Late calling.
Spike Flynn is an Australian live veteran of well over fifty. Still, it is only now that he releases his self-released debut containing nine original songs.
He starts surprisingly with the almost nine minutes long title song, an evocative ballad full of restrained melancholy about comfort in a derelict town. The jazzy influence is strong because of Continue reading
Second life.
Dave Wilkinson releases his solo debut as David Philips. That is because the Englishman, now operating as a singer-songwriter, is also active in soul and funk bands Phat Fred and Fast3. Charles St. Charles plays the drums again here and in some songs an ethereal flute, Abel Boquera plays keyboards and Philips himself bass, acoustic and electric guitars and mouth organ occasionally.
The singer/guitar player, who recorded at home in Barcelona, confidently chooses for a semi-acoustic atmosphere in the open production, Continue reading
Strong stuff.
Singer-songwriter Tori Sparks made her debut in 2003 with a self-released EP that seemed to open a door for her. Platinum Plus Universal released her first full-length cd Rivers + Roads and paid for a video, but it meant no breakthrough, as that small label went bankrupt.
Since then Sparks tours continuously through the US and Europe and made her third CD. On it, she sings and plays guitar with Steve Bowman – drums, Viktor Krauss – bass, Will Kimbrough – guitars, Fats Kaplin – accordion, pedal steel, fiddle and David Henry (R.E.M., Josh Rouse and Cowboy Junkies a.o. – cello, keyboards, trumpet, euphonium and percussion behind her.
Sparks’ thirteen songs were inspired by stories that people told her on one of her American tours. She sings an alternative catalogue about love from within: Continue reading
Direct hits.
Ruby James’ first CD from 2008 contains twelve songs, ten of which written with Rene Reyes.
In rootsy rocking opener The Words Goodbye James proves to be an eager and convincing singer, just like in When I’m Gone, based on a dirty rhythm ‘n’ blues riff, and the melodically disappointing Suicidal Serenade.
In these songs, it is understandable that James cannot escape the relentless rhythm and her great strength only shows itself fully during nine varied ballads.
In those spaceous songs Continue reading
Their own lively tunes.
After launching their own label Little Feat, except for Fred Tackett’s solo CD, only released four double live CDs. The fourth, as far as repertoire and rendering all too easy-going, created doubt about their new studio CD, for the band had almost been touring for three years, rediscovering live jamming in the process.
Surprisingly enough the band harmoniously combines quirky grooves with inspired, naturally flowing medium tempo songs and ballads in eleven self-penned songs, lasting 71 minutes. The seven broaden the already not too narrow horizon in Continue reading
Monument for love.
Ruby James’ debut Desert Rose went by unnoticed in the Netherlands. That proves to be more than sad now, because that record contains almost only impressively beautiful songs.
Fortunately, Happy Now is at least just as good and even rootsier. Still, it almost had not been recorded. James, then living in LA, wanted to give up singing after that first one for lack of succes in music and love, but this successor was born from despair, necessity and chance. Continue reading
Voodoo master.
According to critics plagued by a strong homesickness for their own youth, Dr. John’s best work stems from the early seventies, but Mac Rebennack strings together one pearl after another unhesingtatingly in his third youth, like beads on a Mardi gras-chain from hometown New Orleans.
They are made of plastic, but the sixteen songs on Tribal’s European version are not: one Harold Batiste song, two new gems from Allen Toussaint and thirteen songs (co)written by Rebennack radiate mostly inspiration and pleasure in playing music in a crystal clear production by himself and Lower 911-drummer Herman Ernest III.
With bassist David Barard, guitarist John Fohl and new percussionist Kenneth “Afro” Williams they practise the art of Continue reading
Funkmaster.
Troy Andrews a.k.a. Trombone Shorty is a real New Orleanian. He grew up in Backatown Tremé and got a music traineeship with brother James, the jazz trumpeter, from his earliest days. A gandson to legendary singer Jesse Hill Troy, Andrews learned to play the drums, the trumpet and the trombone when he was very young.
Now only 24 years old, the trombone player made four jazz CDs between his sixteenth and nineteenth, but spent the years after that playing countless gigs with U2, Green Day, Allen Toussaint, Lenny Kravitz and with his own band, Orleans Avenue.
Andrews, playing the trombone, the trumpet, keyboards, the drums and percussion and sometimes also singing in an expressive and socially conscious way, is backed intensely swingingly by Joey Peebles (drums), Dwayne “Big D” Williams (percussion), Mike Ballard (bass), Pete Murano (guitar), Tim McFatter (tenor sax) and Dan Oestreicher (bariton sax).
In thirteen songs of his own plus Toussaint’s On Your Way Down (with the old master on piano) Andrews combines all sorts of influences in the best New Orleans tradition. Continue reading
Destination.
Anna Coogan’s development into a folky singer-songwriter was long and winding: the American broke off an opera study in Austrian city Salzburg, where she also sang show tunes during recitals to everyone’s bewilderment and sometimes missed classes because she went skiing. She studied biology after that and only started singing (again) after hearing Alison Krauss. Two CD’s with her band north19 scored nicely, but that band fell apart in 2007.
Coogan wrote the eleven songs for her first solo-outing mostly during sleepless nights, visited by doubt and despair. Even in that one up-tempo rocker with merry ooh-la-la refrain she sings how she would prefer to go back to bed to dream about another life.
In her ten other songs she mixes Continue reading
Old friend.
Longing for an old tube radio Newyorker Kenny White chooses a somewhat more veiled sound than on CD’s like Symphony In 16 Bars with acoustic bass, strings in four of eleven songs and a classically crooned ballad.
That way his rich melodies sound moodier than before, but jazz and roots elements are still present: Continue reading
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