Music and Recording Reviews

Diskonife: Audible Spirits; John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy: Evenings at the Village Gate; Joe Henderson: The Complete "An Evening with Joe Henderson"; Matt Otto: Kansas City Trio.

Pet Shop Boys: Smash: The Singles 1985–2020; R.E.M.: Around the Sun and Collapse Into Now; Hot Tuna: Live at Sweetwater 1, Live at Sweetwater 2, Live in Japan.

Mozart: Symphonies 29 & 33, Clarinet Concerto; Bruckner, Bates: Symphony No.7; Resurrexit; Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II: Carousel; Sibelius, Prokofiev: Violin Concerto; Violin Concerto 1.

Pearl Jam: Dark Matter; English Teacher: This Could Be Texas; Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore with The Guilty Ones: TexiCali; Guided By Voices: Strut of Kings.

Mahler: Symphony 9, Park Avenue Chamber Symphony/David Bernard; Anna Clyne: Abstractions, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop; Steve Reich: Jacob's Ladder | Traveler's Prayer, Synergy Vocals, New York Philharmonic/Japp van Zweden, Colin Currie Group; Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem; Winter Words; The Prince of the Pagodas, Nicky Spence, tenor; London Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner.

Wet Leg: Moisturizer; Matt Berninger: Get Sunk; Ty Segall: Possession.

Big Chief Monk Boudreaux: Bloodstains & Teardrops
Whiskey Bayou Records WSK 1006 (CD). 2021. Tab Benoit, Rueben Williams, prods.; Steven Stanley, Michael "Boxy" Howell, Benoit, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****

The Africans brought to the Americas to be sold into slavery were denied every vestige of their past except their memories. And yet, they preserved their rituals in dances, songs, and stories, playing the sacred rhythms that accompanied those rituals on whatever found objects they could use to fashion beats. The customs of American peoples from various African regions have been traced to specific destinations in colonial outposts in research detailed by scholars such as John Storm Roberts in Black Music of Two Worlds and Ned Sublette in several of his African-diaspora studies.