Album Reviews

The 36 year old Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré, daughter of a globe-trotting diplomat, has been performing and recording for over a decade now. This, her third album from 2008, has only recently been released on double 180g vinyl.

The death of Noel Brazil, Mary Black’s long time collaborator and favorite songwriter, weighs heavily on the song selection here. The album is populated with songs of sadness, resignation and rebirth.

Modern Jazz Quartet fans will find this Milt Jackson solo outing surprising and in a sense liberating. While the vibraharpist remains his usual cool, resilient self, the addition of Kenny Dorham on trumpet and Jimmy Heath (brother of MJQ bassist Percy) on tenor sax gives the outing a bit more swagger and drive compared to the MJQ’s usual studiousness.

Drop John Lee Hooker off in the parched environs of Paris, Texas and tell him to do his mournful thing and that it’ll be okay because Miles Davis will be right behind him with his mute trumpet following his every musical move the way Ali Akbar Khan followed Ravi Shankar's.

This slab of red vinyl got plopped on the turntable and listened to before the unnoticed press blurb stuffed into the gatefold jacket made returning it from where it came impossible.

The indie rocker Sufjan Stevens brings a surprising and delightful buoyancy and sense of wonderment to his orchestral suite commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its “Next Wave” Music Festival. The original debut performances were in November of 2007.

Icy cold vistas, shards of broken electronic glass, relentless thumping disco beats and possible mysteriously encrypted bits of dialogue may not sound like something that would be particularly inviting on a full range audio system, but somehow Fuck Buttons makes it so on this album of artificial mayhem and just plain noise.