Matt Hanson
By Matt Hanson There’s an enticingly primeval quality to the way bluesmen Ryan Lee Crosby and Jimmy “Duck” Holmes play off of one another. Willie Dixon once said that “the blues are the roots, the other musics are the fruits.” We all know by now how plenty of world-famous bands have harvested those influences. So…
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Film noir’s penetrating, knowing diagnosis of, and response to, corruption and venality prepares us for the dank turpitude that lurks in places both highfalutin and hidden.
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Let’s look at a fresh crop of collections by poets who are either born and raised or have made their homes in NOLA, stopping to admire the architecture and the scope, the heft and the breadth of their lines.
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American darkness is now up front and personal. “Holland”‘s stale moves miss where we are now — disaster isn’t hidden, it is in clear view.
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One thing, among others, that sets Jason Isbell apart from his country scene contemporaries is that he isn’t afraid to break the all-American code of manly stoicism.
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The all-too-human propensity for not only telling yourself what you want to hear but taking what you see at face value is what drives the action.
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Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of an ordinary soldier’s life in the trenches of WWI remains shocking and shattering today.
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With the release of “Wild God,” his stirring 18th studio album, it seems as if the charismatic poète maudit has achieved, and more impressively maintained, his own version of peace.
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If the show had its format tweaked a little bit, it might hit a sweet spot: somewhere between “The Daily Show”’s investigative reports and Conan O’Brien’s zanier segments.
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Gary Clark Jr.’s “JPEG RAW” could be seen as an orchard whose far-reaching sonic branches — nurtured by the rich, fertile, and ancient soil of the blues — stretch into jazz, hip hop, and funk.
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Arts Commentary: Rich in Creativity — But Nothing Else