Tag Archives: Jazz music

Various artists’ Accordeon: Musette/Swing/Paris 1913-1941

As New Orleans has its jazz and Chicago its blues, Paris has its musette, a musical form indelibly associated with the city on the Seine. This outstanding two-CD collection traces the history of the musette, a music that came out … Continue reading

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Jean A. Boyd’s The Jazz of the Southwest

For about 20 years, from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, Western swing was one of the most popular types of music in America. At its peak in the late 1940s, the biggest of them all, Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys, was … Continue reading

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Rick Kennedy and Randy McNutt’s Little Labels—Big Sound

Some of the most important and influential American music has been put out by small independent labels. And it’s no accident that it’s also some of the best and most authentic American music, from Delta and Chicago blues to bebop … Continue reading

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Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant’s Stratosphere boogie: The flaming guitars of … and Vol. 2: Swingin’ on the Strings

Western swing is a hybrid of country and jazz, and if Wills was its king, then Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant were the crown princes. The two moved to southern California to join its burgeoning music scene in the years … Continue reading

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Gideon Freudmann’s Hologram Crackers

Hologram Crackers is an album of solo cello music. But I guarantee you it’s like no other cello music you’ve ever heard, unless you’re one of the growing cadre of Gideon Freudmann fans. To say that Freudmann plays the cello … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Swing West! Vols. 1, 2 and 3

Country music and Nashville are synonymous, right? Well, right as far as it goes. But since the late 1940s, California, particularly Bakersfield, has been the breeding ground for its own strain of country music that stands outside of the mainstream … Continue reading

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