Flipped
Remixing songs – or making alternate versions – can be a risky business. Usually, a remix is simply a way to gin up sales, just like those throwback uniforms and alternate colored jerseys do for football teams. I’m not saying I have a problem with free enterprise; I’m just saying sometimes it’s obvious when these […]
Black Tie / Love Talk (Reissue)
Back in 1979, disco ruled, and those urban artists who didn’t jump on the train got run over. As hotter dance sounds commandeered popular radio, sweet soul groups like the Stylistics suddenly found themselves without an audience for their albums. But not the Manhattans. Once they hit in 1976-7 with slow jam smashes like "Kiss and Say Goodbye" […]
It’s Not So Easy: The Dave Rideau Remixes
In the computer world, they call it being on the "bleeding edge." That’s the term often used for those who are just a little ahead of their time, suffering the pains that often come to pioneers who pave the way for later success that is reaped by others. Think about all those companies that had mp3 […]
Another Apple (2010)
What do you get when you combine traditional, Americanized blues and soul edged with modern flavor and interpreted through some of Sweden’s most accomplished vocalists and musicians? If you don’t know, now you know, because that’s what you get an earful of when you encounter Another Apple. A bold and brassy collection of songs and […]
Ear Hustler
Geno Young is one of the most skilled and prolific producers in independent soul music today. Best known for rhapsodic productions that read like miniature ghetto symphonies, the Dallas-born and Howard University trained multi-instrumentalist dazzled listeners as a writer and producer on Badu’s Mama’s Gun, N’Dambi’s Tunin’ Up and Cosignin’, and Carmen Rodgers’ Free. On […]
Chamber Music Society
I first heard of Esperanza Spalding when I was reviewing Fourplay’s 2008 Energy album. Spalding provided the vocal for a song called "Prelude For Lovers." I liked the song and loved her voice, so I Googled her, went to her Web page and saw a picture of this striking woman with a big afro standing […]
XII
It must be liberating to be classified as a smooth or contemporary jazz artist these days. One the one hand, you have some artists making straight up early to mid 1970s style jazz/funk/rock fusion records. On the other hand, artists like Brian Culbertson move with audacity toward funk and R&B and even Go-Go music. That’s […]
Countryfied
Myron Walden is a jazz saxophonist, but listeners will hear other musical influences on Countryfied, his latest CD. The blues, rock and soul can be heard both in Walden’s saxophone playing and in the playing of his sidemen. Walden’s uncle introduced him to jazz by playing Charlie Parker records when Walden was a boy. Later, […]
Come and Get It
The first thing you think of when you see white, cherub-faced singer/multinstrumentalist Eli "Paperboy" Reed on an R&B concert bill is "you’ve got to be kidding." And then you hear him perform. Born and raised in Boston, Reed gorged himself on his father’s 60s R&B records and began learning to play and sing at a […]
Sunstorm
Foreign Exchange Music is at it again with the release of producer and multi-instrumentalist Zo!’s Sunstorm. After contributing to a number of Foreign Exchange projects such as Yahzarah’s The Ballad Of Purple St. James and Little Brother’s curtain call album Leftback, Zo! has delivered a palette of uplifting and passionate soul offerings that are sure […]
