Candles (Reissue)
Heatwave – Candles 1979 was the year that should have ended the group Heatwave — that would have ended most any other group. Following their 1978 smash album Central Heating, a second platinum album that moved Heatwave to the top of the R&B pyramid, and just before the release of 1979’s Hot Property, Heatwave endured two tragedies: the […]
Warm Human Cold World (2011)
Based in Atlanta, born in The Island of Dominica and influenced by multiple genres and performers (Barbra Streisand to Michael Jackson for starters), Heston Francis is one of those stone-to-the-bone entertainers who is so skilled, smooth and versatile that it’s hard to believe that he’s not a household name yet. Since the release of his […]
Cry Love (2011)
I first saw Maya Azucena perform in 2007 at the SoulTracks Readers’ Choice Awards, where she was nominated for an award and slated to perform during the ceremony. One of my strongest memories from that event took place while Azucena was singing “Junkyard Jewel.” The audio went out. That audio malfunction would have been enough […]
What Were You Hoping For? (Advance Review)
Van Hunt’s career is the middle finger to all of the critics who say that the lyric in R&B comes in a distant second to the music. Hunt released two albums prior to his latest, What Were You Hoping For? Both of those records – 2004’s self-titled debut and 2006’s On The Jungle Floor — […]
Goin’ Places
Fans of contemporary jazz and instrumental funk know Curtis Harmon from his work with the band Pieces of a Dream. The self-explanatory album Goin’ Places finds Harmon stepping away from Pieces of a Dream as a part of a duo called New Foundation that is collaboration with Bennie Sims. Longtime Pieces fans will hear much […]
Soul Survivor
The artist known as Rodney the Soul Singer gives listeners a lot of different voices on his new CD, The Soul Survivor. In the background, listeners hear file audio recordings of David Ruffin, Shepherd Smith and Howard Cosell, just to name a few. Rodney quotes scripture, and he assumes the vocal personas of Sam Cooke, […]
Beats, Rhymes, & Life (Movie Review)
Due to the materialistic, misogynistic and myopic tendencies of today’s rap, it’s hard to believe that there was ever room for A Tribe Called Quest. A four-man collective that combined a tag-team rhyming approach with obscure jazz riffs and rhythms, as well as eloquent verses about life from a laid-back, pro-black point of view, Phife […]
A Foreign Affair (Advance Review)
The first songs I heard from the jazz band Spyro Gyra contained an international flavor. Those two cuts, 1978’s “The Shaker Song” and “Morning Dance,” which dropped the next year, incorporated the sound of the Caribbean. “The Shaker Song” sported an Afro-Cuban sound, and “Morning Dance,” with its steel drums, had a Calypso feel. So […]
As Muddy Wallace Jr. – Justified
The blues, for many people in Steve Wallace’s generation, could not be any less relevant. And no matter how much us old folk try to tell the kids that the DNA of the blues courses through the blood of the R&B and hip-hop that they love so much, it’s hard to convince them to give […]
Promises
With his integration of classical music dynamics and mass choir intricacies, Richard Smallwood is one of gospel music’s groundbreakers. Since he first led and recorded the Richard Smallwood Singers in the early eighties, the composer/pianist has remained faithful to his signature praise and worship style. Hymns like “Total Praise” and “Center of My Joy” are […]
