Music

David Buchbinder, "Odessa/Havana" (Tzadik)
Pianist-composer Hilario Durán's Cuban rhythms ignite trumpeter-composer David Buchbinder's Jewish jazz in this project echoing Miles Davis's "Sketches of Spain," Dizzie Gillespie and Machito's "Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods," and "Fiddler on the Roof." Minor-key klezmer freylechs evolve into blazing mambos in the hands of Buchbinder's top-notch Canadian tentet.

Bob Dylan, "The Other Side of the Mirror: Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965" (CMV/Legacy DVD)
Context is everything. Although Bob Dylan played only two electric songs ("Maggie's Farm" and "Like a Rolling Stone") at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, the event's subsequent mythologizing would suggest a substantially more radical assault on the folkies' delicate sensibilities. More than forty years after the fact, we can finally see what all the fuss was actually about. Murray Lerner filmed three Newport festivals' worth of Dylan performances, which, viewed together, depict an artist on such a rapid ascent, from shy folkie to brash rock star, that even his folk tunes, protest music, and surreal love songs (never mind the brief electric interlude) resonate with larger-than-life confidence and authority. Captured in no-frills black-and-white, Dylan was busy being born indeed.

Marvin Gaye, "Here, My Dear" (Hip-O Select)
"Somebody tell me please, tell me please," croons one of the twentieth century's most talented and tragic voices, "Why do I have to pay attorney fees?" We'll never know exactly how many albums have been released solely to fulfill divorce settlements, but this one was. Released in 1978, Marvin Gaye's autobiographical double-vinyl album remains a deeply personal and ambivalent musical account of his marriage to, and divorce from, Anna Gordy Gaye, to whom all its profits were rendered. A commercial failure at the time, "Here, My Dear" now stands as something of a masterpiece. Gaye's rich, detailed, and deeply personal epic encompasses everything from the sultry confusion of its thrice-repeated centerpiece, "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You," to the psychedelic soul of "Anger" and "A Funky Space Reincarnation." A bonus disc includes demos and alternate versions of what could well turn out to be the best album of 2008.

Nilson Matta/Zé Luis/Paulo Braga, "Green Heart" (Orbita)
Three highly regarded Brazilian instrumtalists—bassist Nilson Matta, flutist-saxophonist Zé Luis, and drummer Paulo Braga—are featured on a few different tracks each on this environmentally themed album of sophisticated Brazilian jazz. Guitarist Romero Lubambo joins Matta for a pair of rumbling sambas, while Luis concentrates on material by bossa nova godfather Antonio Carlos Jobim with his trio, tRio Zona Sul. Braga, however, steals the show by jazzing up traditional rhythms with a small, craftily arranged ensemble. (Watch him perform "Balakundê," one of his four tracks, here.)

Ravi Shankar, "The Concert for World Peace" (A&E)
The closest you'll ever get to being onstage with Pandit Ravi Shankar, this unusually intimate and highly recommended DVD focuses on the fingers and faces of the sitar legend and his accompanists during a 1993 Royal Albert Hall benefit performance. Smiles abound as Shankar, 73 at the time, leads young pups Zakir Hussain (tabla) and Partho Sarathy (sarod) through the labyrinthine passages of ragas Kirvani and Misra Khammaj.

"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street—The Motion Picture Soundtrack" (Nonesuch)
A far cry from John Doyle's 2006 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's dark tour de force, wherein Patty LuPone and ensemble sang, acted, danced, and provided their own musical accompaniment, Tim Burton's film adaptation casts non-singing movie stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in the lead roles of the bloodthirsty barber and his pie-baking accomplice, Mrs. Lovett. Burton's risk seems to have paid off. Not only is the film getting great reviews, but Depp and Carter hardly embarrass themselves by tilting the score toward its dramatic extremes.

"Conquer the World: The Lost Soul of Philadelphia International Records" (Philadelphia International/Legacy)
Compiled as a vinyl-only supplement to Legacy's recent "Essential" Lou Rawls and Teddy Pendergrass compilations, and recorded originally for producers-songwriters Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's influential record label, "Conquer the World" boasts thoroughly funky and fun tracks. The tunes sound all the fresher today for having languished in the archives since their original releases failed to ignite the world. Highlights include Bunny Sigler's cinematically arranged "Theme for Five Fingers of Death," David Sigler and Dee Dee Sharp's triumphant "Conquer the World Together," and Ruth McFadden's gritty "Ghetto Woman (Parts 1 & 2)," but the entire record's a treasure.

"The Great Debaters—Music from & Recorded for the Motion Picture" (Atlantic)
Sharon Jones is the star of this album devoted to great old and new blues, jazz, and gospel from Denzel Washington's upcoming movie about the debate team of a small African-American college. Jones ignites the Saturday-night roadhouse blues of "Wild About That Thing" and the Sunday-morning gospel incantation "My Soul Is a Witness." Jones also nicely uplifts a pair of tracks with the Billy Rivers & the Angelic Voices of Faith. Alvin "Youngblood" Hart and The Carolina Chocolate Drops string band team up for the excellent rural revivalism of "Busy Bootin'" and "City of Refuge."

"The Holy Modal Rounders . . . Bound to Lose" (Badbird Productions DVD)
This fascinating, downbeat, and sometimes cringe-inducing documentary focuses less on psychedelic folk-rockers the Holy Modal Rounders in their entirety than on the complicated relationship of the group's two founders, Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber. Tension mounts as the band plans its fortieth-anniversary show. Will Weber, the band's brilliant yet deeply troubled star, make it to the gig? Longtime Rounders drummer Sam Shepard, former Monkee Peter Tork, and Dennis Hopper, who featured the group's "Bird Song" in "Easy Rider," all weigh in on the band's tragic genius.

"Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Music (1918-1955)" (Dust to Digital)
In the spirit of musician-archivist Pat Conte's groundbreaking Secret Museum of Mankind series, Ian Nagoski's "Black Mirror" reintroduces 78-rpm releases from around the world, mostly recorded in order to introduce foreign audiences to the potential joys of phonograph ownership. The 24 tracks on this album, from nearly as many different nations, are warm and scratchy and often-beautiful mementos of a time when villages were anything but global.

Betty Harris, "Intuition" (Evidence)
Sixty-eight-year-old soul singer Betty Harris, of 1963's "Cry to Me" fame, returns from a 40-year recording hiatus with an impassioned, and refreshingly nostalgia-free, new album. Having sung exclusively in church during the interim, it's no surprise that a fiery gospel spirit informs Harris, the Alabama-raised daughter of two preachers. Jon and Sally Tivens wrote her solid new material.

Keali'I Reichel, "Kukahi—Live in Concert" (Punahele DVD)
Kukahi may mean "to stand alone," but this popular Hawaiian performer gets a lot of help from his own hula troupe on this prettily shot survey of traditional and contemporary music and dance from the islands. After changing his loincloth for shirt and pants, Reichel picks up his guitar and sings a mellifluous assortment of tunes from throughout his career. Bonus features include a nice segment featuring Reichel's hula guru, Uncle George Holokai, who died last year.

Rufus Wainwright, "Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall" (Geffen CD), "Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy! Live at the London Palladium" (Geffen DVD)
Not Judy Garland but an incredible simulation, Rufus Wainwright elevates the concept of camp to an only slightly ironic new level with his recreation of Garland's legendary April 23, 1961, Carnegie Hall performance. Wainwright's evocation of Garland's pained and passionate spirit also functions as a knowing celebration of contemporary gay culture, complete with 40-piece orchestra.

Donald Fagen "Nightfly Trilogy" (Reprise)
Donald Fagen, the adenoidal vocalist and keyboard-playing half of radio-pop sophisticates Steely Dan, has quietly accrued a trio of terrific solo albums now being released collectively. Soul meets science fiction on 1982's "Nightfly," 1993's futuristic "Kamakiriad," and last year's utterly delightful "Morph the Cat." Each volume is delivered in both CD and surround-sound DVD formats, with bonus interviews and videos, and a fourth CD contains 10 extra tracks.

Kitka, "The Rusalka Cycle: Songs Between Two Worlds" (Diaphonica)
The nine-woman Bay Area vocal ensemble Kitka's new album is inspired by the unsettled spirits known to Slavic folklore as Rusalki, the souls of women whose unjust deaths are lamented annually in the Ukraine. Assisted by Ukrainian singer Mariana Sadovska, Kitka's moving theatrical song cycle strongly resembles Bulgarian folk music in its close, keening a cappella harmonies. This music, however, has taken on additional weight from the Chernobyl disaster, which has added environmental import to Rusalka rituals.

Youssou N'Dour, "Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take)" (Nonesuch)
Listening to Senegalese star Youssou N'Dour's band rip through their electrifying versions of West African tribal sounds makes most Western pop sound rhythmically anemic in comparison. Then there's Youssou's voice, a magnificent sort of virtuosic chirping that dips, dodges, and swerves in between his band's thrilling syncopations. This is dance music as high art.

Kenny Vance and the Planotones, "Countdown to Love" (Collectables)
Who knew that serious doo-wop was alive and well in the suburbs of Long Island? Jay and the Americans founding member Kenny Vance stays true to the style's roots without yielding to corny nostalgia on an album that mixes mostly unplugged doo-wop standards, such as "You Cheated" and "Girl in My Dreams," with innovative doo-wop versions of rock ("Louie Louie") and pop ("Anyone Who Had a Heart") classics, not to mention his wonderful new title track.

A selection of seasonal recordings deposited down our chimney:

"The Holiday Tribute to AC/DC"
"Snowfall: The Tony Bennett Christmas Album" (CD and DVD)
"A Christmas Celtic Sojourn" (CD and DVD)
"Christmas with the Chipmunks"
"Christmas with the Rat Pack"
"Country Christmas"
"Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas"
"The Holiday Tribute to Green Day"
Josh Groban, "Noel"
Merle Haggard, "Hag's Christmas"
Amy Hanaiali'I, "A Hawaiian Christmas"
"Home for Christmas: Voices From the Heartland"
The Isley Brothers, "I'll Be Home for Christmas"
Kidz Bop Kids, "The Coolest Kidz Bop Christmas Ever"
Dave Koz, "Memories of a Winter's Night"
Patti LaBelle, "Miss Patti's Christmas"
Larry the Cable Guy, "Christmastime in Larryland"
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra, "Very Ping Pong Christmas: Funky Treats From Santa's Bag"
Raul Malo, "Marshmallow World & Other Holiday Favorites"
"And Christmas for All! The Holiday Tribute to Metallica"
"Monster Ballads Xmas"
NRBQ, "Christmas Wish" (Deluxe Edition)
"Oh Santa! New and Used Holiday Classics From Yep Roc Records"
"A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra"
"Slack Key Christmas"
"Slow Jams for Christmas"
Mindy Smith, "My Holiday"
The Staple Singers, "The 25th Day of December"
Keith Sweat, "A Christmas of Love"
"Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Favorite Selections, Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra"
"Ultra Lounge Presents: Best of Christmas Cocktails"
Dionne Warwick, "My Favorite Time of the Year"
Yo Yo Yo Kids, "Yo, It's Christmas"

Tony Bennett, "Tony Bennett Sings the Ultimate American Songbook, Vol. 1" (RPM/Columbia/Legacy)
This not overly generous 46-minute anthology takes its place alongside "The Essential Tony Bennett," "The Ultimate Tony Bennett," "Fifty Years—The Artistry of Tony Bennett," and at least half a dozen other Bennett best-ofs released since the singer was "rediscovered" by the MTV generation several years ago. Yet Bennett's consistency may be his greatest asset. His 1997 "The Way You Look Tonight" sounds no less solid than "The Very Thought of You" from 1966 that precedes it and the 1958 "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodnight" that follows.

