By Brian Arsenault The last time I reviewed an album by this guy in early 2014, I complimented his reclaiming stellar jazz singing for the guys in the face of so many fine current female jazz singers. This time, with Endless Roads, Eric Van Aro has reestablished the stripped down rock/pop sound amidst an avalanche… Read More CD Review: Eric Van Aro’s “Endless Roads”
By Devon Wendell Many jazz aficionados like myself have been waiting for a live box set like this one for most of our lives and it’s finally here. Miles Davis At Newport 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4 consists of 4 CDs featuring 20 years of Miles Davis performances (8 shows in total) showcasing Miles… Read More CD Review- Miles Davis At Newport 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4 (Columbia/Legacy)
By Brian Arsenault I started getting happy listening to Van Morrison’s Duets:Re-Working the Catalog” (RCA) about the time George Benson was singing as smooth as he always is on “Higher Than The World” and I was downright grinning through Van and Georgie Fame’s “Get On With The Show.” Pure 50s jukebox. Drifters, Coasters, gratuitous but… Read More CD Review: Van Morrison’s “Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue”
By Devon Wendell What could be better than guitarist Dave Stryker and his famed organ trio (Jared Gold: Hammond B3 organ, and McClenty Hunter: drums with Mayra Casales guesting on Percussion) paying tribute to Stryker’s ex-employee and mentor, the legendary tenor sax giant Stanley Turrentine? On Messin’ With Mister T (Strikezone), Stryker has assembled an… Read More CD Review: Dave Stryker’s “Messin’ With Mister T”
By Brian Arsenault So Kath and I had to go all the way to St. Martin and back in time to find a New York band of distinction, GLADSHOT. We were walking into the hotel and Debbie Andrews and Mike Blaxill, the band’s two principals, were walking out of their room. In that friendlier way… Read More Brian Arsenault Takes On GLADSHOT’s CD, “Maxwell’s Cool Demon”
by Brian Arsenault (Done as a letter to my college roommate.) Dear Flashman, You remember in 1967 when we were living in that basement room and the two lunatics in the room above us had those three foot high speakers so hip at the time and they played only two songs? The one they played… Read More CD Review: Vanilla Fudge “Spirit of ’67”
By Brian Arsenault The memories are so intact. The Grease Band singing crappy falsetto behind him at Woodstock. The kickass chorus on the best damn live album ever, Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Belushi coming out to do Joe Cocker with Joe Cocker on SNL. I know it’s that time of life when that generation, my… Read More An Appreciation: Remembering Joe Cocker
Not Fade Away The Music of Buddy Holly by Brian Arsenault That ass Gene Simmons saying the other day that rock was dead got me to thinking about living through its whole lifetime. Not that Simmons was right. Hell, he wouldn’t know, coming out of a band so devoid of musicality they had to dress… Read More Brian Arsenault Takes on Buddy Holly
Royal Southern Brotherhood heartsoulblood (Ruf Records) By Brian Arsenault What the so-called blues “purists” don’t understand is called out on critic John Sinclair’s liner notes to the superb heartsoulblood recently released by Royal Southern Brotherhood. To wit: “Here Cyril Neville points out (on the album’s second track) that ‘rock & roll is the child of… Read More CD Review of the Day: Royal Southern Brotherhood’s “heartsoulblood”
By Devon Wendell There have been countless films made about the blues and about B.B. King. A large percentage of these films merely focus on how King (Born Riley B. King on September 16th, 1925, between Itta Bena and Indianola Mississippi) inspired a plethora of overdriven, unoriginal rock guitarists from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Very… Read More Film Review: B.B. King “The Life Of Riley”
The International Review of Music 