Billy Holiday: Fine and Mellow
Billy Holiday was reunited after many years with tenor saxophonist Lester Young for this recording session in 1957. Her silent response to his solo was so eloquent. This is probably the most famous “live jazz” performance in TV history.
Fleet Foxes: White Winter Hymnal
Good indie music: The Fleet Foxes (die flotten Füchse) who debuted this year with an album that sounds like the Beach Boys jamming with Neil Young and Bill Withers in a trance. “To me, the most enjoyable thing in the world is to sing harmony with people,” Robin Pecknold told NPR. Stunning private session at […]
Janelle Monae
Hot stuff. Beautiful jazz voice. Quirky imagination. Playing a robot in love and singing about “the walking dead”, Janelle Monae is anything but robotic. She comes from a family that suffered from crack addiction, so she’s got a good attitude about keeping her head straight. Coming from the underground scene, she counts Prince among her […]
Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Up Above My Head
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the first great recording star of Gospel music in the late 1930s. Merry Christmas! Up above my head I hear music in the air I really do believe there’s a heaven somewhere All in my room there is music everywhere I really do believe there’s a heaven somewhere Variations I really do […]
Tori Amos: Winter
Sweet but edgy, emotional but fearless, and so personal: Tori Amos performing her masterpiece “Winter” at Montreux in 1991, before “Little Earthquakes” was released. This song about how the bond between a father and a daughter changes as she grows up moves me to tears. Her early concerts were released in September on CD: Live […]
Theresa Andersson
One woman wonder Theresa Andersson (Swedish, living in New Orleans) loops her instruments and samples herself using her feet, creating spontaneous yet choreographed performances. She recorded her album “Hummingbird, Go!” including “Birds fly away” in her kitchen, and the album, though it’s not her first, might be the first to really make a mark. It’s […]
Raconteurs
The storytellers brought together very different sounds on their second album “Consolers Of The Lonely” (’08, RS review), nominated for a Grammy, including the pretty “Old enough”, now out in a nice bluegrass version. “Salute your Solution” rocks harder, and Jack’s white noise would give me a headache if he weren’t so brilliant. What a […]