Paul McCartney, "The McCartney Years" (Rhino DVD)
Who knew that the cute, silly-love-song-writing Beatle had accrued two DVDs' worth of videos? Nostalgia is the name of McCartney's game. Whether acting out songs in faux WWII music halls, portraying rock stars from Buddy Holly to his Fab Four self, or acting out an elaborate Old West snake-oil scenario with Michael Jackson, McCartney nearly always keeps a foot in some idealized past. Much of the rest resembles one elaborate home movie after another, all adding up to an extended tribute to the late Linda McCartney. Or at least Paul's doleful commentary suggests as much. The box's third disc contains Wings onstage in 1976, four "Unplugged" songs from 1991, and a 2004 rock-festival performance.

Phish, "Vegas 96" (JEMP)
This may not have been the best show ever played by the most consistently creative American rock band of the past couple of decades, but it may well have been their most fun. Guitarist-songwriter Trey Anastasio took full advantage of the locale and topped off the band's show with a 40-minute encore that integrated guest yodelers, a quartet of Elvis impersonators, and members of the band Primus into a shaggy-dog rock opera (think Frank Zappa meets Pete Townshend) about a boy and his pet cat. Elsewhere on this three-CD set you'll find a slick cover of Zappa's "Peaches En Regalia" and long stretches of improvised rock to rival The Who's "Live at Leeds."

"City of Dreams: A Collection of New Orleans Music" (Rounder)
No single box set could possibly contain the cornucopia of styles and personalities that distinguish New Orleans music. "City of Dreams," however, provides a rock-solid introduction to the scene on four CDs representing the Crescent City's R&B voices, Mardi Gras street sounds, funky fundamentals, and unique piano stylists, respectively—from Al Johnson's "Carnival Time" to Tuts Washington's "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?"

Nat King Cole, "Welcome to the Club/Tell Me All About Yourself," "Penthouse Serenade/The Piano Style of Nat King Cole" (Collectors' Choice)
Nat King Cole recorded almost exclusively for Capitol Records, and Collectors' Choice is reissuing nearly all his 18 albums as a series of nine twofers. These two packages focus on the often-neglected jazz side of Cole's quintessentially cool artistic persona. Cole meets the Count Basie Big Band on "Welcome to the Club," with arrangements by Capitol's in-house jazz czar Dave Cavanaugh, who also shepherds him through "Tell Me All About Yourself." "Penthouse Serenade" and "The Piano Style of Nat King Cole" focus on Cole's underrated jazz instrumentals, which could be as richly romantic as his vocals.

"The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 8: 1968" (Motown)
Sixty-eight was as tumultuous a year for Motown Records as for the rest of the country. But even the departure of the legendary writing team of Brian and Edward Holland and Lamont Dozier couldn't keep this hit machine down, as demonstrated by the 144 titles on these six smoking CDs. The five tracks by the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and the Temptations, which half-filled Billboard magazine's year-end Top-10, were just the icing on the cake.

Josh Roseman, "New Constellations" (Accurate)
Brooklyn trombonist Josh Roseman taps into his Jamaican roots on a live album that brilliantly channels and updates ska greats the Skatalites' own 'bone man, Don Drummond (1932-69). Roseman mixes originals with two Drummond tunes, a couple of reggae classics, and the Beatles' "I Should Have Known Better" on an album that demonstrates that avant-garde jazz and sheer entertainment need not be mutually exclusive categories.

The Beatles, "Help!" (Capitol/Apple DVD)
The Beatles' second movie with director Richard Lester was a colorful contrast to the black-and-white revelation of "A Hard Day's Night." With their increasing clout, the Beatles could shift the focus off their private lives (at least on film) and compel Lester to shoot this 1965 James Bond takeoff in the Bahamas and the Alps, while inventing the modern rock video along the way. It's great, lightweight fun all the same, the newly restored print looks terrific, and the band's seven songs are more than adequate.

Carla Bley, "The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu" (ECM)
Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu joins pianist Carla Bley and her sterling quintet for an album focusing on Bley's six-part (!) "Banana Quintet." Bley writes and performs with the cool lucidity of a perfect dry martini, even when the music drifts briefly into rock territory. Compositions such as "Death of Superman/Dream Sequence #1—Flying," inspired by the life and death of Christopher Reeve, epitomize Bley's inspiring autumnal intelligence and jazz cool in general.

Gram Parsons, "Archive Volume One" (Amoeba/Fontana)
In April 1969, alternative-country pioneers Gram Parsons (1946-73) and the Flying Burrito Brothers opened a couple of San Francisco shows for the Grateful Dead, in whose vaults the music languished. Parsons sings Willie Nelson, Mel Tillis, and Hank Williams on this double-CD album consisting of two nearly identical shows, as well as self-described "cosmic country" originals, such as "Sin City," "Hot Burrito #1," and "Thousand Dollar Wedding." Parsons is a compelling, if emotionally limited singer, and pedal-steel guitarist Sneaky Pete Kleinow is his secret weapon.

James Brown, "The Singles Volume Four: 1966-1967" (Hip-O Select.com)
The hardest-screaming man in show biz delivered something for everybody during the period represented on this remarkable 42-track double album. In addition to many smoking R&B hits with his Famous Flames, James Brown also released big-band instrumentals, Floyd Cramer-influenced Christmas songs, his own simmering organ grooves, and Nat King Cole-like crossover bids such as "I Loves You Porgy." And then there's "Cold Sweat," the loose-limbed rhythm explosion that turned soul music on its ear and introduced the phrase "Give the drummer some" into the funk lexicon.

Levon Helm, "Dirt Farmer" (Dirt Farmer Music/Vanguard)
Following a long battle with throat cancer, and a serious studio fire, The Band's former drummer-vocalist survives to sing about miners, train robbers, farmers, and farmers' daughters, on his first solo album in 25 years. Concentrating on traditional tunes, such as "False Hearted Lover Blues" and "Poor Old Dirt Farmer," which 67-year-old Levon Helm learned growing up in Arkansas, "Dirt Farmer" also includes twangy takes on Steve Earle's "The Mountain" and Julie and Buddy Miller's "Wide River to Cross."

Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette, "My Foolish Heart" (ECM)
According to his liner notes, this 2001 Montreux Jazz Festival concert marks the apex of pianist Keith Jarrett's 25-year involvement with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette—at least in terms of "swinging, energy, and personal ecstasy." From Miles Davis's "Four" to the "Only the Lonely" encore, these two CDs overflow with invention while offering a crash course in jazz history.

Youssou N'Dour, "Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take)" (Nonesuch)
In addition to adding tinges of blues, reggae, and Cuba to his primary regional style, mbalax, Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour draws from other parts of Senegal on a record that combines virtuosic singing with complex skittering rhythms and jazzy improvisations. His Super Etoile band is nothing short of dazzling, and Youssou himself marvelously displays the strength and resilience of African culture to the world at large.

Shooter Jennings, "The Wolf" (Universal Records South)
He may be the son of Waylon, but there's not a lot of outlaw to be heard on Shooter Jennings's third album. Which isn't to say it disappoints. Shooter's 357s band is a hard-rocking vehicle for rollicking road songs ("Higher"), cosmic country balladry ("Tangled Up in Roses," "Blood From a Stone"), and celebrations of Shooter's pedigree.

Robert Plant/Alison Krauss, "Raising Sand" (Rounder)
Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and bluegrass-pop star Alison Krauss, along with producer T-Bone Burnett, have together fashioned a fairly brilliant blend of country, blues, gospel, and vintage rock that at its best could almost be an unheard American genre unto itself. Their music is dark, dusty, and full of grief, yet glorious all the same.

Taraf de Haidouks, "Maskarada" (Crammed)
Romania's most sophisticated Gypsy ensemble reclaims East-European folk melodies borrowed by classical composers on this clever carnival of an album. Since Taraf's members don't read music, they had to learn such works as Bela Bartok's "Romanian Folk Dances" and Albert Keitelby's "In a Persian Market" by ear, making them sound as fresh as the group's zesty originals.

Dwight Yoakam, "Dwight Sings Buck" (New West)
Having drawn idol Buck Owens out of retirement for "The Streets of Bakersfield" in 1988, Dwight Yoakam eases the pain of the California country star's 2006 passing on "Dwight Sings Buck." "Cryin' Time" and "Close Up the Honky Tonks" are among the highlights of one of the classier single-artist tributes in years.

Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Best of the 'Flatt & Scruggs' TV Show, Volumes 3 and 4" (Shanachie DVDs)
Performing on a set resembling a cracker-barrel country store, Flatt & Scruggs sing country classics and turn-of-the-century gospel, entertain guests such as seven-year-old mandolin prodigy Ricky Skaggs, and play straightmen to their band's corny comedy on four shows (two per volume) from 1961 and '62. Sponsor Martha White's live commercials for self-rising flour are no less entertaining.

Aretha Franklin, "Rare and Unreleased Recordings From the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul" (Atlantic/Rhino)
There's hardly a less-than-impressive track on this double-CD set of demos and outtakes from Aretha Franklin's fertile late-'60s stint at Atlantic Records. Label co-founder Jerry Wexler serves as guide for this tour through the two-year creative whirlwind during which Aretha cut four studio albums and a live disc. The combination of Franklin's powerful gospel-trained voice, the top-notch material, and finely crafted arrangements makes for an unbeatable journey into soul music's golden era.

Bob Marley and the Wailers, "Exodus (30th Anniversary Edition)" (Island/Tuff Gong/Universal); "Exodus—Live at the Rainbow (30th Anniversary Edition)" (Universal Music Group DVD)
Reggae star Bob Marley's first international hit album was recorded while he resided in London in self-imposed exile after being shot in Jamaica in 1976. Exodus brilliantly balances the romantic beauty of "One Love" and "Three Little Birds" with the political condemnation and consciousness-raising fervor of "Guiltiness," "Exodus," and "The Heathen." The London Rainbow concert is a perfect time capsule of an icon and band captured at the height of their career.

Umphrey's McGee, "Live at the Murat" (SCI Fidelity)
This Midwestern sextet is probably the most consistently entertaining and innovative improvisational rock band in the country, at least onstage. Sparked by Miles Davis, the Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, and Chet Atkins, among numerous other influences, Umphrey's members are gifted instrumentalists and consummate listeners who blend progressive-rock smarts with arena-rock muscle, then play the results with an emotional lilt and refreshing sense of humor.

Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Mahler 5 (Deutsche Grammophon)
Twenty-six-year-old Gustavo Dudamel was recently selected to succeed Esa-Pekka Salonen as the Los Angeles Philharmonic next music director. His assured and sympathetic navigation of this irrepressible Venezuelan Youth Orchestra through the dramatic twists and turns of Mahler's Fifth Symphony justifies his new gig.

Habib Koité & Bamada, Afriki (Cumbancha/Contre Jour)
Bonnie Raitt's just one supporter of guitarist Habib Koité, the Mali neotraditionalist and leader of Bamada, a band that specializes in high yet understated energy and loping grooves. The real magic arrives whenever balafon (wooden xylophone) elder Kélétigui Diabaté raises his musical voice in songs that urge African independence, praise motherhood, and celebrate Malian culture.

Bettye LaVette, The Scene of the Crime (Anti-)
"I was singin' R&B back in '62/ Before you were born and your mama, too," wails Bettye LaVette in the autobiographical "Before the Money Came (Battle of Bettye LaVette)." Sixty-something LaVette, one of the greatest soul singers you've probably never heard, is the real deal. The Scene of the Crime, recorded in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and backed by the brawny alt-rock group Drive-By Truckers, packs a powerful punch with a country twist. This career summation has promise to spare.

The Pizzarelli Boys, Sunday at Pete's (Challenge)
On this charmingly unadorned album of instrumental jazz, guitarist John Pizzarelli, his rhythm-guitarist father Bucky, and his bassist brother Martin recreate family evenings spent picking, singing, and jamming along to the likes of "Sweet Sue," "Alabamy Bound," and "Yes Sir! That's My Baby" at their uncle's dinner table. With music this relaxed and casual, even the mistakes sound good.

John Fogerty, Revival (Fantasy)
As the title suggests, the John Fogerty solo album fans have been waiting for since Creedence Clearwater Revival's 1972 breakup has arrived. The seething, choogling guitarist celebrates his legacy in the self-explanatory "Creedence Song" and "Summer of Love"; castigates contemporary politics in "Gunslinger," "Long Dark Night," and "I Can't Take It No More"; and dreams of a better future in "Don't You Wish It Was True" on this simple, direct, and deeply affecting rock 'no roll punch to the gut.

