The Harmonica and Magic Dick on All Things Considered, NPR

'Pocket Full Of Soul' Explores The Harmonica's History : NPR

"Magic Dick" Salwitz has divined the soul of Marion "Little Walter" Jacobs for the past 40 years.  He is a master of the harmonica as evidenced on any J. Geils' Band recording, but most particularly Full House Live.  This LP was a slim 40 minutes long, but in those minutes a critical mass was reached, detonating a rock-soul-blues benediction with 100-proof attitude and a nuclear swagger.

Certainly the J. Geils' Band is better known for their 1981 recording Freeze Frame (Capitol) and its single "Centerfold."  But is was this early 1970s music that really grabbed America by the throat, declaring, "...this is what rock and roll is all about.

Nathan Eklund Group: Coin Flip (2010)

Nathan Eklund Group
Coin Flip
OA2 Records
2010

Finally, a contemporary jazz release that swings.  So much contemporary jazz recently released conforms to the Miles Davis-Second Great Quintet-post bop formula of banging gongs and clanging cymbals that when an intelligently conceived and performed collection of original jazz compositions comes along with that thing, that it is a real treat.  Trumpeter Nathan Eklund sports an unpretentious performing style coupled with a crack ear for composition.  His band is anchored by the Fender Rhodes of Steve Meyerson, giving the pieces a paradoxical retro-contemporary flavor.  The electric piano almost sounds like a vibraphone in places.  Nine superbly crafted pieces well played.

Ziggurat Quartet: Calculated Measures (2010)

Ziggurat Quartet
Calculated Measures
Origin Records
2020


The Ziggurat Quartet is the brainchild of West Coast pianist and Origin Records stalwart Bill Anschell.  It is the pianist/composer's vehicle for driving his and his band-mate's devilishly clever and complex pieces seasoned with East Indian tonalities and extraterrestrial time signatures.  Anschell is joined my other like minded musicians from the Origin Arts family.  Saxophonist Eric Barber summons from his soprano horn the spirit of well-behaved late-period Coltrane.  His tenor is fat and throaty, recalling Sonny Rollins a la "St. Thomas" (hear "Zigtuno").  The sonics of this disc are crisply spectacular.  Bassist Doug Miller is closely captured and readily heard beside drummer Byron Vannoy, whose every percussion strike is individually packaged sonically.  Superb post bop.

Gwilym Simcock: Blues Vignette (2010)

Gwilym Simcock
Blues Vignette
Basho Records
2010

Pianist Gwilym Simcock is ambitious.  Comparisons with Brad Mehldau, Keith Jarrett and Gonzalo Rubalcaba are not unwarranted, he shares the same command of the piano's tonal palette.  He is a talented young man who is evolving into a musical maturity. Blues Vignette is a two-disc set showcasing Simcock in solo, duo,and trio formats,  shooting for the moon  While provocative, Simcock's original compositions are just short of the creative heat he emits on the standards "On Broadway" and "Nice Work if You Can Get It," where he sounds more like Martial Solal than anyone else.  Simcock has a great deconstructive ear sure to continue evolving.

Kristin Porter: By The Light of the Moon (2010)

Kristin Porter
By The Light of the Moon
Self Produced
2010

Vocalist Kristin Porter strikes a functional balance between traditional stylings and contemporary performance.  Her present EP frames three standards and two originals rendered by a crack septet lead by pianist Jody Nardone.  Porter's voice is confident.  Her singing is informed most prominently by Rickie Lee Jones, Maria Muldaur, and most notably, Ella Fitzgerald.  "It Could Happen to You" and "Teach Me Tonight" represent the traditional, which Porter sings with gleefully playful sexiness.  Her own title song is a contemporary dream, part Little Feat cut with the Rippingtons and conducted by mid-'80s Herbie Hancock.  Over the top is Porter's flirty "Moody's Mood for Love."  By The Light of the Moon leaves me wanting much more.

Monica Mancini: I've Loved These Days

Monica Mancini
I've Loved These Days
Concord Records
2010

Her fifth recording, Monica Mancini devotes her attention to a carefully assembled collection of '60s pop songs, in several cases singing with the composer ("These Days" with Jackson Browne and "God Only Knows" with Brian Wilson and Take 6).  Mancini crafts these songs with a 21^st Century sensibility, updating them without losing the huge nostalgic rush they provide us of a certain age and introducing the songs to a new generation of listeners.  Plush arrangements and strings provide an aural personality targeting broad appeal and achieving it successfully.  Monica Mancini hits her home run with I've Loved These Days.

Richard Sussman Quintet: Live at Sweet Rhythm

Richard Sussman Quintet
Live at Sweet Rhythm (Featuring the Free Fall Reunion Band)
Origin Records
2010

Pianist Richard Sussman's 1979 quintet recording Free Fall made quite a splash when re-issued in 2002.  Sporting trumpeter Tom Harrell and saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, the disc was a hard bop celebration.  Break forward 30 years, this same band unites for a live recording at NYC's Sweet Rhythm in 2003 playing a couple of pieces from the earlier recording as well as Tadd Dameron's "Soultrane" and the standard "What's New."  the result is a cross between the tight Jack Sheldon and Jack Montrose Pacific Jazz releases from the 1950s and Miles Davis' second great quintet.  This is music without peer.

John Prine: In Person & On Stage

John Prine
In Person and On Stage
Oh Boy Records
2010

Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan claim John Prine as one of their favorite song writers.  An American treasure to be sure, Prine has treated his devoted public with 40 years of superb song writing, beginning with his eponymous debut in 1971.  His songbook is legendary and the songs he chose for In Person & On Stage show the singer in full maturity.  From "Angel From Montgomery (sung with Emmylou Harris" to his masterpiece, "In Spite of Ourselves" (sung with Arkansan Iris DeMent), Prine displays a gentle charm cloaking a sharp wit that makes us all better for listening to him.

Stanley Hauerwas: Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir (2010)

Stanley Hauerwas
Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
2010
Read on an Amazon Kindle

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas has a reputation as big as his Texas home. He is a hugely prolific author in Narrative Theology and Ethics. He is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School, and rightly so. Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir is a very personal book detailed in Hauerwas' straightforward prose how the son of a Texas bricklayer became one of the foremost theological minds of the 21st Century and a Christian in the bargain. He humbly spends much memoir time describing those people who made the greatest impression on him in his life.

Dan Brown The Lost Symbol (2009)

The Lost Symbol
Dan Brown
Doubleday
Abridged, Narrated by Paul Michael
2009

The Da Vinci Code (2003) was a provocative if imperfect introduction into the world of esotericism.  Angels and Demons (2000), was likewise, but a better story.  The Lost Symbol is an anemic attempt to combine the successes of the previous two books with the cinema subjects of Nicholas Cage vehicles National Treasure (2004) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007).  Protagonist Robert Langdon solidifies into his single dimensionality, and the story evolves quickly into Brown's well-worn tome of dormant secret revealed, cascading through a hastily assemble labyrinth of antiquity.  Umberto Ecco does it better and stop abridging audio books.