The Treme Brass Band
New Orleans Music!
Mardi Gras Records

Enjoy the sounds of New Orleans as Treme Brass Band continues to spread the love and sound of our musical heritage through their latest album, New Orleans Music!  From the first track, “Grazing in the Grass,” you won’t be able to keep your body still, suddenly falling under the captivating rhythmic spell of these talented musicians.  Treme Brass Band symbolizes the real New Orleans brass band sound, epitomizing the local second line like in “Caledonnia” and “Sing On.”  They also bring out their jazz roots on “Bucket’s Got a Hole in It” and “Cabaret.” Treme performs an unforgettable version of “Mack the Knife” that brings together a jazzy scat with brass band sound. Treme showcases their beats and brassy street sound on “Gimme My Money Back” and “Tuba Fats,” taking the listener on a journey through the musical NOLA neighborhoods.  As all great brass bands do, Treme showcases their jazz funeral playing in their rendition of “Amazing Grace,” while “I’ll Fly Away,” completes the CD and embraces their Dixieland roots celebrating their culmination of a grand journey through New Orleans Music!  By all means, any local can truly grasp the love, energy, soul, and passion all timelessly preserved and proudly delivered in this remarkable piece of work by the Treme Brass Band.  When you listen to the music of Treme Brass Band, you know you’re back home in New Orleans. –Kevin McKee

DeSoto Street Band
DeSoto Street Band
Little King Records

The DeSoto Street Band, which is based in New Orleans and performs blues, roots, and folk music, has just recently released its premiere album.  This self-titled album contains twelve eclectic tracks, which range from sounding akin to Hootie & the Blowfish in the song entitled “My Town” to true backyard folk complete with harmonica, kazoo, and washboard.  The group consists of all string instruments, which help to create a carefree backwater gypsy-like sound.  The band members include:  Robert Eustis, who is on mandolin, vocals, and guitar; Steve Wulff, on acoustic guitar, vocals, and harmonica; Laurie Dawes, who is on 12-string guitar, washboard, and kazoo; and Frank Cole, who is on upright bass and vocals.  Despite the exotic choice of instruments, each and every member of the band plays them together so naturally that it’d seem wrong for them not to be paired.  The sound of the mandolin married with the acoustic guitars brings such a unique flair to each track, which is then additionally brought to life with the exuberant pound of Frank’s standup bass.  But the quality that best serves their music is the same thing that makes campfire songs so enjoyable and that is that they focus more so on the lyrics sung which is aimed to tell a story and engage the listener. –Ted Holmberg  

Marcus Roberts
New Orleans Meets Harlem, Vol. 1
(Indie)

Renowned jazz pianist Marcus Roberts has returned with a new album not only celebrating Duke Ellington’s 110th birthday, but the influence New Orleans jazz had on Harlem. 
Four of the twelve tracks are from Jelly Roll Morton and Scott Joplin, the two men who basically created jazz, breaking the rules of classical music and giving us exciting sounds with flavor. Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Fats Waller compositions are also explored. Notable tracks are “The Entertainer” by Joplin, a recognizable song where Roberts and his trio hold nothing back, taking the listener on a journey that may be hard to hold onto but cohesive enough to follow. Another one is a classic by Fats Waller called “Honeysuckle Rose.” The band plays with the main theme of the song, creeping in and out of it in the beginning until they finally go for it, Roberts’ virtuosity on display while he gives us a tour of the musical universe with his piano. And the final track on the album and one of the most important is “Searching for the Blues,” an original composition. The intro is a maddening exploration of the keyboard, the remainder of the trio keeping up perfectly until it slows down into a mid-tempo groove, summing up the album perfectly. Recordings like this are very important, not only for fans of music, but for our country and city. The African-American contribution to music is undeniable. They gave our country jazz, and they did it right here in New Orleans. Marcus Roberts and his band are helping us remember that we need to take a look around and thank each other for our grand musical heritage. –Brian Serpas


LockBoxx
Drop Shop
Character Records

Imagine James Brown, Isaac Hayes, and Jamiroquai all in the same studio making a record and you’ll have an idea of what Lockbox’s’ Drop Shop sounds like. Each track seems to be a throwback to a familiar funk and R&B sound of times past. There are a lot of layered instruments on every track that gives the album a serious studio feel. Each track has effects that create a particular mood, anything from sexy to badass. In fact, the first track, “Imperials of the Rose Court,” is a sexy instrumental with a strong R&B sound that would be good for a third date, or tenth, however your loins work. Another one I enjoyed is “Lifeline,” a number with funky wah guitar that leads the song into a disco theme. As I listened, something I noticed is that this group has the ability to truly draw from the artists they enjoy and lay down some riffs that are familiar and good. There is a lot of Peter Frampton-style guitar sounds all over the recording, mainly regarding the soloing, and when I put on “Outward Spiral,” I thought I was hearing a young Isaac Hayes. During the recording of this album, the band makes it a point to thank the artists that passed while they were in the studio; the great Ray Charles as well as James Brown are mentioned, just to name a few. This band has good taste in music, and they present it to you with their strong musicianship. Give this piece a chance and see what four guys from Houma are capable of. –Brian Serpas