Merle Haggard, Bluegrass Sessions (McCoury Music)
The Hag wisely chose to record his first bluegrass album "living-room" style with no frills and everyone singing around a single microphone. The country legend's compellingly world-weary voice anchors a live band picking intimate new versions of hits like "Big City," feisty new tunes like "Holding Things Together," and bluegrass standards like the Delmore Brothers' "Blues Stay Away From Me."

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone)
Let's hear it for late bloomers. After years of uncredited studio work, fiftyish Sharon Jones and Brooklyn's Dap-Kings band have become the go-to soul providers for artists ranging from Kanye West to Amy Winehouse. Make the acquaintance of this powerful old-school funk force with her most solid and soulful work to date.

Herbie Hancock, The Joni Letters (Verve); Joni Mitchell, Shine (Hear Music)
Joni Mitchell's cigarette-sanded voice on her first album of new material since 1998's Taming the Tiger turns out to be an apt vehicle for songs bemoaning overpopulation, environmental degradation, warfare, cell-phone abusers, and other contemporary maladies. And while her remake of "Big Yellow Taxi" is sung as an I-told-you-so without the original's concluding giggle, the title track promises a little redemption for everyone under the sun. Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock's wonderful interpretations of Mitchell's music unpacks the emotions underlying the words in wonderful instrumentals and with guest vocalists including Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Leonard Cohen, and Mitchell herself. (You can hear a stream of Hancock's entire album here.)

Miles Davis: The Complete On the Corner Sessions (Columbia/Legacy)
If you enjoy tablas, German electronics, and hectoring wah-wah trumpet with your jazz-funk, Miles Davis's 1972 On the Corner is the record for you. The Complete On the Corner Sessions collects three years' worth of studio work surrounding this landmark fusion album on six CDs, including two hours of unreleased Miles. More is indeed more.

Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino (Vanguard)
Fats Domino abides. You can't beat the cause (instruments for New Orleans students and a Lower Ninth Ward community center) or the star power behind Goin' Home. John Lennon ("Ain't That a Shame"), Tom Petty ("I'm Walkin'"), Elton John ("Blueberry Hill"), Dr. John ("Don't Leave Me This Way"), and B.B. King ("Goin' Home") bring it all back home on this double-CD benefit package.

Billie Holiday, Lady Day: The Master Takes and Singles (Columbia/Legacy)
Reconnect with chameleonlike jazz icon Billie Holiday via Lady Day. This sublime eighty-track, four-CD set begins with Holiday's relatively blithe 1935 recordings, continues through her memorable association with saxophonist Lester Young, and concludes with a true star exploring the darker aspects of her persona in 1942.

Nellie McKay, Obligatory Villagers (Hungry Mouse)
This perky politico in updated Doris Day dresses suffers no fools gladly or otherwise on Obligatory Villagers, a jazzy froth of bouncing tunes, swinging arrangements, and man-the-barricades rebellion. She also revives the womanly wit of cabaret icons such as Annie Ross and Blossom Dearie with half-rapped, half-sung lines like "kittens high-hattin', sittin' on satin with a host who's catnip-fond."

All My Loving (MVD Visual DVD)
John Lennon helped director Tony Palmer book Cream, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and, uh, Lulu for this 1968 BBC documentary that still packs a significant wallop. Color-saturated performances are punctuated by sensationalist musings on this crazy new "pop music," as it's referred to throughout; articulate interviews with Paul McCartney, Frank Zappa, and Donovan; and some grim footage from Vietnam and Germany.

Gloria Estefan, 90 Millas (Sony International)
Gloria Estefan musically bridges the ninety miles separating her Cuban homeland from her Florida home on 90 Millas. The Spanish-language album follows four years after her Anglocentric Unwrapped. In addition to Carlos Santana's seismic soloing on "No Llore" (Don't Cry), this thoroughly danceable disc boasts a who's who of Caribbean stars such as trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, bassist Cachao, and singer Giovanni Hidalgo.

Emmylou Harris, Songbird: Rare Tracks & Forgotten Gems (Rhino)
Songbird spans the length and breadth of this highfalutin crooner's nearly forty-year career. Consisting largely of live tracks, alternate takes, compilation one-shots, and guest appearances with the likes of Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, Harris's four-CD set is a superb testament to one of country's defining talents.

Prefab Sprout, Steve McQueen (Legacy)
This britpop classic released originally as Two Wheels Good in 1985 has lost none of its luster over the years. Songwriter Paddy McAloon's masterpiece contains songs about desire and loss in consumer culture and, like the Kinks' Muswell Hillbillies, it combines American country music with a distinctive British sensibility. A myriad of new musical details shine forth in Thomas Dolby's remastered version of the album he also produced. A bonus disc recorded by McAloon last year contains reworked acoustic versions of its contents.

Dee Dee Bridgewater, Red Earth (Emarcy)
Ella Fitzgerald acolyte Dee Dee Bridgewater traveled to Mali in order to reinvent herself as, well, herself. Many of Mali's finest singers and instrumentalists join the Tennesee-born singer on an album that blends traditional tunes and rhythms with Africa-inspired jazz standards like "Afro Blue" and "Footprints."

Cinematic: Classic Film Music Remixed (Six Degrees); Hollywood's Greatest Hits: Classic Music From the Movies (Primary Wave)
The Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra performs action-packed and emotionally charged film themes by the likes of Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, and Duke Ellington on Hollywood's Greatest Hits. The same tracks are given loving and ingenious remix treatments by a world-class assortment of producers and DJs on Cinematic. Highlights include Anglo-Italian producer Gaudi's pagan expansion of Pino Donaggio's theme from Carrie and The Real Tuesday Weld's vintage reworking of Ellington's romantic jazz for Paris Blues.

Joe Henry, Civilians (Anti-)
"Our Song," the elegiac six-minute centerpiece of this accomplished producer's rich and mournful new album, begins with a sighting of Willie Mays in a Scottsdale, Arizona, Home Depot. This fantasy image of the America's best in aging repose resonates throughout an album that mixes thoroughly adult ruminations on married life with gruff musings of life in these United States. It's beautifully performed throughout by the likes of Van Dyke Parks and Bill Frisell, and will likely make you either very happy or very sad.

Oakley Hall, I'll Follow You (Merge)
This rollicking Brooklyn country-rock group is named after the author of the "Legends West" series, the Western equivalent of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." This trivial bit of good taste extends throughout their four albums to date. Their latest makes a rocking right turn from its more sixtiesfied predecessor, Gypsum Strings. Guitars, fiddle, lap steel, and ragged-but-right male-female harmonizing rarely sounds so spiffy as in tracks like "Free Radicals Lament" and "Take My Hands, We're Free."

Peter Case, Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John (Yep Rock)
Peter Case, who received a taste of rock stardom during the seventies in Los Angeles's Plimsouls, knows whereof he sings in "Palookville," the centerpiece of this strong, honest collection of acoustic tracks in praise of life's coulda-beens. The ghost of Woody Guthrie smiles benignly over Sleepy John, especially in Springsteenian songs such as "Million Dollar Bail," wherein Case sings about "two kinds of justice....One's for folks up on the hill, the other's down below."

Norman Granz Presents: Improvisation (Eagle Rock Entertainment DVD)
You don't see high-quality footage of Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Hank Jones, Ray Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, and Buddy Rich jazzing together every day. But this DVD captures the special 1950 occasion—with the caveat that the five tunes they play were recorded separately, and the synchronization is a tad offputting. The remainder of impressario Granz's film anthology is fairly stunning as well, particularly Joe Pass's pair of 1979 solo tunes, Duke Ellington serenading artist Joan Miro on the Cote d'Azur, Count Basie at Montreux in 1977, and Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, and Eddie Lockjaw Davis in a high-velocity cutting contest at the same festival.

Incredible String Band, Live at the Lowry (MVD Visual DVD)
If anything, the mystical, mythical bent of this legendary Scottish folk combo is even more pronounced in this 2003 concert film than when the band was bending young countercultural ears during the sixties. Mike Heron and Clive Palmer (third ISB founder Robin Williamson is elsewhere) reprise "The Hedgehog Song," "Chinese White," "A Very Cellular Song," and other more traditional numbers such as Palmer's medley of fiddle and pipe tunes.

Oliver Mtukudzi, Tsimba Itsoka (Heads Up)
The title of this Zimbabwean star's very moral album means "no foot, no footprint," and the phrase resonates throughout the lush Shona-language harmonizing. Lilting polyrhythms and echoes of Hugh Masekela's South African jazz can also be heard in songs that endorse the Golden Rule, compare life to a game of cards, and encourage responsibility, respect, and action.

Flower Power: The Music of the Love Generation (Time Life); Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 (Rhino)
Time Life's ten-CD box celebrates 175 late-sixties hits; Rhino's four-disk set focuses on the quirkier and lesser-known "misses" generated by the cultural earthquake's West Coast epicenter. The former packages tracks you've heard countless times into one convenient VW bus-decorated box; the latter features essays and track-by-track commentary on such lesser-known acts as the Vejtables, the Mourning Reign, the Harbinger Complex, and the Savage Resurrection. One box is pretty good; the other box is simply great.

Mekons, Natural (Quarterstick)
Thirty years after forming as a clamorous, politically volatile punk group in Leeds, England, and five years since their country-rock album OOOH!, the Mekons return with a despairing and mostly acoustic album recorded in the English countryside. While plenty of wit and wisdom remains in their maturing voices and creaky instruments, an undeniable pessimism colors the Mekons' ruminations on what mankind hath wrought. It's still pretty wonderful, though, and history teaches us that one should never write off a Mekon.

Bobby Osborne & the Rocky Top X-Press, Bluegrass Melodies (Rounder)
With the voice and mandolin licks of a man half his seventy-five years, bluegrass veteran Bobby Osborne continues the solo career he began in 2004 after parting musical ways with his banjo-playing brother, Sonny, with whom he performed as the Osborne Brothers. Bobby's new album sounds as straightforward as its title, with Osborne's high, lonesome voice soaring above a nimble quintet. Osborne mixes secular with sacred melodies, and I'm particularly digging his version of Vince Gill's "Go Rest High on That Mountain," a duet with Rhonda Vincent.

Toots & the Maytals, Light It Up (Fantasy)
Toots Hibbert is arguably reggae's most stylistically diverse eminence. On Light It Up he delivers a bluesy version of "Johnny Coolman" with Allman Brothers Band slide guitarist Derek Trucks, duets with blues singer Bonnie Raitt on "Premature," channels Ray Charles on "I Gotta Woman," toasts a legendary reggae producer in "Tribute to Coxson/Guns of Navarone," and returns to his rock-steady roots with "Celia."

Louis Armstrong, Live at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival; Miles Davis Quintet, Live at the 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival; Dizzy Gillespie, Live at the 1965 Monterey Jazz Festival; Thelonious Monk, Live at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival; Sarah Vaughan, Live at the 1971 Monterey Jazz Festival (MJF)
The first batch of releases from the Monterey Jazz Festival's promising new label captures an era when jazz flourished as both art and as popular entertainment. "Pops" Armstrong was more a pop singer than revolutionary jazz trumpeter by 1958, and delivers a solid set of hits. Sarah Vaughan's and Dizzy Gillespie's respective shows, on the other hand, are brilliant examples of impeccable music that reaches for the stars while keeping audiences firmly in their pocket with involving banter and, well, love. Davis and Monk, meanwhile, performed shows as deep, cerebral, and uncompromising as you'd expect. A sweet West Coast vibe, suggesting something wonderful just over the horizon, imbues all these releases, and I imagine plenty of other treasures will be forthcoming.

Greg Brown, Yellow Dog (Earthwork)
The cause—metal-sulfide mining's threat to the natural beauty of Michigan's upper peninsula—is dire, and singer-songwriter Greg Brown's music echoes with appropriate urgency on this benefit CD. Brown's set of new and rough-cut "notebook" songs paints a dark weather report of life in these United States through keenly observed lyrics and serious-business voice.

