V.a. Blue Note Trip: Saturday Night

The very successful 'Maestro' compilation features 29 tracks from the likes of Donald Byrd, St. Germain, Horace Silver, Lonnie Smith, Dianne Reeves, Ronny Jordan, Nancy Wilson, Eddie Palmieri, a Taste of Honey and more. The first disc contains 14 funky, intoxicating beats to prepare you for a long night out. The second disc is filled with 15 soothing yet sexy tunes for a joyful morning after.

Bad as Me is Tom Waits' first collection of new material in seven years. He and Kathleen Brennan - wife, co-songwriter, and production partner - have, at the latter's insistence, come up with a tight-knit collection of short tunes, the longest is just over four minutes. This is a quick, insistent, and woolly aural road trip full of compelling stops and starts. While he's kept his sonic experimentation - especially with percussion tracks - Waits has returned to blues, rockabilly, rhythm & blues, and jazz as source material. Instead of sprawl and squall, we get chug and choogle. For "Chicago" - via Clint Maedgen's saxes, Keith Richards' (who appears sporadically here) and Marc Ribot's guitars, son Casey Waits' drums, dad's banjo, percussion and piano, and Charlie Musselwhite's harmonica (he appears numerous times here, too) - we get a 21st century take on vintage R&B…