Having already established himself as the most chameleonic single pop-music figure of the 20th century, David Bowie had another surprise in store at the beginning of 1977. With the release of Low, he shed the ...

The mechanics of listening to an LP—removing the vinyl platter from the sleeve, placing it on the turntable, perhaps locking it down, moving the arm over, and lowering the cartridge and stylus—impose an unhurried experience. ...

Originally released in 1991, Richard Thompson’s sixth solo album arrived during a pivotal period in the English folk-rocker’s catalog. His third collaboration with producer Mitchell Froom (and engineer Tchad Blake), the 14-song collection continued an ...

If we’re of a certain age when our parents die, we realize we are the seniors of our clan. On So You Wannabe an Outlaw, Earle, an ex-con in real life and an outlier in ...

1. Petra Haden: Petra Goes to the Movies. Anti. As she did on her radical reworking of The Who Sell Out, Haden orchestrates her overdubbed vocals to create panoramic renditions of familiar themes, in this ...

Famous for his bent orchestrations of Zappa compositions, saxophonist/arranger Palermo here digs into 60s and 70s British Invasion and prog rock. The Beatles provide the bookends, “Good Morning Good Morning” opening CD 1 and “Good ...

Les Liasons Dangereuses opens much the way the second half of the 1950s did for Thelonious Monk: bright, bouncy, and upbeat. As Monk biographer Robin D.G. Kelley writes in the notes he contributed to the ...

Time was rarely on singer Jimmy Scott’s side. He launched a promising career in the early 1950s but saw it go dormant in the 60s. He experienced a comeback in the early 90s but was ...

Once you’ve steeped yourself in the music and sensibility of NRBQ, it makes total sense that a sprawling career retrospective should start in the future, even as it recaps the band’s history. Track one of ...

The Oscar Peterson Trio: Walking the Line. MPS (LP). Music: 4.5 Sonics: 4.5 Joe Henderson/Chick Corea/Ron Carter/Billy Higgins: Mirror Mirror. MPS (LP). Music: 4 Sonics: 4 Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer launched Musik Produktion Schwarzwald in 1968 ...

Most acoustic guitarists perfect, or become associated with, a particular genre—Delta or Piedmont blues, for instance, or Celtic, ragtime, or traditional folk (however you define that). Some, like John Fahey or Robbie Basho or Alex ...

None of chameleon guitar hero Nels Cline’s many ambitious recordings, during a career that has taken him from the L.A. jazz and rock underground to rock stardom with Wilco, sums up his encyclopedic musical tastes, ...

The life force smoldered to the end. Then it departed from Leonard Cohen’s 82-year-old body on November 7 and left in its ghostly wake multiple entryways into a towering career that spanned six decades. If ...

Could 1969 have been any more of a momentous year in popular music? Rock festivals reached their apex—and their nadir—at Woodstock, the Isle of Wight, and Altamont. Led Zeppelin, CSN, King Crimson, and Blind Faith ...

Since moving to the Bay Area a dozen years ago to teach in the UC Berkeley music department, pianist Melford has forged many tight creative relationships, foremost among them her collaborations with clarinetist Goldberg. Each ...