Red Meat, We Never Close (Ranchero)
California country meets Texas swing on the latest set of twangcore tunesmanship from this quintet of displaced Midwesterners who've become San Francisco honky-tonk heroes. Impeccable picking is the main appeal in their songs about thrift-store cowgirls, high-maintenance girlfriends, and hicks seeking kicks in the city.

Super Guitar Trio, Live at Montreux 1989 (Eagle Eye Media DVD)
The spirits of swinging Charlie Christian and "gypsy jazz" legend Django Reinhardt, among others, hover benignly over this sweet and dazzling display of fleet-fingered guitar artistry featuring guitarists Larry Coryell, Al Di Meola, and Biréli Lagrène. The camera dotes lovingly on the fretboards of the threesome, whose technical virtuosity makes this DVD a terrific bargain if only in terms of notes per dollar.

Christopher Denny, Age Old Hunger (00:02:59)
Arkansas singer-songwriter Christopher Denny sounds like a cross between Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Little Jimmy Scott on this unadorned slice of evergreen Americana. Kris Kristofferson's "Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)" and Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone" sound like templates for Denny originals such as "Westbound Train" and "Gypsy Carpenter" when sung by this remarkable romantic loner.

Lori McKenna, Unglamorous (Warner Bros.)
One of commercial country's best lyricists, Lori McKenna spins Raymond Carver-esque tales of small-town life on her fifth album. "D. H. Lawrence would be your favorite poet, if you thought poetry was cool," she sings around haunting pedal-steel guitar lyrics in the autobiographical "I Know You." And the fed-up wife in "Sick of That Lie" can only smirk, "Baby, we're gonna take that vacation/ Once you get that new job." Yikes.

Les Paul: Chasing Sound! (Koch DVD)
Solid-body guitar inventor Les Paul remains a charmer at ninety-two. And this jaunty video is a testament to the solid work ethic, impish charm, and inventive spirit that marked his transition from road-hungry country artist to best-selling pop jazzbo. Along the way he created multi-track recording, overdubbing, and the Gibson Les Paul, guitar of the gods. Bonus footage includes Paul playing with Tony Bennett, Keith Richards, and Merle Haggard at his ninetieth birthday bash as well as fifties footage with longtime partner Mary Ford.

Linda Thompson, Versatile Heart (Rounder)
Linda Thompson was sidelined after her seventies heyday alongside former husband Richard Thompson by a rare vocal disorder (spasmodic dysphonia) right out of an Oliver Sacks case study. Her second solo album since then consists of low-key country, folk, and rockabilly tunes sung with beautiful gravity. The live highlight, "Day After Tomorrow," is a timeless tale of a young man's regretful trek off to a war he doesn't believe in.

Zap Mama, Supermoon (Heads Up)
Multiply tracked Marie Dauine is the big, versatile voice behind this long-running fusion of Western pop fusion, African rhythms, and pygmy songs. Dauine's group has evolved over fifteen years. The latest version of Zap Mama is full of bright, busy arrangements and optimistic songs often rooted in the traditional music of Gabon, the Congo, and other West Africa hot spots.

Dave Brubeck, Indian Summer (Telarc)
The eighty-six-year-old jazz pianist takes a solo journey through the past on this unadorned and dry-eyed remembrance of standards and originals past. It begins with "You'll Never Know," recalled from his army days, and concludes with the title tune he first recorded a half-century ago.

Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead/Santana, A Night at the Family Dog (Eagle Vision DVD)
Each band plays two songs prior to their guitarists blending together into a sludgy fifteen-minute "super jam" on this excellently produced slice of psychedelia recorded in February 1970. Jefferson Airplane is the astounding standout, with Grace Slick lurking saintlike among her gnarlier bandmates. The Grateful Dead never really get into it, although watching Pigpen belt out Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" is a treat. Cute young women provide undulating ambience.

Bob Marley & the Wailers, Roots, Rock, Remixed (Quango Fontana)
It's always risky to mess with perfection. Yet the bubbling warmth and soul of Bob Marley and the Wailers originals like "Small Axe" and "Sun Is Shining" are never overshadowed by the trancey dancefloor effects added to them on Roots, Rock, Remixed, the first Marley remix album blessed and endorsed by the reggae icon's survivors.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, This Is Somewhere (Hollywood)
"She'll bake you cookies, then she'll burn your town," warns Grace Potter in "Ah, Mary," the ambivalent ode to America that kicks off This Is Somewhere. The twenty-four-year-old keyboardist's third album with the Nocturnals is a neoclassic-rock winner by a barn-burning band that lives on the road and sounds like it.

Soulive, No Place Like Soul (Stax)
Soulive used to be an instrumental trio in the venerable funk vein pioneered by Booker T. and the MGs. But new vocalist Toussaint has brings emotional depth and a reggae lilt to the group, which has found a perfect home on the rejuvenated Stax label.

Bob Brozman Orchestra, Lumiere (Riverboat/World Music Network)
National steel guitar virtuoso Bob Brozman overdubs dozens of different guitars, ukuleles, and other plucked string instruments on this (mostly) solo world tour that begins with an international tango and concludes with an Okinawan lullaby. In-between, Brozman weaves calypso, ska, South Indian, West African, and many other styles into a rich, smooth, and often quite beautiful blend.

The Doors, Live in Boston 1970 (Bright Midnight/Rhino)
According to his bandmates, Jim Morrison was "ripped" and "pie-eyed, stinko" during the two shows (the second nearly twice as long as the first) the group performed during the long evening captured here on three CDs. There are plenty of brilliant moments, though, as when Jimbo folds "Fever," "Summertime," and "St. James [!] Infirmary Blues" into an epic "Light My Fire."

Miroslav Vitous, Universal Syncopations II; Eberhard Weber, Stages of a Long Journey (ECM)
Each of these highly regarded bassists fuses jazz and classical music on respective albums packed (nearly to a fault) with ambitious ideas. Vitous uses a sampler to add choral and orchestral touches to a combo that sometimes sounds tripped up by the interventions. For the Stuttgart birthday celebration heard on his album, Weber arranged new tunes and a half-hour Birthday Suite for orchestra, vibraphonist Gary Burton, soprano saxophonist Jan Garbarek, and other soloists. The album concludes with the almost pastoral "The Last Stage of a Long Journey" and the short, elegant bass solo, "Air."

BBC Symphony Orchestra & Leon Botstein, Dukas: Ariane et Barbe-Bleu (Telarc)
For his rarely performed opera, Paul Dukas (1865-1935) transformed the Bluebeard story into a downbeat feminist parable. It begins with pitchfork-wielding villagers and ends with Ariane's lonely victory as Bluebeard's other wives realize they really can't live without the lady-killer. The only downside is that the music doesn't jump out of your speakers with as much electricity as Dukas's gorgeous score demands.

Unless you're some sort of sociopath, if you write about music long enough professionally, you'll eventually become friends with musicians, their management, or both. Unfortunately, a certain awkwardness sometimes ensues when they send you their own often quite wonderful releases for consideration, since most media outlets of any integrity would prefer, for obvious reasons, that one not review one's friends' work. But insofar as this blogger's his own editor—and because these discs are simply too excellent to ignore, and most of them won't get the coverage they deserve elsewhere—here's my take, with appropriate disclosures.

John Doe, A Year in the Wilderness (Yep Roc)
John Doe, front man for the great middle-aged Los Angeles punk group X, has actually been getting plenty of kudos for this rock-solid solo album that plays like a gritty film noir. More or less set in the singer's despairing hotel room, it's a glorious downer of an album, featuring a singer who aspires to redemption by 'fessing fully to his failures. (Doe's manager is a family friend who grills a mean chicken.)

Mark Donato, I Haven't Wasted All This Time Alone; Good Loser Club (Rag & Bone Shop)
Mark Donato and Mark Lerner are former members of the wonderful Band-inspired roots renegades Flat Old World. Fittingly, they reside in upstate New York, where they continue to record dapper Americana tracks, with finely tuned emotional engines and city-slicker smarts, for Lerner's Rag & Bone Shop label). Donato's album is in large part a dark yet friendly meditation on love (a little) and death (a lot): His breathlessly sung tunes include "Everyone's Going Away" and "Speeches at My Wake." The Good Loser Club's a loose and social ensemble that performs folk, country-rock, and gospel material suitable for weddings and funerals alike. (The Marks are former New York neighbors with whom I share a deep affection for underground Chicago country/dub-reggae ensemble Souled American.)

David Gans, Twisted Love Songs (Perfectible)
Most songwriters have but a single trick up their sleeve. This Bay Area performer, on the other hand, mixes his literate and well-crafted songs with heady instrumental loops that neatly blend the organic with the digital. David Gans's love songs are far cleverer than most: "Narcissistic cathexis is my ex's pathology/ She hooks 'em and she crooks 'em and she cooks 'em with impunity," he sings in "Desert of Love." And his social criticism lies somewhere between hippie optimism, barricades-manning rage, and Firesign Theater absurdity. In "Ran Into God," She bemoans, "Fundies with their undies in a permanent twist/ Don't they know the heathen have a right to exist?" (We've been pals ever since the Grateful Dead's publicist referred me to David for a story I wrote in 1987.)

Mr. Smolin, The Crumbling Empire of White People (Nomenclature)
Barry Smolin is a smart, hip Los Angeles high-school English teacher, and Crumbling Empire sounds very much like the sort of album Thomas Pynchon (or someone who's read him very carefully) might create. One tune goes, "I lost my heart to Mata Hari/ It cost a lot of vo-dee-o-do/ Like a cross between a safari/ And a rodeo." Produced (exquisitely) by Stew, Smolin (who, like David Gans, is a Grateful Dead-obsessed radio DJ) mixes cosmic conundrums with grassroots grievance. It's not for everyone, nor would he want it to be. (I've been known to turn to Barry for advice on the care and feeding of teenagers.)

Charles Mingus, In Paris: The Complete America Session (Sunnyside); Charles Mingus Sextet With Eric Dolphy, Cornell 1964 (Blue Note)
The Cornell concert is an instant classic. Recorded only a few months before saxophonist-flutist Eric Dolphy's death (its fifteen-minute "So Long Eric" is particularly eerie), this live double-CD is a remarkable memorial a great ensemble, led by one of the century's finest and funniest composers, at the height of their musical mind-meld. The Paris sessions, recorded in 1970, represent Mingus's alleged rebirth after several depressed and impoverished years. And while it lacks the earlier album's psychic crackle, it's still a lower-key keeper filled out with a second disc of disconcerting false starts and incomplete tunes.

Joan Stiles, Hurly-Burly (Oo-Bla-Dee)
This New York pianist-educator mixes a wicked sense of humor with exemplary taste and a smoking horn section on her second album. It opens with "The Brilliant Corners of Thelonious' Jumpin' Jeep," a colorful collage of Monk and Johnny Hodges, and ends with a weird and wonderful vocal version of "In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee," a bebop tune co-written by another Stiles touchstone, Mary Lou Williams.

Stephen Stills, Just Roll Tape, April 26, 1968 (Eyewall/Rhino)
Between his departure from Buffalo Springfield and the formation of Crosby Stills and Nash, Stephen Stills spontaneously recorded a reel of demos in a New York studio following a session by then-girlfriend Judy Collins. This low-tech, Stills-freak treausre trove includes blueprints of future CSN classics such as "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "Wooden Ships" as well as Stills solo tunes like "Change Partners" and "Black Queen."

Teddy Thompson, Upfront and Down Low (Verve)
Richard and Linda Thompson's son does justice to a dozen country and western classics on his third album. His secret weapon is strings player Greg Leisz, who bring considerable credibility to songs by Ernest Tubb, Dolly Parton, and Boudleaux Bryant. The big surprise, though, is Thompson's title track, a tune every bit as haunting as any other drinking and hurting hit on this tear-stained collection.

