It is a short book but has a range and depth that is uncommon. The skill of the author is disarming and the orchestration of this personal essay is flawless. Some books we welcome, but this is a book to…
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Imagination and International Perspective: Devendra Banhart’s Cripple Crow
In “Now That I Know,” Devendra Banhart sings, “You got to pay back every penny you owe,” and Banhart sings in a low, hushed but clear voice, and a guitar’s notes create a solemn mood as the song explores debt, secrecy, time passing, travel, elusive connections, and there are assertions of honesty and talk of glory.
A review of Get Used To It by The Brand New Heavies
“Let’s Do It Again,” a song with a dance beat, seems to celebrate the Brand New Heavies. The subjects of the album’s focus are music and love. The music on the album is actually quite vivid without being very original—and…
Speaking to His Generation: John Mayer’s Continuum
Mayer removes the awkwardness from sharp assertions, and fills what might seem blather with conviction: something that is more necessary in certain songs than others. In “Stop This Train,” Mayer begins “No I’m not colorblind, I know the world is black and white” and “Stop this train, I want to get off, and go home again” and “I’m only good at being young.”
Beauty, Joy, Tradition: Wynton Marsalis’s Live at the House of Tribes
The mastery of Wynton Marsalis seems unquestionable to me, someone to whom he first came to attention years ago as a young prodigy: like many I was impressed by his playing of both European classical music and African-American improvisational music. He has since become a principal figure in American culture.
Optimistic Blues: Keb Mo’s Suitcase
In the work of musicians such as Keb Mo and Cassandra Wilson I hear a blues music that has true relation to the tradition as I understand it and that also reflects some of the opportunities and perceptions of contemporary life. However, it is possible to respect the form of the music and lose the depth of the content—and that loss I also hear in some of the music being produced today.
Sinead O’Connor’s Throw Down Your Arms
Throw Down Your Arms is a respectful and sincere tribute, and a lovely piece of music, but except for the respect—cross-cultural, intergenerational, beyond gender—it represents, it is not radical or transformative. Such a comment may be suggesting an impossible standard. It might be simpler if I just said that I like the album very much: without having any inclination to affirm the recording’s view of god-centered spirituality or nationalistic politics, I enjoy the album’s singing and music very much.
Drama and Energy: Rob Thomas’s Something to Be
We’re all looking for something, something to be,” sings Rob Thomas in the collection’s title song. Thomas, a member of the popular band Matchbox Twenty, has worked with various musicians, and this is his first solo album, and it is…
Nature and Love: K.D. Lang’s Hymns of the 49th Parallel
The song that follows, co-written by K.D. Lang with David Piltch, is a ballad affirming the simplicity of love, and what it is like to hold it. Most of the songs on Hymns of the 49th Parallel are about nature and love,…
Respecting & Adding to Tradition: the San Francisco Jazz Collective
Who can bring together the fragments of our perceptions—and of our experiences—but an artist? And to do it without words, but in a language of sound, is difficult. By Daniel Garrett SF Jazz Collective (self titled recording) Producer: Jeff Cressman…