1979 when he replaced Duke Robillard in Roomful of Blues, flirting with his own hybrid brand of blues/jazz/R&B, and his elegant solos on guitar always seem on the edge of breaking out into a whole new category, although they never quite do, and he remains an excellent guitar player who suggests possibilities more than he actually reaches them. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as this collection of tracks drawn from his solo work at the Black Top, Bullseye, Telarc, and Stony Plain labels clearly shows. Spanning 1983 to 2005, The Best of Ronnie Earl brims with joyful guitar leads that remind us that the blues is really more about freedom, deliverance, and breaking loose from problems of constraint than it is about moaning and groaning and waking up in the morning with trouble in mind…

Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar is considered post-romantic, but this designation is appropriate only insofar as it applies to the time period in which he lived. Otherwise, Wagenaar's music was just straight up romantic, sounding largely like Richard Wagner but with not as dense a scoring palette. In this respect, his music is more like Brahms or Berlioz. Sometimes Wagenaar is compared to Richard Strauss, but this projection can be a little confusing as the ingredients in Wagenaar's dish are often part Wagner and even part Dvorák; the most significant thing about his fare, though, is that it doesn't taste quite like anything else.

Any discussion of the Top 100 '90s Rock Albums will have to include some grunge, and this one is no different. A defining element of that decade, the genre (and the bands that rose to fame playing it) was given credit for revitalizing rock at a badly needed moment. That said, there's far more to the story. Our list of the Top 100 '90s Rock Albums, presented in chronological order, takes in the rich diversity of the period.