Suzanne Vega, Beauty & Crime (Blue Note)
"Tom's Diner," Vega's a cappella 1987 hit, nailed her knack for capturing New York street life. On Beauty & Crime, her album-length love song to her hometown, Vega warns a visiting businessman that "she will make you cry" in "New York Is a Woman." Vega might even have another club hit in "Unbound."

Caliente y Picante (Time Life DVD)
Salsa stars Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, and Rubén Blades are joined by rockers
Carlos Santana and Jerry Garcia at this solid Cinemax special filmed in Los Angeles's Biltmore Hotel in 1989. Garcia's rarely appeared happier onstage than he does ripping an uncharacteristically sharp-edged solo during Blades's "Muevete."

Dobet Gnahoré, Na Afriki (Cumbancha)
Born in the Ivory Coast, Dobet Gnahoré lives in France and sings in seven African languages including the Congolese pygmy whistles and tweets explored by Zap Mama. She sings about womanhood, the exploitation of children, incest, and, naturally, the need for Africans to solve their own problems on Na Afriki (To Africa) in an extremely lovely voice accompanied by a light, tight band.

Osvaldo Golijov, Oceana/Tenebrae/Three Songs (Deutsche Grammophon)
A dark undercurrent runs through the (intermittently optimistic) music of this increasingly relevant and thoroughly international composer. Brazilian singer Luciana Souza and the Atlanta Symphony Chorus give warm, watery life to Pablo Neruda's poetry in Oceana; the Kronos Quartet offers a sad, lofty view of earthly malaise in Tenebrae; and soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Atlantans unify three contrasting songs in Yiddish, Spanish, and Emily Dickinson's English.

The Gourds, Noble Creatures (Yep Roc)
Even goofy country bands can grow up, and the joys and sorrows of adulthood are all over this unabashedly literate Austin group's fun and satisfying ninth album. Twangy ballads like "Promenade" and "Last Letter" are a nice change of pace, but songwriters Kevin Russell and Jimmy Smith really get into it on the ambivalent yet nevertheless anthemic "How Will You Shine" ("Sleeping like a fat raccoon/ A diabetic on a honeymoon") and the spare-tire inspired ode to anticonsumerism, "A Few Extra Kilos."

Fionn Regan, The End of History (Lost Highway)
There's a definite Dylanesque sense of mystery to this twenty-six-year-old Irish songwriter who's been compared to everyone from Nick Drake to Paul Simon. And they may be right. Regan's voice is as clear and appealing as his words are cryptic, witty, and refreshingly melodic. In short, this old-fashioned guitar plucker's the real deal.

The Nels Cline Singers, Draw Breath; David Witham, Spinning the Circle (Cryptogramophone)
The lack of a vocalist in the Nels Cline Singers suggests the sort of gamesmanship Cline is constantly up to. Assuming the lead guitar role in popular country-rock band Wilco hasn't cramped his knack for ignoring the boundaries between rock, country, and jazz guitar. Cline's twenty-minute appearance on keyboardist David Witham's album is merely the icing on a somewhat more orthodox album with strong electric-Miles overtones. Great stuff all around.

Sinéad O'Connor, Theology (Koch)
"If God lived on Earth people would break his windows," writes Sinéad O'Connor in the liner notes to her gloriously indignant double album of devotional music. One CD consists of live acoustic versions of tunes given a lush studio treatment on the other. O'Connor's Christianity is closely aligned with Rastafarianism (a subtle reggae undercurrent flows throughout), and one of its highlights is O'Connor's rewritten version of "Rivers of Babylon."

The Rough Guide to North African Café (World Music Network)
An excellent introduction to recent hip sounds emanating from former French colonies Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. The album's many fascinating fusions include Maurice El Medioni's "Rai Rock Rumba" and French-Tunisian oud player's Smadj's electronically enhanced "Hat." Opportunities for future research abound on what could be my favorite Rough Guide compilation to date.

Waverly Seven, Yo! Bobby (Anzic)
There's an old-fashoned finger-snapping pizazz to these two dozen jazzed-up instrumental renditions of songs popularized by Bobby Darin. The young and talented Anzic Records stable (featuring multi-reed player Anat Cohen) has a collective blast on everything from standards such as "Skylark" and "Nature Boy" to the show tune "Artificial Flowers." The only dud would be Darin's biggest hit, "Splish Splash," which hardly swung in the first place.

The Wild Magnolias, They Call Us Wild (Sunnyside)
Preeminent New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian tribe the Wild Magnolias kick some serious rump on this terrific double-CD collection representing their hard-to-find midseventies heyday. Indian chants were transformed into gutbucket funk with the assistance of The New Orleans Project, a great local combo featuring guitarist "Snooks" Eaglin. The album also includes a sixty-eight-page PDF-file booklet covering the Indians' historical context.

Steve Forbert, Strange Names & New Sensations (429)
Forbert's froggy voice sounds wise, weathered, and perfectly suited to his clear-eyed observations about middle age ("Middle age is different," he sings, "now you're someone else"), mortality ("Thirty More Years"), and suicide ("Simply Spalding Gray"). It's not all heavy, however. Just heavy enough.

Grateful Dead, Three From the Vault (Rhino)
Having recently recorded Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, the Dead were singing better than ever at this solid (and exquisitely remastered) 1971 show. "Bertha," "Loser," "Deal," "Bird Song," and "Wharf Rat" were all getting either their first or second performances, and Pigpen was still around for a nineteen-minute "Good Lovin'." Huzzah.

This Is Tom Jones (Time Life DVD)
From 1969 to 1971, prior to becoming a cliché, Tom Jones hosted an ambitious and energetic TV variety show that combined Vegas flair with some really excellent music. The highlights of this swinging triple-disc collection include Jones wailing convincingly alongside the likes of Janis Joplin, Stevie Wonder (who also plays a wild drum solo), Aretha Franklin, and Crosby Stills & Nash.

Nick Lowe, At My Age (Yep Roc)
Who woulda figured that the former British pub rocker responsible for "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" would turn out to be the last of the classic country songwriters? Lowe sings convincingly about sin and redemption on an album that delivers its world-weary confidences at a slow simmer.

Kartik Seshadri, Live at Oberlin (Traditional Crossroads)
If you haven't paid attention to Indian classical music in a while, this would be an excellent place to reacquaint yourself. Accompanied by Arup Chattopadhyay on tabla, this Ravi Shankar disciple plays sitar with dazzling authority on one complete raga and the climactic gat section of another.

The Dynamites, Kaboom! (Outta Sight); Soul Sides Volume Two: The Covers (Zealous/Velour)
Covers to covet on the spotty Soul Sides Volume Two include Esther Phillips's female take on Gil Scott Heron's sadly knowing addiction classic, "Home Is Where the Hatred Is," and reggae singer Marcia Griffiths's loping and Antibalas's afrobeat version of salsa singer Hector Lavoe's "Che Che Cole." The Dynamites raise the proverbial roof on Kaboom!, a sweltering slab of hard Nashville funk.

Tord Gustavsen Trio, Being There (ECM)
Being There is the slow and stately conclusion to a trilogy this Nordic piano trio began in 2001 with Changing Places. Inspired as much by hymns, gospels, and chamber music as by jazz, Gustavsen's rapturous meditations evoke stony cliffs, roiling seas, and the ceaseless crawl of history.

Frankie Valli & The 4 Seasons, Jersey Beat (Rhino)
Admit it. There's something a little disturbing about Frankie Valli's exaggerated doo-wop falsetto, especially in the perfect yet overly size-conscious pop of, say, "Walk Like a Man," "Little Boy (In Grown Up Clothes)," "Big Man's World," and "Big Man in Town." This three-CD (plus DVD) box is a fitting tribute to a group that brought weird 1960s New Jersey to the masses.

Marva Wright, After the Levee Broke (AIM International)
"I got outta my bed, stepped in water to my knees," sings blues belter Marva Wright in the autobiographical "The Levee Is Breaking Down." Wright lost everything in the post-Katrina flood and this emotional album is her testament to dashed dreams, the memory of good times, and hopes of returning to New Orleans.

Pegi Young (Warner Bros.)
Talk about late bloomers. The longtime Neil Young backing singer—and longer-time spouse—took her sweet time before recording a debut album of bittersweet originals and simpatico covers. And it ain't half bad. The band's predictably solid, and Neil's an understated background presence as well as a psychedelic standout on electric sitar in "Love Like Water."

Anchored in Love: A Tribute to June Carter Cash (Dualtone)
Threads of blood, friendship, and autoharp run through Anchored in Love. Elvis Costello dives into the "Ring of Fire," which Carter Cash co-wrote; Loretta Lynn recalls the Carter Family's mountain-music heyday on "Wildwood Flower"; and Roseanne Cash salutes her stepmother's spiritual side with "Wings of Angels."

We All Love Ella: Celebrating the First Lady of Song (Verve); Love, Ella: The Original Versions (Verve)
Once upon a time, jazz was pop music and Ella Fitzgerald was its swinging queen. Diana Krall ("Dream a Little Dream of Me") and Dianne Reeves ("Oh Lady Be Good") are the jazzy standouts on We All Love Ella. Queen Latifah, Linda Ronstadt, and others provide the pop. It might not be a good idea to compare and contrast this well-intentioned Ellabration with the originals heard on Love, Ella.

Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full (Hear Music)
Hidden behind one of the drearier album covers you'll see, assuming you still see album covers, is Sir Paul's best album in years. The theme, declares a song title, is "My Ever Present Past," and the sound is vintage McCartney. The opening track, "Dance Tonight," could just as easily have appeared on his 1970 solo debut. "Mr. Bellamy" is the sort of quaint mini-suite he might have recorded with Wings. And the five tracks that (almost) conclude the album form a sort of rewritten Abbey Road side two. Unlike 2005's forgettable Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (recorded after much of Memory was first tracked), McCartney pays little heed to current musical trends and by eschewing the hip has created a keeper.

Bruce Springsteen With The Sessions Band, Live in Dublin (Sony BMG CD and DVD)
After releasing last year's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, big Bruce dressed up a seventeen-piece acoustic group in Dustbowl drag and took them on the road to perform charmingly rearranged chestnuts like "Old Dan Tucker," "Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep," and "When the Saints Go Marching In" alongside Springsteen originals such as "Highway Patrolman" and "Open All Night." The results may smack more of Broadway than rock and roll, but if anyone can renew interest in America's rich musical heritage, it's this New Jersey marketing genius.

Porter Wagoner, Wagonmaster (Anti-)
Country legend Porter Wagoner turns eighty this year, but he sounds remarkably strong on Wagonmaster, which Marty Stuart has produced to resemble a vintage stage show. "The Agony of Waiting" and Johnny Cash's "Committed to Parkview" recall a time when the best country songs were often very beautiful and a little creepy at the same time.

Leonard Cohen: Under Review 1934-1977 (Sexy Intellectual DVD)
More fun than reading a book about a favorite artist or act, the Under Review series (up to thirty-three and counting) gathers gaggles of critics and biographers to discuss a seminal performer and illustrate opinions with actual music/visuals. Cohen is a particularly interesting case: a published poet prior to taking up songwriting, he sprang fully formed with 1967's Songs of Leonard Cohen and continued to develop until hitting Phil Spector's legendary "Wall of Sound" with 1977's Death of a Ladies' Man.

Abbey Lincoln, Abbey Sings Abbey (Verve)
"It wasn't always easy learning to be me," admits Abbey Lincoln in "Being Me," the final track on Abbey Sings Abbey. The sandy-voiced, 76-year-old jazz iconoclast paints a refreshingly honest self-portrait on this album of originals arranged around accordion, cello, and longtime Bob Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell's pretty picking.

Gary Moore, Close As You Get (Eagle)
Manly meat-and-potatoes blues from an Irish guitarist who became a teenage star in 1970 as linchpin of the power trio Skid Row. Anointed by Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green, Moore eventually recorded with the likes of Thin Lizzy and Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. No real surprises on this album other than the strength, clarity, and confidence of a master of a tried-and-true musical form in its fast, slow, and midtempo variations.

