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