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JAZZ PROMO SERVICES
DAVID LEONHARDT TRIO/Explorations: Intentional or not? Forget that Leonhardt does a bunch of originals you don’t know and that the covers are from the 60s and 70s. Get past that and this sounds like a spiritual tribute to the original Ramsey Lewis Trio in their pre-”In Crowd” era. Deceptively sounding like cocktail jazz, this is cool, hip stuff that is sly, musical as well as lyrical, and zesty, snappy and tasty throughout. A great hurrah for classic era piano trio jazz.
9577 (Big Bang)
LOTOS NILE
CROOKED STILL/Still Crooked: It’s a long way from Jethro Burns and 70’s Marin County bluegrass once you crack open the shrink wrap on this new wave folk bluegrass set. Part of a new, energetic underground, this crew delivers album three with a zeal that is going to propel them swiftly to the top of the underground. While folk has long been filled with murder ballads and such, this dark tinged crew takes it to new levels. Along with a few other groups tilling similar ground, there could be a new folk boom sneaking up on you as we speak. A stunning set that organic fans are sure to be blown away by.
2013 (Signature Sounds)
McGUCKIN ENTERTAINMENT PUBLIC RELATIONS
RUBY DEE & the Snakehandlers/Miles From Home: Why write a review when you can write a love letter? This is one serious OMG album. Hands down. From post-grunge Seattle comes an alt.alt.country set that’s so steeped in atavistic genes it’ll be fun to see how today’s 20 somethings and younger relate to it. This is the music of an American night that is no more. When Interstate 80 was a new cut road and Route 66 hadn’t been decommissioned. When you hit out into the American night because you could with a tank full of 19.9 cent hi test ethyl and nothing but the AM radio and the stars to keep you company. This is the sound that was pouring out of that AM radio. Some local band sponsored in the graveyard shift by Doc Cheatham’s bar on a 1,000 watt channel that didn’t have to sign off at sunset. OMG! This could have been in a battle of the bands scene in “The Buddy Holly Story” and seemed authentic; it would have been just as authentic if it was a bunch of demos for an early 70s George and Tammy duet set, and on the Ipod, it sounds in the present. Two years ago, Dee and her posse were part of a mini-avalanche of alt.alt.country albums with a rockabilly edge that came out around the same time, all had recording budgets of about $2.00 they didn’t apologize for and all were more gem than zircon. Whatever woodshedding Dee has done in the last two years has given us this amazing set that still finds her flying under the radar but certainly at the top of the niche. Miss this only if you dare. She calls it honky-tonkabilly, I call it a humdinger!
233139 (Dionysus)
MUSIC CITY NEWS
MARK CHESTNUTT/Rollin’ With the Flow: Didn’t this hat act have the first version of “Friends in Low Places” out there? Give the man his props. Always a pleasant cat, he’s one of those guys that sold tonnage when you weren’t looking and still got tossed aside by the machine. Doesn’t stop him any, this set finds him rolling right along, even if he had to reach back 30 years for the title track, which he does a killer job on. A mainstream/honky tonk cat that knows how to deliver just the right stuff. Simply a straight up, dandy country record that there’s been a need for lately.
12 (Lofton Creek/Big 7)
RED CAT PUBLICITY
JOANNA PASCALE/Through My Eyes: A simply amazing 24 year old jazz vocalist with a sensitivity for the classics that she delivers out of nowhere. A working musician in Philly, the rest of us are deprived of this local light unfairly. The songs she picks are oldies, but there are ones by top writers that haven’t been done to death by the rest of the diva pack. With a crack bunch of jazzbos backing her up, this is must hear date for jazz vocal fans and anyone in sore need of some classy pop by a set of vocal chops that will just blow you away. A winner throughout.
(Stiletto) (www.joannapascale.com)
Volume 31/Number 205
May 23, 2008
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
©2008 Midwest Record
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