current listening 02/23
Off hours listening during an especially icy week…
* Bobby Hutcherson featuring Harold Land: San Francisco - With an eye to an urban sound, Blue Note Records teamed mallet-man Hutcherson, reed stylist Land and Crusaders keyboardist Joe Sample for this ultra cool 1970 soul session.
* Marc Ribot: Don’t Blame Me - A 1995 doomsday covers album featuring solo electric guitar versions of I’m in the Mood for Love, These Foolish Things and Ol’ Man River from another stylistic universe. A record of rich, unsettling beauty.
* Sigur Ros: Hvarf/Heim - Nothing goes better with icy weather than an Icelandic band. Sigur Ros’ intimate ambience proved a nice slice of warmth when the weather froze over. The studio recorded Hvarf boasts a mightier chill than the live Heim.
* Eliane Elias: Something for You - A beautiful new mix of artful piano trio sessions and Jobim-flavored singing by Brazilian born Elias. The intent was to honor piano great Bill Evans, but Elias gently asserts her own knowing jazz voice.
* Free: Heartbreaker - The soundtrack of a band falling apart. Still, Brit rockers Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke found a light but vital blues urgency on this 1973 swansong. The following year, the two dissolved Free and formed Bad Company.
I am a native Kentuckian and freelance journalist who has been writing about contemporary music for the Lexington Herald-Leader since 1980. I have not a lick of honest musical talent myself, just a pair of appreciative ears for jazz, folk, blues, bluegrass, Americana, soul, Celtic, Cajun, chamber, worldbeat, nearly every form of rock 'n' roll imaginable and, when pressed, the occasional tango and polka.