Greenlight Caravan
Mother Earth Revival
Smashing Grass Records/Atomic Groove
Tunes, BMI

Get ready for a revolutionary musical journey as Greenlight Caravan takes the listener on an unforgettable trip, blending funk and soulful Southern guitar rock infused with earthy licks into a psychedelic world of groove-filled jams.  Mother Earth Revival brings out deep musical influences from the 60s and 70s that can easily be heard throughout the record, while also gently caressing some special Southern roots.  In turn, the quintet from Lafayette, Louisiana has created some deep original musical conversations in each composition that firmly stand high in quality and technique, with each musical component complementing the other one perfectly. This can often be heard in the combination of congas, horns, slide guitar, Hammond organ and even a sitar that works and truly makes each song come alive into its own identity. “Resolution,” “Lay Down Low,” and “Idle Hands” easily demonstrates this unique blending technique of layering several instruments together, which makes the song and this band sound fresh and new while still having this vintage-like feel.  This band is driven and it can easily be heard from the start on the title track, “Mother Earth Revival,” as they grab the listener and willingly hijack them on the journey together. Best advice--simply sit back, enjoy the magical musical ride, and leave the rest to the Greenlight Caravan. Can’t wait to see these guys live! –Sheri McKee

Anarbor
Free Your Mind
Hopeless Records

Free Your Mind is Anarbor’s March 10 release on Hopeless Records.  All friends since fifth grade, these four pop-rockers from Phoenix are a polished Brat Pack alternative for today’s bard-questing heartthrob seeker.  Right off the media player, “Let the Games Begin” leads a seven-song track list that is sweet as sipping soft drinks with your soul mate on the South Shore.  S-alliteration is prevalent in front man Slade Echeverria’s vocals, melding with his boy-next-door croon to infuse a calming effect.  Youthful romantic situations are the subject matter, and the guys echo in harmony with Echeverria’s leading words, and it’s not hard to tell that they’ve all “done this before.”  At the midpoint, chosen title “Halfway Sober” mirrors the involuntary sway I found myself developing.  Catchy and smooth, the melodies are bubbly and the changes add a dash of drama as the lyrics rope in a rhythmic slither and grow on the listener.  The music is subtle, culminating in the hopped-up-only-to-fall-prostrated-for-confession mode of Always Dirty Never Clean, a spontaneous ‘take us as we are’ sort of proposal to the listener/prospective fan.  Young they may be, there is cohesion to the finished product telltale of years of dedication and friendship.  With even more years to hone their talents, lines like “Music is what you hear, and not what you see” are sure to become trademark as this band grows in merit for their musicianship...if they aren’t breakout stars for their look well before they earn acclaim. –Dionne Charlet


Shirock
Everything Burns
Shirock Publishing

An eloquent and contemplative play-it-over-again debut, Shirock’s Everything Burns is not only the title of this album.  There’s a non-profit organization tied in with an Everything Burns Tour designed to give aide to the homeless and poor in target cities.  Co-ed rock activists Chuck Shirock, Pap Shirock, Adam Gatchel, Derek Blank, and Jason Bynum blend their powers of sound therapy to a balm of languid guitar, tempered percussion, piano, and keyboard.  The vocals transcend harmonious, as the melodies taper from reflective to frenetic, echoing the harnessed impetuousness of a young band possessed of an old soul.  Following a spoken intro, the title track is over six minutes of hymn and a cappella exhaled in long-held notes, then revisited, prompting a meditation of the release from material things—anything but a breakout band’s celebration of indestructibility.  I commend this band for putting forth the effort to affect a community giveback response from their fans. “Time Goes By” is of particular interest, with the chorus lingering as diligently as the memory of that unforgettable someone.  The beautiful “I’ll Take Rain” is a confirmation of feminine commitment accompanied by tender background vocals and piano.  Shirock may be the surname of the core couple Pap and Chuck, but there’s no doubt Shirock is a composite homonym for the band’s transparent message, sound, and genre.  Kudos to the CD design team, as this is truly a gorgeous mixed media casing layered with finesse to match the body of work within.  As an exploration of human nature reign in by patience, tolerance and companionship, change is the catalyst, for Everything Burns. –Dionne Charlet