Russian National Orchestra, Dead Symphony No. 6: An Orchestral Tribute to the Music of the Grateful Dead (Jammates)
Although these orchestral arrangements of Grateful Dead sound unexpectedly orthodox when compared to, say, the inspired reinventions of Joe Gallant's jazzier Blues for Allah big-band project, they still deliver a rich symphonic wallop. More melodically complex tunes such as "Saint Stephen" and (naturally) "Blues for Allah" fare better than the heartfelt Americana of "To Lay Me Down." And where's Bob Weir's "Weather Report Suite"? Available digitally via eMusic, iTunes, and elsewhere.

Richard Thompson, Sweet Warrior (Shout Factory)
Still one of the very finest folk-rockers around, Fairport Convention co-founder Richard Thompson plays taut, stabbing Celtic-tinged guitar on Sweet Warriorand sings downbeat songs with more plot than most movies. "Nobody loves me here," frets a freaked-out American soldier in "Dad's Gonna Kill Me," while divorce transforms "Mr. Stupid" into a "Neanderthal [of] an ex."

Michael Brecker, Pilgrimage (Heads Up)
The hardest working tenor saxophonist in jazz for a couple of decades, Brecker succumbed to leukemia in January but not before recording one of his very best albums. With Pat Metheny on guitar, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau alternating on piano, Pilgrimage is (not unexpectedly) a hard-swinging, nearly irresistible force of nature from start to finish.

Richmond Fontaine, Thirteen Cities (El Cortez/Union)
Like his new novel, The Motel Life, singer Willie Vlautin's tunes for Arizona country rockers Richmond Fontaine are chock full of irresistibly bleak stories hinging on poor decisions, bad luck, and dubious karma. Titles such as "$87 and a Guilty Conscience That Gets Worse the Longer I Go" and "I Fell Into Painting Houses in Phoenix, Arizona" capture the existential funk, if not the captivating border sounds, of this great yet wretched band.

Poncho Sanchez, Raise Your Hand (Concord Picante); Various, Motown Remixed Vol. 2 (Motown/Universal)
Motown hits including Jr. Walker's "Shotgun," the Jackson 5's "Dancing Machine," and Marvin Gaye's "Heard It Through the Grapevine" get a percussive Latin-remix makeover, with mixed results. For a more rewarding blend of salsa and soul, check out conga maestro Poncho Sanchez's Raise Your Hand, which features the likes of Booker T. Jones, Maceo Parker, and Eddie Floyd multiplying the beats of "Knock on Wood," "Shotgun" (again), and the title track, all in real time.

Loudon Wainwright III, Strange Weirdos: Music From and Inspired By the Film Knocked Up (Concord)
Can't vouch for Judd Apatow's follow-up to The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but singer-songwriter-actor LW III's music consists of honest, funny, and really well played ruminations on parenthood in Los Angeles and its suburban hinterlands. "When it's grey in L.A.," he sings, "it's better that way. It reminds you that this town's so cruel." Richard Thompson and Van Dyke Parks join in the bittersweet fun.

Uri Caine Ensemble, Plays Mozart (Winter & Winter)
Amadeus will never sound the same again after you hear Uri Caine's take on Mozart's world. The world-class jazz and classical pianist turns chestnuts like "Turkish Rondo" and Symphony 40 inside out with an octet that includes electric guitar and turntables. Their wonderful improvisations make Wolfgang's compositions sound nearly impromptu themselves.

Joe Lovano and Hank Jones, Kids: Duets Live at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola (Blue Note)
Tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano enjoys a cozy play date with piano legend Hank Jones on Kids. Jones was a spry 87 when the unaccompanied duet convened at Dizzy's in Manhattan last year for an historic evening of bop (brother Thad Jones's "Little Rascal on a Rock") and balladry (Hank's own "Lullaby").

Spanish Harlem Orchestra, United We Swing (Six Degrees)
Congas percolate, horns blare, and virile male voices call to dancers on the second album by pianist-arranger's Oscar Hernandez's thirteen-piece salsa juggernaut. A summer dance party in a CD case, United includes Paul Simon singing a brightly rearranged version of his One-Trick Pony hit "Late in the Evening."

Mavis Staples, We'll Never Turn Back (Anti-)
The Staples Singers matriarch returns to the music she performed alongside Dr. Martin Luther King and other freedom fighters during the Civil Rights era. With the help of producer Ry Cooder (of Buena Vista Social Club fame), classic liberationist gospel music like "Eyes on the Prize," "99 1/2," and "We Shall Not Be Moved" sound thoroughly modern as big-voiced Mavis musically reinvigorates a movement whose mission is far from accomplished. Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Original Freedom Singers lend a choral hand.

Wilco, Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch)
Experimental-jazz guitarist Nels Cline has breathed new life into bandleader Jeff Tweedy's constantly evolving, often emotionally revelatory country-rock group. While tracks like "Impossible Germany" threaten to explode into ecstatic Grateful Dead-like guitar jams, others reflect bandleader Jeff Tweedy's ongoing acoustic ruminations on love, loss, and mortality.

A couple of days late due to our New Orleans detour...

Keren Ann (Blue Note)
With lines like, "Come tell me your story to unload your glorious grief/ Where you are the valet of honour and I am the thief," Keren Ann's songs are about as great as those Leonard Cohen wrote for his friend Anjani's recent Blue Alert, which is saying a lot. But Ann's arrangements on the brilliant follow-up to her 2004 breakthrough album, Nolita, are transcendent, luminous, even lapidary. You'll want to wallow forever in these spacious sound pools located "somewhere between the flatland and the Caspian sea."

The Bad Plus, Prog (Heads Up)
Prog is short for progressive, and this rambunctious keyboard trio is nothing but. There's a hectic rhythmic energy to most of what the Plus plays, especially in the extended stop-start section of their "Physical Cities." But the Bad Plus is probably known best for impeccably chosen and extremely entertaining big-tent covers, which here include Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," Rush's own prog hit "Tom Sawyer," David Bowie's "Life on Mars," and Herb Alpert's "This Guy's in Love With You."

Lang Lang, Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 4 (Deutsche Grammophon)
The music is perfect for the Chinese pianist's ebullient, hard-hitting style, and Christoph Eschenbach's Orchestre de Paris has to work to keep up with him. You sometimes sense Lang Lang holding back his tendency to overplay, but what can he do? He's the Jerry Lee Lewis of classical music, with all the excess energy that implies.

Barbra Streisand, Live in Concert 2006 (Columbia); Bjork, Volta (Elektra)
Babs's long-awaited 2006 tour may have begun admittedly as "a great way to raise a lot of money for the causes that I believe in," but it apparently evolved into a mutual audience-performer love fest of misty water-colored memories. She sounds terrific, but while listening I couldn't help but compare and contrast her live double-CD album with the Radio City Music Hall performance by Nordic art-pop star Bjork I caught last week. Where Streisand has "popera" quartet Il Divo to help her out, Bjork works with a ten-piece, all-female horn section, the Congolese electric kalimba group Konono No. 1, and the fey-voiced indie crooner Antony. Babs has classical material like "People" and "The Way We Were," while Bjork came out blazing with "Earth Intruders," with beats by hip-hop producer Timbaland. And where Streisand sings of cockeyed optimism yet worries whether she might have stayed too long at the fair, Bjork asks her audiences to "Declare Independence" by issuing their own currency and stamps. I'd give anything to see them tour together.

Elizabeth Cook, Balls (31 Tigers); Larry Sparks, The Last Suit You Wear (McCoury Music)
"Sometimes looks can be deceivin', when you're quietly overachievin'," declares twang queen Elizabeth Cook in "Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman," the title track of this highly recommended old-school country effort produced by Rodney Crowell. Cook's version of the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning" would make the perfect radio segue into the title track of former Stanley Brothers, Clinch Mountain Boys, and Lonesome Ramblers guitarist Larry Sparks's often dazzling and always dignified album of gospel-tinged bluegrass.

Bebel Gilberto, Momento (Six Degrees)
Calm, reflective, and kind of blue, Bebel Gilberto's third solo album blends the smooth electronica of her 2000 debut (especially in the woozy and melancholic "Bring Back the Love") with the acoustic arrangements of her 2004 sequel. The material veers from classic bossa nova, such as uncle Chico Buarque's "Cacada," to Cole Porter's "Night and Day," to the mentholated Latin explosion of "Tranquilo."

Angelique Kidjo, Djin Djin (Razor & Tie/Starbucks)
The first half of the Benin-born singer's tenth album of ambitious afro-fusion features market-driven, and generally unrewarding, guest appearances by Alicia Keyes, Josh Grobin, Branford Marsalis, Carlos Santana, and Ziggy Marley. Fortunately, Kidjo returns to her West African roots in its second half, delivering an optimistic, can-do dance party of densely woven rhythms, peppy vocals, and all-American slide guitar. For dessert Kidjo serves "Lonlon," a nifty choral interpretation of Ravel's "Bolero."

Frank Zappa, Apostrophe(') / Over-Nite Sensation (Eagle Rock Entertainment DVD)
The consummate entertainer's two most popular albums (from 1973 and '74, respectively) get the making-of treatment. Zappa's music always turns out to be a lot more complex and thoughtful than his lyrics about dental floss, yellow snow, and life on the road might suggest. One highlight is watching currently retired percussionist Ruth Underwood perform the clever and difficult-looking marimba solo "Rollo Interior" (from "St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast"). "Well, three mistakes," she concludes. "One for each decade I've been away from the music. And the instrument."

Anjani, Blue Alert (Columbia); Leonard Cohen, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs From a Room, Songs of Love and Hate (Sony Legacy)
Columbia/Sony marks forty years of Leonard Cohen releases (there's a lot of that going on these days) with some great-sounding reissues of his three earliest albums. Even better, they're using the anniversary as an excuse to re-release one of the very best records you didn't hear last year. Anjani Thomas scavenged the material on her remarkable Blue Alert from Cohen's notebooks. Produced by Cohen, these mostly new songs are as wistful, sexy, and spiritually resonant as anything he's written, and Anjani sings them with immense reservoirs of feeling. Album closer "Thanks for the Dance" turns out to be the best song Stephen Sondheim never composed.

A Tribute to Joni Mitchell (Nonesuch)
Annie Lennox praises "The Ladies of the Canyon," Prince unpacks a soulful, sultry "Case of You," and James Taylor revisits the "River" on this colorful portrait of a reclusive genius that also includes tracks by Elvis Costello, k. d. lang, and Bjork.

Joshua Redman, Back East (Nonesuch)
Saxophone-led trio albums are a high-wire act, and Joshua Redman's first crack at the format is a world-class beauty. The title reverses Sonny Rollins's 1957 cowboy-inspired classic, Way Out West, from which Redman reinterprets "I'm an Old Cowhand" and "Wagon Wheels." The rest of the album is more "Eastern." Joshua's father, the late, great saxophonist Dewey Redman, joins him on John Coltrane's "India," and other tracks include Wayne Shorter's "Indian Song," Brooks Bowman's "East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)," and Redman's own "Mantra #5."

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.

Brandi Carlile, The Story (Columbia); Kendel Carson, Rearview Mirror Tears (Train Wreck)
Do you prefer your emotionally vulnerable, country-tinged singer-songwriters fancy or plain? T Bone Burnett produced Carlile's new album with a fat, full live sound that adds resonant layers of catgartic suffering to lines such as, "I'm the rain in a downpour/ I wash away what you long for." Undersung duo Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez are the sound shapers behind young singer-fiddler Kendel Carson's stripped-down and very listenable debut, which also features former Van Morrison guitarist John Platania.

E.S.T., Tuesday Wonderland (EmArcy)
Pianist Esbjorn Svensson's trio solves the problem of how to bring the piano trio into the present (without stripping it of its natural elegance) by adding surging rock and skittering electronic moves to the mix. The Swedish threesome's dynamic sound also contains a tinge of mythical Scandinavia.

