OffBeat Magazine
I’m not sure if New Orleans has reached peak neo-trad yet, but each new release I hear indicates that the music created a century ago still offers a lot for younger musicians to explore. The Secret Six is a side project led by bassist John Joyce of the Smoking Time Jazz Club. The album features members of that project as well as vocalist Meschiya Lake and other musicians from the tightly-knit Frenchmen Street scene.
Given the extremely limited parameters of the pandemic, this album was actually recorded outdoors by the well-regarded producer/engineer Earl Scioneaux III. Yet it is virtually impossible to tell this, based on the ace musicianship and his pristine recording technique. The instrumentation is so clearly delineated; I was almost hoping to hear a bird chirp or a passing truck.
Maria Muldaur teams up with Tuba Skinny for vintage jazz and blues album
Six-time Grammy nominee Maria Muldaur, who’s been dubbed “The First Lady of Roots Music” for previous albums touching on her wide-ranging influences from blues, country, folk, jazz and even jug band music, continues her exploration of the great American roots music songbook. On her latest excursion, this time into the vintage jazz and blues sounds of the 1920s/’30s, Maria teams up with acclaimed New Orleans street band Tuba Skinny for
Let’s Get Happy Together, scheduled for release on May 7 on Stony Plain Records.
Muldaur recorded
Live music still soothes the soul deltacountyindependent.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from deltacountyindependent.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
This is the second release that Tuba Skinny member Max Bien-Kahn has done in the past six months under the Max and the Martians banner, and they couldn’t be more different: Last year’s
Stay at Home Demos was made for the moment, a set of Covid-themed songs with a proudly homemade sound; while this more-produced album is in a more timeless power-pop vein.
There’s still a Covid reference or two between the lines or maybe it’s just that any album that begins with a reference to sitting in a burning building is bound to sound timely in 2021. But these songs are all concerned with the classic pop topic of romantic loss. No idea whether Bien-Kahn was going through a split when writing these songs, but it does play like a model breakup album, and the emotional tone is in fact miserable from start to finish. That doesn’t mean it’s a depressing album, but it does mean that the hooks and grooves are there for reassurance as the singer picks up the pieces.