Album Reviews

Eschewing both retro and modern musical gestures, the remarkable young jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant manages here to make new and fresh an album of mostly very old songs.

Dylan's previous album Bringing It All Back Home arguably contains the first rap song ("Subterranean Homesick Blues") and is associated with the first rock video—the one where he holds up those cue cards with some of the lyrics—but this album made Dylan a rock star. The cover photo remains iconic and enigmatic: Dylan as The Mona Lisa?

Peter, Paul and Mary brought gospel fervor to the staid folk revival of the early '60s. Though they got their live chops at Paul Colby's Bitter End, the brick wall of which serves as the cover's backdrop, it was this album that propelled them to pop music-like mainstream stardom.

Did you catch Train on The Howard Stern Show last week? The group performed a new, not particularly memorable single from their upcoming album and then at Howard’s request launched into a spectacular cover of “What Is And What Should Never Be” from Led Zeppelin II —an album originally released October 22nd, 1969.

This 1957 Norman Granz-produced jazz version of the George and Ira Gershwin opera (with libretto and key lyrical contributions by DuBose Heyward) starring Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong backed by a string enriched orchestra is a treat for so many reasons.

Billed in the blurb accompanying this modestly packaged LP as a new album by an up and coming jazz singer crossing over to classic country after being turned on to Leonard Cohen by Nancy Wilson (the jazz singer not half of Heart) and later falling under the influence of Dolly, Kitty and John Prine, once you hear some of the readily available downloadable tracks from this just released set you'll be hearing another strong influence not cited as one along with Joni Mitchell and Allison Krauss: Norah Jones.