Shopping List: The New and the Notable
Anat Cohen, Noir; Poetica (Anzic)
On her two new albums, reed diva Anat Cohen performs music from New Orleans, Brazil, Cape Verde, France, and her native Israel. She focuses on saxophone on Noir, an almost cinematic big band album with arranger Oded Lev-Ari. I prefer her more lyrical clarinet playing on Poetica, where she leads a quartet featuring the fine pianist Jason Lindner.
John Platania, Blues, Waltzes and Badland Borders (Train Wreck)
A documentary for your ears, former Van Morrison guitarist John Platania's mostly instrumental album offers a tour through the musical highways and byways of Texas. Platania's playing is always suitably spacious, whether summoning the revolutionary spirit of Emiliano Zapata (with the help of Lucinda Williams), eulogizing George Harrison in "Song for the Quiet One," or cranking out barroom blues in "Texas Sexy Ways."
Slavic Soul Party!, Teknochek Collision (Barbès)
Loud and proud, modernized brass bands like Slavic Soul Party! have been popping up like mushrooms lately. Jazz drummer Matt Moran leads this bombastic nine-piece Brooklyn combo, an oom-pah juggernaut that adds hip-hop beats, New Orleans second-line rhythms, gospel call-and-response, and the occasional jazz solo to ecstatic Balkan and Rom/Gypsy standards.
Los Zafiros: Music From the Edge of Time (Shout! Factory DVD)
Inspired by American doo-wop groups like the Platters and the Spaniels, Los Zafiros were the Beatles of Cuba during the sixties, when they sang boleros, ballads, and doo-wop with a simmering Afro-Cuban pulse. Filmmaker Lorenzo DeStefano does a fine job of restoring their stature in this documentary full of archival photos, nostalgic Havana encounters, and, of course, the deliriously evocative music itself.