For her latest album, Blues Blast, 54-year-old blues guitarist Debbie Davies approached the project a bit differently from usual. With a band of all-star musicians, she went into the studio and cut the disc live, playing straight through to give off the feel of a concert rather than just an…
Outside of Fela Kuti and his ever-popular Afrobeat sound, African music as a whole is hard for a lot of novices to understand and, furthermore, purchase. There’s so much of it, spread out across 53 countries on one giant continent, that you need a guide — a Rough Guide, perhaps…
According to Bad Plus bassist Reid Anderson, the concept of creating jazz versions of pop songs like Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and Queen’s “We Are the Champions” came even before the band’s inception in 2000. “We’ve been friends since we…
It is no easy task to adapt the complexities of John Coltrane’s “Naima” to the rhythms of the Caribbean, but that is precisely what vibist and bandleader Dave Samuels has proposed to do since the inception of the Caribbean Jazz Project in 1993. The task at hand is essentially blending…
Argentina’s Flavio Mandinga, one of the founding members of Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, has crafted a solo project that explores various sonic textures and defies genre classification. Simply listen to “Ministra,” a rocksteady-tempo track seemingly inspired by early UB40 with a touch of psychedelics. Later comes “Polaroid 66,” which draws from…
The fact that this Colombian-born rockero opts not to sing any of his songs in English doesn’t seem to hurt his appeal at all in the United States. Wherever Juanes goes, his many fans buy out arenas and often sing along to every tune in his catalog, including the more…
Few modern jazz guitarists today have had the opportunity to collaborate with as many artists as Missouri’s Pat Metheny has throughout his career. Joni Mitchell, Milton Nascimento, and Jaco Pastorius are just a few of the recording giants Metheny has worked with over the years, and he briefly lived here…
On his latest disc, South African-born jazz musician Deepak Ram presents us with a solid album and a sonic challenge. How can one adapt “Giant Steps,” one of John Coltrane’s best-known compositions, to the bansuri (a wooden Indian flute)? The answer is: by giving some tunes a Brazilian bossa-nova structure,…
Talented songwriter k.d. lang has clearly learned a few things from spending so much time around Tony Bennett. The two have been recording together since they released 2002’s A Wonderful World, and on her latest disc, you can hear the influence of Bennett in her approach to singing. Throughout Watershed,…
Saudade is a Portuguese word that is untranslatable but is best interpreted as wishful yearning felt toward someone who is far away or a place that a person hopes someday to return to. It’s the main theme of Lisbon-based singer Ana Moura’s fourth release, Para Além da Saudade, a disc…
A brilliant South African warrior and king in the 18th Century, the legendary Shaka Zulu was one of the great unifiers of his nation. He was also a strong-willed, vengeful man who was ultimately murdered by his own half-brothers, one of whom succeeded him to the throne. Now, in this…
Ever since Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and other Jamaican performers began spreading reggae beyond their Caribbean island, the music’s influence has been felt around the globe. Legends like Gilberto Gil, Paul McCartney, and Mick Jagger famously dabbled in the genre, but its impact is perhaps most compelling around Latin musicians,…
It’s hard to find anyone with a subtler touch on the keys than Maryland-born pianist Cyrus Chestnut, who draws from modern and traditional jazz while also flirting with R&B and gospel. Such eclecticism has found him performing alongside the likes of Vanessa Williams, Wynton Marsalis, and the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni…
Though over the years there had been much speculation about an Os Mutantes reunion concert, the event would not happen until almost 30 years after the breakup of their final lineup in 1978. In the fall of 2006, three of the band’s original members (brothers Arnaldo and Sergio Dias Baptista,…
After six years of relentless touring, Malian guitarist Habib Koité’s latest recording again draws upon his native roots. Opener “Namania,” an ode to a dark-skinned girl who triggers Koité’s memories of times gone by, perfectly syncs up the call-and-response vocals with Koité’s fluent guitar. “Barra” is a percussion-rich tune with…
The Virginia-born singer, songwriter, and serial jammer tells us that he plans “to rock” as he returns to South Florida with a full band instead of relying solely on his acoustic guitar and Gibson Echoplex delay system that he used the last time he was in town. “It will be…
One thing you notice about Breathing Under Water is that Shankar was willing to go beyond the confines of classical Indian music (her previous discs contained material written by her father, legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar, who guests on the disc). Kale’s sonic textures, which blend Western, Eastern, and electronic…
Trying to define the work of Manu Chao — who has finally followed up on his 2001 disc, Próxima Estación: Esperanza — is certainly not easy. The Franco-Spanish musician challenges the listener using lyrics written in four languages and beats that reflect complete open-mindedness. The artist seems to expect no…
Multicultural music is what you get with Congolese-born, Belgium-raised singer Marie Daulne, best-known as the founder and frontwoman of the eclectic band Zap Mama. The music that the all-female-based band cranks out draws from various influences without sticking to a single genre. They’ve been that way for years, and their…
On her newest disc, Zingaro, Fort Lauderdale-raised jazz sensation Alexis Cole takes on several familiar standards and allows her captivating voice to stand out without much accentuation. She’s accompanied solely by guitarist Ron Affif and bassist Jeff Eckels for the entire disc except on the upbeat song “Walkin’,” which features…
On the Rough Guides’ latest foray into Africa, where there seems to be an endless supply of music, they focus on the northern area of the continent, featuring Arabic and French-language songs, mainly from Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia. The tunes have various flavors, and the grooves shift from traditional Middle…
Brought out of retirement in 1996 for the CD Buena Vista Social Club, Cuban vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer gained newfound fame and recognition that landed him a world tour and two solo albums. Even with these accomplishments, he still had one lasting dream: to make a disc of boleros, a project…