Marc Gunn
Heart’s Ease
Mage Records
 
There is a secluded gateway to a place of Zen within each of us that can be unlocked by the purest selections of music.  Wing beats of dragonflies spin the crank of an heirloom music box toward the very essence of innocence itself with Heart’s Ease.  There is whimsy and character-come-to-life eloquence in the tonality and progression of “Fairy Tale Waltz.”  Writer and musician Marc Gunn shares his generosity of spirit and irrepressible charm through these original reflections on belief, fantasy and mystique.  “Wildflowers in Party Field” is a walk on the exiled side of a childhood long forgotten. The autoharp, which Gunn refers to as ‘the instrument of middle schools and German engineers’, is this artist’s instrument of choice, and one he’s had by his side through his years as half of The Brobdingnagian Bards, a popular Ren Fest Celtic duo.  Now exploring his solo career, Marc adds this harmonic existential offering to a long line of Celtic albums, and as a recent NOLA transplant, Mr. Gunn is our very own Renaissance man.  Huzzah! –Dionne Charlet

Jeff Albert Quartet
Similar in the Opposite Way
Fora Sound

It seems to be axiomatic within the reviewing profession that “those who can’t write music write about it.” While this may be true, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. The absence of musical ability on our part enables us to listen to the music at least somewhat objectively and formulate our judgments according to what our supposedly untrained ears are hearing. We either like what we’re hearing or we don’t. Or we may like some of it but not all or even most of it. Sorry to report that the latter is the case with this CD. On a scale from 1 to 10, I’d have to give it a 3; one point for each of the cuts I liked on this 10-track record. The other seven cuts were predominantly abstract exercises in improvisational overkill: plodding, dissonant, and rhythmically awkward. Jeff Albert on trombone and Ray Moore on alto sax are way too squeaky and squawky throughout much of the record; too unpleasantly reminiscent of Coltrane’s final years when he and other musicians of his stature began playing around with the thankfully short-lived “free-form” jazz idiom. In a statement in the press materials accompanying the CD, it says, “Albert and company explore and reconstruct the boundaries between improvisation and composition.” On the three good tracks those “boundaries” are respected instead of “reconstructed,” and their “composition” is along more pleasingly conventional jazz lines, yet still fresh and innovative. “Bag Full of Poboys,” “Folk Song,” and “Rooskie Cyclist” demonstrate what Albert and Moore and their drummer and bassist are fully capable of when they focus more on rhythm and flow than on improvisational trial and error. They are almost, but not quite enough, to rescue the rest of the record. –Dean M. Shapiro
Tom McDermott
New Orleans Duets
Rabadash Records

Tom McDermott is one of the most talented piano players on the contemporary local scene. On this 21-track CD he shares the bill with 21 equally talented singers and musicians. Obviously there are too many to name them all, but just to cite a few, they include clarinetists Evan Christopher and Tim Laughlin, trumpeter Connie Jones, percussionist Michael Skinkus, and vocalists John Boutte and Topsy Chapman. Also among those he’s given work to, McDermott includes a couple of celebrity couples: sousaphonist Matt Perrine and his Pfister Sister wife, Debbie Davis, and satirist Harry Shearer and his chanteuse spouse Judith Owen. And, believe it or not, Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. As for the songs themselves, most of them range from good to excellent, with, unfortunately, a few clunkers thrown into the mix. The most outstanding cuts are “Manchega,” a Louis Moreau Gottschalk composition with Skinkus on the skins; “Our Love Rolls On,” with Chapman crooning the vocals in her own inimitable style; “The Isle of Orleans, an original Laughlin instrumental; and a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Cupid” with Boutte sounding like the original and adding a few new lines. Some of McDermott’s original tracks are cutesy and fun with humorous lyrics, like “Sportsmen’s Paradise” with Anders Osborne, and “That’s What I Saw at the Mardi Gras” with Davis, while a couple of others are insipid, especially the duet he attempts to do with Armstrong (“Some Satchmo Sampling”) which comes across sounding like a bad acid trip. The closing track, “To Kill Our Brothers Now,” with Cindy Scott singing contrived and clumsy rhyming patterns would also have been best left off the record. But overall, it’s a nice effort by McDermott who is always a joy to hear on the ivories. –Dean M. Shapiro