Sly and the Family Stone, The Collection (Epic/Legacy)
Funk, soul, and psychedelic rock all came together in the music of Sly and the Family Stone, whose seven best albums, from 1967's A Whole New Thing to 1974's Small Talk, have been crisply remastered, packed into this box, and also released separately. Rediscover how much musical nuance Sylvester slipped into hits like "Higher."

Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste; Marsalis Music Honors Bob French (Marsalis Music)
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis both produced and performs on these albums by two highly esteemed New Orleans musical veterans, clarinetist Alvin Batiste and drummer Bob French. Batiste, who has played with Ray Charles and Chick Corea, is an exceedingly nimble instrumentalist, and his album is a great example intergenerational synergy. The more traditional of the two, French is the driving force behind a richly arranged selection of such uniquely New Orleans staples as "Basin Street Blues" and the ubiquitous "Saints."

John Abercrombie, The Third Quartet (ECM)
Thanks mostly to violinist Mark Feldman and double-bassist Marc Johnson, chamber-music intensity pervades this session led by the impeccable jazz guitarist. Ornette Coleman's "Round Trip" and Bill Evans's "Epilogue" are the only non-originals on a fine album that grooves freely, intently, and playfully on all cylinders.

Mitch Myers, The Boy Who Cried Freebird: Rock-and-Roll Fables and Sonic Storytelling (Harper Entertainment hardcover)
Myers's unhinged collection merrily mixes reality-based histories of jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler and eccentric rock genius Frank Zappa, among others, with fictional accounts of a Robert Johnson album that sparks a haunting, a young man transported back in time to the greatest Grateful Dead show ever, and the titular ubiquitous annoyance. His imagination is so accurate, you'll end up not caring where the facts end and fantasy begins.

Los Straitjackets, Rock en Español, Vol. 1 (Yep Roc)
Los Lobos guitarist Cesar Rosas produced this bemasked Tennessee quartet's muy autentico tribute to Spanish-language versions of 1960s hits, from the McCoys' "Hang On Sloopy" and the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night" to Barbara Lynn's "You'll Lose a Good Thing" and Marty Robbins's "Devil Woman." Guest vocalists include Thee Midnighters' Little Willie G, the Fly-Rite Boys' Big Sandy, and Rosas.

Koko Taylor, Old School (Alligator)
The queen of Chicago blues (b. 1935) suffered a serious illness a couple of years ago but returned to pitch another wang dang doodle on her best album in ages. Taylor screams, growls, and grumbles Lizzie Lawler's "Black Rat" and Willie Dixon's "I may be dead and gone, but I got young fashioned ways" with newfound conviction—and she provided five excellent originals to boot.

Chris Whitley and Jeff Lang, Dislocation Blues (Rounder)
This positively haunting album marks Texas blues guitarist Chris Whitley's final recordings prior to his death by lung cancer in 2005. Australian bluesperson Jeff Lang is the perfect foil on an album rife with wild ghostly playing on tunes like "Stagger Lee," Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece," and Whitley's mesmerizing title track.

James Brown, The Singles Volume Two: 1960-1963 (Hip-O Select)
James Brown is a work in progress on this double-disc collection of singles recorded for the King label. Hear Brown casting off his r&b roots for a stronger, screamier, and increasingly idiosyncratic soul style. And for a great time, compare the relatively restrained studio version of "Lost Someone" heard here with the monumental eleven-minute version at the center of Brown's historic 1962 show captured on Live at the Apollo.

Best of the Flatt & Scruggs TV Show, Vols. 1&2 (Shanachie DVDs)
"Flatt & Scruggs Grand Ole Opry" aired from 1955 until 1969, when, coincidentally or not, Roy Clark and Buck Owens' "Hee-Haw" made its debut. Each of this pair of DVDs contains two programs (sponsored by Martha White's Hot Rize biscuit flour, as pedaled in several thoroughly entertaining commercials) from 1961 and 1962, when Flatt and Scruggs' Foggy Mountain Boys were at their bluegrass best. Don't miss Mama Maybelle Carter's "Wildwood Flower" and "The Liberty Dance," on volume two, for unadorned examples of American music at its finest.

Peggy Seeger, Three Score and Ten (Appleseed); If You Ain't Got the Do-Re-Mi: Songs of Rags and Riches (Smithsonian Folkways)
Hard to believe that folk-activist siblings Peggy, Mike, and Pete Seeger had never appeared on record together prior to this two-CD set capturing Peggy's 2005 celebration of her seventieth birthday. The Seegers assemble amid an evening-long hootenanny embracing everything from traditional folk tunes (like "Hangman" and "Fiddling Soldier"); songs commemorating Seeger's late husband, Ewan MacColl (his "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" was written in her honor), and current partner, Irene Pyper-Scott ("So Long Since I Been Home"); and good old-fashioned sociopolitical rabble-rousing (Pete's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," Peggy's "Sing About These Hard Times"). Pete and Mike Seeger's original contributions to the social-injustice canon are in evidence on If You Ain't Got the Do-Re-Mi, a tough-times compendium marking the opening of Wall Street's Museum of American Finance. Highlights include Mike Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers' "If I Lose, I Don't Care," Josh White's "One Meat Ball," Pete Seeger's "Empty Pocket Blues," and Woody Guthrie's title track.

Turtle Island Quartet, A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Coltrane (Telarc)
A rare and beautiful translation of some of the saxophonist's richest and best-known jazz writing into the classical realm via the Islanders' perceptive arrangements and elegant soloing. In addition to the daunting yet beautiful title work, which includes transcriptions of memorable improvisations from the Coltrane quartet's original 1964 recording, A Love Supreme includes string arrangements of Coltrane's famous soprano-sax interpretation of "My Favorite Things" and "Naima" (performed by Coltrane here) guitarist John McLaughlin and violinist L. Shankar's India-tinged "La Danse de Bonheur," and Stanley Clark and Chick Corea's "Song to John."

Robert Glasper, In My Element (Blue Note)
Scintillating grooves take precedence over changes on youngish jazz pianist Robert Glasper's terrific trio album brimming with smart, nervous energy. Subtle hip-hop rhythms percolate under most of the tunes on an endlessly inventive album that includes a colorful urban cartoon of a track ("Silly Rabbit"), gorgeous tunes like "One for 'Grew," and a deep gospel centerpiece ("Y'Outta Praise Him").

Kronos Quartet/Henryk Górecki, ...Songs Are Sung (Nonesuch)
Polish composer Henryk Górecki's String Quartet No. S, Op. 67 erects another monument in a long career of slow and melancholy—yet at the same time beautiful and compellingly melodic—works. Górecki finished it in 1995 but waited a decade before sending it to the commissioning Kronos Quartet. "I don't know why," he wrote in a commentary attached to the work.

Robert Plant, Nine Lives (Rhino/WEA)
On the nine solo albums collected in this snazzy, nautically themed package, the former Led Zep singer shakes, wails, and rolls from honeydripping fifties rock to rediscovered African blues roots.

Henri Salvador, Révérence (Circular Moves)
Eighty-nine-year-old Henri Salvador is an otherwise ageless French crooner with a special affection for the sambas and bossas of Brazil. Arranged by Jacques Morelenbaum (Brazil's Nelson Riddle), Révérence pins blithe French chanson to the rhythms of Rio, where much of it was recorded. Brazilian stars including Joao Donato drop by to pay homage on tunes like "Mourir à Honfleur" and "Tu Sais Je Vais T'Aimer."

The Barry White Story: Let the Music Play (Eagle Vision DVD)
The main virtues of this Horatio Alger-like story of a South Central LA gang member who literally walks to Hollywood to seek his fortune lie in the music itself. So admire and bemoan the rise and fall of the soulful larger-than-life bass singer, but pay attention when producer Jack Perry explains the method behind soul music's most memorable singing aphrodisiac.

Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, Quartet (Nonesuch)
Guitarist Metheny and pianist Mehldau expand upon the 2006 duo release Metheny Mehldau with this lyrical and nuanced sequel containing four duets of its own. While Metheny switches between electric, synthetic, acoustic, and 42-string guitars, Mehldau is a bottomless well of fluid harmonic ideas. Download "Towards the Light" for a convincing sample.

Graham Parker, Don't Tell Columbus (Bloodshot)
With his band the Rumor, raspy-voiced Graham Parker split the difference between Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen three decades ago in punk-smitten England. Don't Tell Columbus brims with tough, unflinching first-person considerations of middle-aged hope and disappointment on both sides of the Atlantic in tunes like "I Discovered America," "Total Eclipse of the Moon," and Bullet of Redemption."

The Roches, Moonswept (429/Savoy)
"I'd like you to think of me as somebody you'd put your teeth in for" is the sort of wryly sweet reflection on mature love that only the Roches could get away with. And the sisterly folk-pop trio does so repeatedly on their eleventh wise and witty album.

Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration (Stax/Concord)
If the nine-CD Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968 and four-CD Stax Story beyond your record-buying budget, and you can't work up the patience for the single-disc best-of that's undoubtedly in the works, then this two-CD, 50-track distillation of America's greatest Southern soul music factory is the package for you. I mean, don't you kind of need to hear Johnnie Taylor's "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" right now? It comes with an informative photo-rich book, too.

Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall (Reprise)
Always more eager to flail in the electric Crazy Horse hurricane, I warmed slowly to solo Neil Young. But this live album documenting a 1971 Toronto homecoming has cemented my loyalty. Young introduced "Old Man," "Needle and the Damage Done," and "Heart of Gold" at this astoundingly intimate show (you can hear a pick drop between tunes) recorded between After the Gold Rush and Harvest.

Canadians lose their religion, Americans lament Katrina, zealotry.

The Arcade Fire, Neon Bible (Merge)
The sequel to this big Canadian band's 2004 indie-rock hit Funeral was recorded in a small Quebec church and sounds like it. Bandleader Win Butler belts out joyous despair in a voice pitched halfway between David Byrne and Bruce Springsteen as the chamber punks pull out the organ stops on an album that illuminates irreverent theological musings with strings, horns, synthesizers, and passion.

Wynton Marsalis, From the Plantation to the Penitentiary (Blue Note)
The trumpeter's honey tones and his band's sublimely swinging give-and-take camouflage Plantation's stinging social indictments. Singer Jennifer Sanon condemns homelessness ("Find Me"), greed ("Super Capitalism"), and racism in a deceptive purr. And the bandleader rails against gangster rap and pleads for leadership in his own counter-rap, "Where Y'All At."

Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Calling (Zoe/Rounder)
The personal and political dovetail in Carpenter's deeply emotional folk-rock. She frets over zealots of every stripe in the title track before deciding that "We're All Right" over big beats and blazing guitars in the next. "Houston" laments the Southern masses displaced by Hurricane Katrina and concludes optimistically with "Bright Morning Star."

Otis Taylor, Definition of a Circle (Telarc)
Otis Taylor embeds his gruff voice in spare yet artfully arranged guitars, banjos, mandolins, and horns on maybe the best blues album you'll hear all year. Taylor's songwriting personas include a deported Mexican cowboy, an African-American shocked by TV images of Katrina's aftermath, a father soothing a bi-racial child, and a man who covets his neighbor's wife and land.

Ry Cooder, My Name Is Buddy (Nonesuch)
The guitarist-producer stirs up a dustbowl's worth of retro folk, blues, and country music on this clever concept album concerning a hitchhiking feline's American odyssey. Pete Seeger adds banjo to "J. Edgar," and more than a little working-class rabble is roused along the way.

Revenge of the hipster folkies! Plus Nigerian juju, world-jazz fusion, and fiery guitars.

David Bromberg, Try Me One More Time (Appleseed)
The Greenwich Village folk star keeps it sublimely simple on his first studio album since 1990. Bromberg's elegant finger picking and no-frills baritone voice refresh timeless material by Bob Dylan ("It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"), Elizabeth Cotton ("Shake Sugaree"), and the Reverend Gary Davis ("I Belong to the Band") as well as several traditional tunes.

