Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

I have not heard a truly great – or even good – jazz album in a long time. Diana Krall’s release from 2006 – that was the last great jazz album I have heard. Chris Humphrey was an unlikely great jazz candidate. Although he hails from Portsmouth, NH – my ...

Let me attempt to break down this almost incoherent album into a few bite-sized pieces. I begin with just the CD – no album artwork and no background story. All I have is a round piece of plastic that makes noise when I but it into my computer. This first ...

Every so often, I’ll walk into a record store to browse, and walk out with something I’ve never heard of. I examine the cover art, read the description, ask the stoner behind the counter his opinion, and decide to shell out the thirteen bucks. An impulse buy, ...

One has to listen a couple of times to Salvation Station, the sophomore effort by New World Son, to get the right idea about the disc. Soul and gospel have common roots, but it’s a bit of a surprise to hear a quartet of white boys from ...

She ain’t no Ella Fitzgerald, but you can tell that she’s a fan of the First Lady of Song. Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, and Doris Day were all influences to Sandy Dennison growing up. These artists drew Dennison to Jazz and, as she likes to put it, got ...

The cover of Terry Garland's Whistling in the Dark is an endearing drawing of a man walking down the street of a small town at night and whistling. It portrays a contemplative country man, intriguing the consumer to take a listen to the music of a simple soul. The only ...