Various Artists
The Very Best of Prestige Records
Prestige

Right around the time that jazz was downsizing from the big bands to smaller combos of the bebop era, a new record label emerged on the scene. The timing could not have been more fortuitous. Talented musicians coming out of the big band era, as well as young new ones who were beginning to emerge on the scene, were looking for a label to record with and Prestige Records was right there to accommodate them. The year was 1949 and Prestige is celebrating its 60th anniversary with this two-record set that pays tribute to some of the most legendary jazz artists of all time who recorded with them. Such giants as Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Coleman Hawkins, Eric Dolphy, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Burrell, James Moody, the Modern Jazz Quartet . . . the list goes on. They’re all on this collection, along with many others; 25 tracks in all. Label founder Bob Weinstock knew how to pick ‘em and was off and running his first year with “Moody’s Mood for Love,” one of the tracks on this CD. The 78 RPM record was an instant hit that evolved into a classic that is still covered today. Of even greater importance was the label’s sociological impact: nearly all of Weinstock’s earliest artists were black and he gave them opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise had in that segregationist era. Other record companies saw what he was doing and emulated him, giving even more emerging African American artists their shot at stardom . . . as well as siphoning off some of his top stars. Although the label officially folded in 1978, Prestige ranks, along with Impulse, Blue Note, and Atlantic, as one of the jazz recording industry giants. This collection, covering its first 20 years, represents some of the best of the best.  –Dean M. Shapiro

Billy Iuso & the Restless Natives
Live at The Sandpiper Lounge
Nawlins Music

Billy Iuso & the Restless Natives get a little funky and go live down at the Sandpiper Lounge, bringing the audience into his latest recording.  Iuso captures his audience from the first funky beat, letting everyone know that this is going to be an incredible jam session.  The second track has some blues and grooves up in it with killer guitar riffs. “Crankin’ It Off ” summons a little crafty key work from the late Professor Longhair and allows the listener to hear some of the audience’s high-pitched squeals, while “Oh, I See” works in some funky guitar and organ riffs that sound purely New Orleans. Iuso does an incredible interpretation of “Once in a Lifetime,” originally sung by Talking Heads singer David Byrne. This CD captures the live spirit of fans up in the Sandpiper while Iuso does his thing on stage.  It’s a great CD to add to your local collection, especially during Jazz Fest.
–Kevin McKee

Neil Young
Fork in the Road
Reprise Records

Mr. Heart of Gold hasn’t had an album go gold since 2005 with Prairie Wind.  His last two albums, Living With War and Chrome Dreams II, both failed to peak higher than 15 and 11, though Living With War was nominated for three Grammy Awards.  His newest album Fork in the Road was released April 7, 2009, with the vinyl version to be released on May 5, 2009.  The album is typical Young length at ten tracks, with his inspiration deriving from his retooled alternative energy running 1959 Lincoln Continental.  This is quite apparent with the first track “When Worlds Collide,” an excellent road trip song; as is the entire album where the car theme runs through and through. “Just Singing a Song” is by far the deepest off the album with great beats, heavy guitar play, and a great message:  “Just singing a song won’t change the world.”  The following track, “Johnny Magic,” is a simple old-school character-driven rock song.  “Get Behind the Wheel,” is just decent enough to keep you spirited and focused as you drive to wherever it is you need to go in the morning.  As for the just getting off of work song, “Hit the Road” will do the trick, whether you’re in “The Middle of the Commute” or about to “Hit the Road and Go to Town.”  In contrast, “Light a Candle” is a more somber advisory to not give up with our travels and to help others through theirs as well.  Fork in the Road is an all around solid Neil Young album; however I don’t think it’s quite enough to end his gold drought. –James Sebastien

New Orleans Jazz Orchestra
Book One
World Village, Harmonia Mundi S.A.

Given the lofty goal of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra of inspiring freedom and culture in the individual and the global community by creating authentic, engaging jazz experiences, the bar had been set presumptively high for the band’s debut recording. Book One does not disappoint.  NOJO Artistic Director Irvin Mayfield orchestrates the audible narrative of the Crescent City by allowing the talented NOJO soloists to shine in compositional settings tailored to the artists’ strengths, as illustrated in Evan Christopher’s resplendent clarinet work in “Creole Thang” and Ed “Sweetbread” Petersen’s distinguished tenor saxophone in “Sweetbread on the Levee,” Mayfield’s tribute to Petersen’s boisterous sound. Mayfield himself steps into the limelight in the hauntingly seductive “The Mistress” and reminds us why his musical conquests mirror those of a performer many years his senior. Vocal phenom and soon-to-be Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz graduate Johnaye Kendrick and New Orleans R&B singer John Boutte make guest vocal appearances. Alternatingly playful and poignant, frenetic and fluid, yet always with a sense of commitment to storytelling and virtuosity of the highest order, this nine-song collection leaves the listener clamoring for Book Two. –Craig M. Cortello