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Like many country legends before him, Zach Bryan has lived a life beyond music, and it shows up unfiltered in nearly every song he writes. The Oklahoman has been tested, and those experiences have shaped work defined by authenticity and emotional weight. They've also made him a figure deeply loved and, if the stories are true, occasionally loathed. All of which strengthens music that resists radio polish while breaking attendance records in…

In jazz, all-star bands have a complicated history. Almost by definition, they offer serious solo firepower. But they may lack a unifying ensemble identity. All-star groups are often assembled for marketing reasons. Motion II is the second album by an all-star collective that contains major 21st century…

Once and forever iconoclast Vernon Reid, the Britain-born guitarist for iconic American band Living Colour, is perpetually in pursuit of sonic excellence, regardless the point of entry. "A lot of different things have attracted me—everything from gentle breeze to thunder and lightning," Reid told me during a recent Zoom interview. "I've straddled two centuries where I've been on a mission to explore different emotions, different modalities, and different ways of using the guitar."

Reid's onomatopoeic approach to fulfilling such far-ranging aural pursuits…

John Michael Osbourne was obsessed with the Beatles. Better known by the sobriquet "Ozzy," the cofounding lead singer of Black Sabbath who later turned uber-successful solo artist and still later became a reality TV star was deeply in love with the Fab Four. Osbourne passed away on July 22, 2025, at age 76.

A working-class lad from Birmingham, England, Osbourne saw music as his way out. Those Beatles records were the gateway. "I have such great respect for the Beatles," he told me when we sat down together for an interview at Sony's New…

If you find yourself in Monaco on a Sunday night, make your way to La Note Bleue, a rant and music bar on the beach by the Avenue Princesse Grace. There, you're likely to find a legendary world/fusion guitarist sitting in with a group of young jazz musicians eager to cut heads with the acknowledged maestro of inner awareness and otherworldly spirits. Forever known to some as "Mahavishnu," you can call him by his birth name, John McLaughlin.

"Yes, I have a little group here at my local jazz restaurant," McLaughlin said during a recent Zoom call from his…

The Moody Blues could very easily have been one of those sidelined, notched-cover footnotes, but they altered their gameplan when guitarist/vocalist Justin Hayward and bassist/vocalist John Lodge joined the fold a few years after the chart success of "Go Now" in 1964 (footnote 1).

Lodge, who passed away at age 82 on October 10,…

The familiarity of that signature Stranger synth bed should in turn lead your ingrained sound-sense memory to conjure the music of Tangerine Dream, the…

Fabulous music. Fabulous playing. Excellent mastering. That sums up this issue of four works composed for the great violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, 63, to mark the 50th anniversary of her 1976 stage debut at the Lucerne Festival. The first in a series of recordings of premieres…

The last time my head turned when a recording received "Best of Month" notice from several magazines was in 2023, when Warner released Antonio Pappano's Turandot. The time before that was 26 years ago when Sony released pianist Murray Perahia's spiritually…

Dark Side of the Moon is one of those rare albums that has fostered an entire mythology that continues to evolve. Floydian lore reached a peak a few years back with the madcap theory that the band had recorded the music as an alternative soundtrack for the film The Wizard of Oz.

Instead, DSotM is simply an extraordinarily inspired work…