Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt February 7, 2018 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll The First Great Blues CD of 2018 Singer/songwriter/harmonicat Curtis Salgado, and guitarist/composer/producer Alan Hager, both from Oregon, do not need a band. Rough Cut (Alligator Records) has six orig...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt January 31, 2018 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll Dancing at the Hall Jerry Granelli’s Dance Hall on Justin Time Records is a keeper. The 76-year-old drummer -- a veteran of the touring bands of The Platters (“The Great Pretender” rambles o...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt January 24, 2018 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll Zee Blues It’s all in his voice: that bubbling, gurgling phlegm-fest. Howling Wolf ain’t got nothin’ on this guy. Self-released, self-produced, What You See Is What You Get is a 10-...
Rant’n’Roll: One Last Look at My 2017 Mike Greenblatt January 10, 2018 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll Top 20 Jazz CDs DeJohnette, Grenadier, Medeski & Scofield, Hudson Charles Lloyd, Passin’ Thru Bill Frisell/Thomas Morgan, Small Town Thelonious Monk, Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 Vijay Iyer Sextet, Far Fr...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt January 3, 2018 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll Texas Blues After eight years of filling the coveted lead guitar chair for John Mayall & His Bluebreakers and Black Oak Arkansas, Rocky Athas went solo in 2014. His past is profoundly on display in t...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt December 27, 2017 Columns, Rant 'N' Roll Outspoken Italian Pianist/Composer Simona Premazzi is Outspoken on her self-released quartet CD with tenor/soprano saxophonist Dayna Stephens, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Nasheet Waits. When she tackl...
Rant’n’Roll – All That Jazz Mike Greenblatt December 20, 2017 Columns An Afternoon In Gowanus (Jazzkey Records), by the Frank Perowsky Jazz Orchestra, is a father/son affair. Frank, the father, 83, is a rock star, so to speak. Besides playing an elegant clarinet (dig that...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt December 13, 2017 Columns Choro! Que Descaida by the Samuel Pompeo Quinteto, straight out of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is an intriguing blend of two distinct genres that came out of the 1800s. The first is jazz from New Orleans. The sec...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt December 6, 2017 Columns 1 Shout-Out From Beyond Gregg Allman was always one of those rock stars who, according to producer Don Was, didn’t know “what to do with himself in between shows.” As a direct result, the legend suffered, d...
Rant’n’Roll Mike Greenblatt November 29, 2017 Columns A Rock Masterpiece Ricky Byrd has made his masterpiece. The New York City rock ’n’ roll hero -- who has plied his craft for decades with Southside Johnny, Ian Hunter, Roger Daltrey and Joan Jett -- has m...
