Funerary Music of Carriacou Presented here are the magnificent Big Drum songs from Carriacou, Grenada, a font of African and European musical traditions. This is music for the ancestors, or “Old Parents,” performed at Tombstone Feasts held years after death and burial, when the body is finally entombed and the spirit of the departed may at last rest in peace. Caribbean Voyage Released for the first time, Alan Lomax’s legendary 1962 recordings of the rich and many-stranded musical traditions of the Lesser Antilles and eastern Caribbean: work songs, pass-play and story songs, calypso, East Indian chaupai, and steel band music, reflecting the Central and West African, French, English, Celtic, Spanish and East Indian contributions to Caribbean culture. The Alan Lomax Collection The Alan Lomax Collection gathers together the American, European and Caribbean field recordings, world music compilations, and ballad operas of writer, folklorist, and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax.
The famously abrasive and eccentric John Fahey – a brilliant guitarist and composer who once recorded under the name Blind Joe Death – is not the first person one would expect to make a sweet and apparently unironic album of Christmas instrumentals. Being the bloody-minded coot that he was, he made several, all of them wonderful. Popular Songs of Christmas & New Year's is the second of them, this one recorded with the help of fellow guitarist Terry Robb.
Conceptualized around the visionary paintings of Harlem-born artist Romare Bearden (1911-1988), saxophonist Branford Marsalis' Romare Bearden Revealed celebrates the obvious as well as the less tangible connections between the jazz Bearden loved and the artwork it inspired. Reflectively performing some of the songs Bearden co-opted as titles for paintings, Marsalis also includes original compositions inspired by the bluesy, organic quality inherent in Bearden's art. Featuring his working quartet of pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts, the album also includes appearances by the whole Marsalis family. Brother Wynton Marsalis revisits his post-bop "J Mood" from his 1985 album of the same name, which featured cover art by Bearden.
"Madeleine Peyroux's fourth album isn't the normal mix of standards (contemporary or traditional) with a few songs of her own composing; each of the 11 tracks is a new song written by Peyroux, usually in tandem with producer Larry Klein or a guest. (…) Bare Bones is a remarkable work from one of the best artists in vocal jazz."
John Fahey is a visionary, an iconoclast, and a plain old American weirdo. He's also a brilliant acoustic guitarist, whose earnestness is matched only by his oblique sense of humor. These performances–ranging from the cheery "Joy to the World" and "We Three Kings" to the thoughtful "Bells of St. Mary's" and "In the Bleak Midwinter"–are pretty straightforward though. Some tend toward the academic, but all are quite beautiful in their own reserved way, making this the perfect unintrusive album for a quiet Christmas gathering or an evening by the hearth. The notoriously squirrely Fahey might be the last guy you'd invite over for eggnog, but you'd be foolish not to let his exquisite music into your home.
Reissue of this live archive release from the Folk music legend. In 2001, The Woody Guthrie Archives received two spools of wire recordings from a live Woody Guthrie performance held in Newark, New Jersey in 1949. With the help of many talented recording engineers, the Woody Guthrie Foundation transferred this rare live performance from a delicate wire recording to digital audio, and, with state-of-the-art technology, restored it to near-perfection.
Bosco has been a legend ever since acoustic guitarists discovered the instrumental version of his 1952 "Masanga." Though he recorded 150 sides in the following decade, almost nothing is available except these 1988 studio sides, which trade the mellowness of middle-age for youthful zip without losing any of their charm. And, yes, there's an instrumental "Masanga."
The Charlie Sizemore Band gather their instrumental and vocal prowess behind Sizemore's country-styled vocals on Good News. The band plays contemporary bluegrass but, like many other current groups, continues to touch upon traditional themes. Two drinking songs, "Blame It on Vern" and "The Less I That I Drink," are by turns sad and humorous. "I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up" is a freewheeling celebration of the power of love and is followed, incongruously, by "I Won't Be Far from Here," a song about one of country music's favorite standbys, a no-good woman.