Music

Rock Album Review: “Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson” — A Summery Pleasure

August 11, 2022
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I applaud She & Him’s selection of Brian Wilson tunes while at the same time feeling that some are not well-suited to their loungey, languid pop stylings.

Rock Preview: Gov’t Mule — Very Much on the Move

August 7, 2022
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“One of the positives to come out of this whole [pandemic lockdown] experience is that everyone found out what is important in their lives. Those of us who love music realized just how special it is.”

World Music Album Review: Bassist Alune Wade’s Brilliant “Sultan” — A Global Patchwork Quilt

August 5, 2022
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Sultan has a solid lock on my year-end best of 2022 list. Let’s make the world a little smaller and make this album a hit.

Book Review: “Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld” — A Tale of Mobsters and Musicians

August 3, 2022
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Guitarist Eddie Condon quotes a mobster on jazz: “…it’s got guts and it don’t make you slobber.”

Classical Album Review: Short Can Be Good — Three Splendidly Varied One-Act Operas by Lennox Berkeley

August 3, 2022
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I was pleased to encounter all three compact operas. Lennox Berkeley seems to me more and more an admirable, indeed lovable composer, and a bit of a chameleon. I like him in all his various colors.

Festival Review: 2022 Newport Jazz Festival — A Relaxed Musical Vibe, Communal and Diverse

August 3, 2022
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To some degree, everything fit under the resilient umbrella that the late George Wein raised at the edge of Newport Harbor.

Book Review: “The Stone Age: Sixty Years of the Rolling Stones” — A Tabloid Take

August 2, 2022
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The Stone Age is only about the gossip, to the point where even when something (potentially) true comes along, it still reads like trash.

Listening During Covid, Part 13 — Music of Brazil and Other Latin American Countries, Religious Consolation from Post-WW I England, and an Operatic Novel

July 29, 2022
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New recordings serve up fine performances of music from Latin America, Brazil, and post-1918 England. And a novel sends its main character back two centuries into Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

Classical Album Review: What Is American — PUBLIQuartet

July 28, 2022
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American-ness in music is impossible to define and constantly in flux, yet the threads that connect it all together – at once beautiful, tragic, humorous, ironic, whimsical – are all somehow recognizable.

Classical Album Review: Weill & Shostakovich Symphonies

July 28, 2022
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Taken together, this is a release that showcases both the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and its chief conductor – as well as their repertoire choices – in a brilliant light.

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