Judy Henske, Big Judy: How Far This Music Goes 1962-2004 (Rhino Handmade)
This two-disc anthology celebrates the bumptious babe that producer Jack Nitzsche deemed "queen of the beatniks." Judy Henske worked coffee shops across the nation during the early-'60s folk boom, combining big-throated folk and blues with an acerbic cabaret sensibility. Highlights include moving versions of Fred Neil's quasi-psychedelic "The Other Side of This Life" and "Dolphins in the Sea," and four cuts from Henske and Jerry Yester's shoulda-been acid-folk classic, Farewell Aldebaran.

Rod McKuen, If You Go Away: The RCA Years 1965-1970 (Bear Family)
Last century's most commercially successful poet-songwriter gets the lavish box-set treatment with this seven-disc set (and hardcover book) released by Germany's small Bear Family label. I've always been fascinated by McKuen, a guarded yet weirdly beloved mixture of Walt Whitman, Jacques Brel, and Hallmark Cards. (He's probably found his most comfortable home online.) McKuen always strikes me as one of America's great outsider insiders, not unlike Elvis Presley or Liberace, and I'm proud to continue listening to the warm as part of his enduring mega-cult.

Joe Zawinul, Brown Street (Koch)
The Joe Zawinul Big Band proves itself a joyful world-jazz juggernaut on this live double-CD recorded last year. The septuagenarian keyboardist expands tunes written originally for Miles Davis ("In a Silent Way") and Weather Report ("Black Market") into mighty groove vehicles that have really never sounded better.

King Sunny Ade, Gems From the Classic Years (Shanachie)
Sunny Ade and his thirteen-piece band blend Yoruba-language vocals and tribal rhythms with lilting rock and Hawaiian steel guitars on an album boasting some of the most joyous and danceable guitar music you may ever hear. Recorded in Nigeria between 1967 and 1974 as Ade's career was taking off, the most valuable of these Gems are four sixteen- and seventeen-minute tracks featuring convivial spaced-out medleys. Highly recommended.

Elliott Sharp's Terraplane, Secret Life (Intuition); The Mahavishnu Project, Return to the Emerald Beyond (Cuneiform)
Composer-guitarist Elliott Sharp makes the blues sound wicked and modern and relevant again on Secret Life, which features both Howlin' Wolf-influenced singer Eric Mingus (son of jazz giant Charles) and Howlin' Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin in addition to Sharp's own Hendrixian riffage. Drummer Gregg Bendian leads another remarkably virtuosic group through a two-hour-long live re-creation of the second Mahavishnu Orchestra's original 1975 recording. The Project nails the fiery jazz-fusion virtuosity and soaring electric spirit of guitarist John McLaughlin's most complex and eclectic compositions.

Steve Kuhn Trio, Live at Birdland (Blue Note); Randy Crawford and Joe Sample, Feeling Good (PRA)
Pianist Steve Kuhn introduced this jazz power trio, with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Al Foster, at the Village Vanguard in 1984. More than two decades later, they reconvened at Manhattan's Birdland, resulting in this ceaselessly inventive album of originals and standards. "Jitterbug Waltz" alone traverses an iPod's worth of pop and classical references in its eleven minutes. Soulful jazz singer Randy Crawford and longtime Crusaders keyboardist Joe Sample, meanwhile, took three decades to reunite on Feeling Good. Their eclectic bag contains everything from "But Beautiful" and Billie Holiday's "Tell Me More" to Peter Gabriel's "Lovetown" and Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talking."

Charlie Louvin (Tompkins Square); Southern Culture on the Skids, Countrypolitan (Yep Roc)
"You've already put big ol' tears in my eyes, must you throw dirt in my face?" begins the latest valedictorian effort by seventy-nine-year-old country singer Charlie Louvin. Charlie's voice sounds weathered, rocky, and welcoming (hence a guest list that includes Elvis Costello, George Jones, and Jeff Tweedy), but songs like "The Christian Life," "Great Atomic Power," and "When I Stop Dreaming" sound almost as remarkable now as when Charlie first recorded them with his late, wild brother Ira in the forties and fifties. Southern Culture on the Skids' Countrypolitan is a rollicking country-rock party blend of car-radio hits like "Wolverton Mountain" and "Oh Lonesome Me" with fuzz-driven countrified versions of T-Rex's "Life's a Gas" and the Who's "Happy Jack."

Butch Hancock, War and Peace (Two Roads); Joe Ely, Happy Songs From Rattlesnake Gulch (Rock 'Em)
These two members of Lubbock, Texas's legendary Flatlanders are seldom-seeners whose new records deliver long-awaited goods. Butch Hancock's old-school protest album of anti-war and pro-democracy screeds is his first release in nine years. Yes, he still sounds a little like 1970s-or-so Bob Dylan, and even evokes themes (the endless rattle of shields and stupidity) and moods (lazy and dark summer evenings) similar to Dylan's last few releases. War and Peace, though, is far more stark, direct, and rooted in the Baptist revival meetings ("Sister lift your veil and understand," he sings in "Brother Won't You Shake My Hand") and the country cavalcades that would ramble through his hometown. On his first album in four years, Joe Ely celebrates and romanticizes Southwestern culture through the eyes of a maturing country-rock star with plenty yet to prove. Beginning with Ely's version of Hancock's "Firewater" about halfway into the album, Rattlesnake Gulch takes on an almost biblical aspect as Ely sings of unbearable Texas summers ("July Blues"), desperate critters ("Up a Tree"), and the eternal vagaries of wealth ("So You Wanna Be Rich?").

High Llamas, Can Cladders (Drag City/Caroline)
Highest Llama Sean O'Hagan applies enduring lessons of Beach Boy Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, and the best of vintage Brazilian bossa nova in this gorgeous and deftly arranged quasi-seasonal song cycle ("The Old Spring Town," "Winter Day," "Summer Seen"). And who else would record a shimmering ode to a virtually unknown jazz harpist ("Dorothy Asher")? Precisely.

The recording industry takes an undoubtedly well-deserved post-Grammy breather, which means it's a robust week for best-ofs - and a few other gems, too.

Lewis Taylor, The Lost Album (Hacktone)
Nearly symphonic and thoroughly funky blue-eyed soul with roots in everyone from Prince and Marvin Gaye to Brian Wilson and Todd Rundgren. Taylor's a one-man studio band on this album packed with heavenly harmonies and guitar pyrotechnics.

Lucinda Williams, West (Lost Highway)
Bruised yet defiant Texas country-blues twister perfumes dusty gas-fumes essence. Sample here.

Vieux Farka Touré (World Village)
The son of Mali guitar master Ali Farka Touré picks up where his late father left off, and the album's two duets mark Ali's final studio recordings. The Tourés' music is strongly reminiscent of Delta blues yet more rhythmically entrancing, elegant, and ancient.

Ella Fitzgerald, The Very Best of the Cole Porter Song Book; The Very Best of the Rodgers and Hart Song Book (Verve)
From "Just One of Those Things" to "Bewitched."

Van Morrison, Van Morrison at the Movies: Soundtrack Hits (Manhattan)
Everyone needs to make a living. Download "Comfortably Numb," recorded live at the Berlin Wall in 1990 with Roger Waters.

Travis Tritt, The Very Best of Travis Tritt (Warner Bros./Rhino)
"It's a Great Day to Be Alive," "Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man," and "Where Corn Don't Grow" = a mini horse opera about growing old gracefully.

A not-bad week for weepers, wailers, and the funniest British comedians ever.

Rickie Lee Jones, Sermon on Exposition Boulevard
The reclusive Los Angeles folknik uses Jesus of Nazareth's literal New Testament words as jumping-off points for some of the most searing yet secular country-rock this side of Lucinda Williams. Jones juggles inward confusion and outward compassion in "Falling Up," "Elvis Cadillac," and other rough and rapturous vehicles. We saw her perform a few of these pieces at a club recently, improvising lyrics halfway between a sermon and a séance.

Patty Griffin, Children Running Through
The sort of record that makes you wonder where you were for Griffin's first six releases. Imagine a one-woman Austin-based sisterhood combining Patsy Cline's country crooning ("You'll Remember"), Aretha Franklin's gospel soul ("Heavenly Day"), and Lucinda Williams's Texas rock ("No Bad News").

Backyard Tire Fire, Vagabonds and Hooligans
The Dexateens, Hardwire Healing
Wild and woolly dirty-South barroom bombast from the musical grandchildren of the Flying Burrito Brothers, Crazy Horse, and Exiles on Main Street -era Rolling Stones as well as such contemporary country-rock stars as Drive-By Truckers, My Morning Jacket, and Wilco. The name and album title tell you pretty much all you need to know about North Carolina's Backyard Tire Fire, while steel-pedal guitar fans should particularly dig Alabama's Dexateens.

Monty Python
Another Monty Python Record
Monty Python's Previous Record
Life of Brian
The Meaning of Life
"Good evening," begins Another Monty Python Record after a false start. "We apologize for the previous apology. This apology was unnecessary and appeared on the record owing to an administrative error. This album is not, as stated in the previous apology, Pleasures of the Dance: A Selection of Norwegian Carpenter Songs, but a new album from the humorous television comedy show, Monty Python's Flying Circus." Cue Norwegian dance music, followed thereafter by the Spanish Inquisition, Spam. Mary Queen of Scots, four bonus tracks, and, in general, some of the most endurably absurd sketch comedy ever etched in vinyl. The other remastered and augmented albums are of course laugh riots too.

Jorge Drexler, 12 Segundos de Obscuridad
The Uruguayan singer is known best for "Al Otro Lado del Río," the 2004 Academy Award-winning song from The Motorcycle Diaries. Drexler alternates between rock, folk, and electronics on 12 Segundos de Obscuridad (Twelve Seconds of Darkness) as he sings about economic globalism and emotional globetrotting.

The first in a more or less weekly series suggesting ways to wield your purchasing power for the forces of good music.

The Bird and the Bee (Blue Note)
Inara George (daughter of the late Little Feat founder Lowell George) and Greg Kurstin play sophisticated pop with a psychedelic sixties-Brazil lilt on this fetching debut.

Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)
An unusually rocking, literate, and sonically adventurous break-up album from these independent Americans. Hear "Suffer for Fashion" at Pitchfork.

Sonny Rollins, Sonny, Please (Emarcy/Doxy/Universal Classics)
The tenor saxophone giant sounds rough, gruff, and larger than life on his first studio recording in five years.

Tony Trischka, Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular (Rounder)
"How do you improve the aerodynamics of a banjo player's car? Remove the Domino's Pizza sign from the roof" — and 271 other banjo jokes that Earl Scruggs, Steve Martin, Béla Fleck, Alison Brown, Chris Thile, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, and all the other pickers on this record possibly may not appreciate.

Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life (Blue Note)
Singer Elvis Costello, saxophonist Joe Lovano, and pianist Bill Charlap's version of "My Flame Burns Blue" Is the highlight of this companion album to a new PBS documentary about the composer that airs the week of February 6.

Caetano Veloso, Cê (Nonesuch)
The Brazilian Bob Dylan's collaboration with his son, Moreno, rocks with electricity and poetry.

Harry Connick Jr.; Oh, My NOLA (Columbia), Chanson du Vieux Carré (Marsalis)
He may not be the city's deepest or funkiest musical force, but give Connick credit for trumpeting unfettered hometown spirit on this pair of new albums tapping into the Crescent City tradition. Connick sings tunes by local writers, such as Allen Toussaint's "Working in the Coal Mine," or merely linked to the region (the Satchmo signature tune "Hello Dolly") on Oh, My NOLA. Chanson du Vieux Carré consists of new, mostly instrumental Connick arrangements of jazzier fare.

Norah Jones, Not Too Late (Blue Note)
That amazingly mellow afterglow of a voice and subtle country-folk-pop instrumentation are back. The edge is in the lyrics, where Norah won't make nice: The opening track's POV is that of a girl who loses her lover to war and the next compares a country at war to a sinking ship.

Gipsy Kings, Pasajeros (Nonesuch)
These Spaniards in France follow up their 2005 back-to-basics album Roots by stirring North African, Cuban, and Jamaican flavors into their cantankerous blend of gruff voices, pounding heels, and propeller-flurry flamenco guitars.