Over the weekend, I spoke with a couple of people who attended the Jon Hassell and Maarifa Street concert at UCLA's  Royce Hall with Dhafer Youssef opening. The drummer was all anyone was talking about. Here's a review written Sunday:

At intermission between the jubilant global melange assembled by oud player Dhafer Youssef and the dreamscape provided by trumpeter-composer Jon Hassell, the Royce Hall lobby areas were a buzz with talk about the inventiveness of Youssef's drummer Satoshi Takeishi. His wizardry on the trap set had multiple functions in the collection of tunes rooted in Sufi traditions, from twisting time signatures to providing straight-ahead propulsion; little did the audience know that Hassell would be putting the idea of multi-dimensional musicianship to rest.

Hassell, unquestionably a visionary whose work reaches from film scores to "The Practice" theme to Bjork, has taken the concept of "celestial jazz" to an extreme in his Maarifa Street project. In a program of music from his first ECM recording in 23 years, "Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street," Hassell and his band of violin, bass and electronics created at Royce Hall the musical equivalent of a still night sky that stretched, uninterrupted, across 70-plus minimalist minutes.
His trumpet, clear in tone and meditative in spirit, had a carefully gauged prominence in the sound, a bit of an aural walk in the woods. With the trumpet setting the scene much like a gentle steady breeze, the electric piano and electronic sounds dropped in as randomly as leaves falling and birds calling.
Peter Freeman set bass motifs on a couple of tunes that gave them a bit of movement -- one was played only once and then looped by the samplers who toyed with its position in the mix; another required him to repeat a nine- or 10-note passage for nearly 10 minutes. No much happens in the music - bits of electronic percussion twinkle in places, the violin tightens the sheet on the musical bed, sporadic bass notes remind us that the compositions are indeed tethered.
No matter how well the music was executed - and beyond the precision of Hassell's sound he has created a united effort - there is no getting around the static nature of the performance. All were still, playing their parts and rarely making even eye contact with one another. One of the samplers danced as he tweaked elements of the beat-free music and it actually was unnerving: If he hears something that inspires movement, why can't the rest of us?
Youssef, a Tunisian based in Austria, was a polar opposite. His set opened with a shapeless, trance-inducing number that could easily be pulled from Hassell's songbook. But as the band explored various Eastern twists on Western musical forms such as jazz and blues, the multi-dimensional aspects of the act took shape, sounding like a jam band early on and closing out in a place that sounded like an early edition of the Pat Metheny Group taking on Black Sabbath's "Iron Man."

The genre mish-mash means the group forsakes a sense of place in their overall sound, choosing instead to emphasize seamless interaction - the sort that distinguishes the best jazz bands. Scott Colley, a gifted acoustic bassist, had as prominent role as a lead instrument as pianist Tigran Hamsyan, who merges a folk base with the major chords of romantic music. Graceful as it was when it gelled, it was still the drummer that everyone was talking about.

With Filipino singer Arnel Pineda having crossed the line from Steve Perry Karaoke master to respectable lead singer and  a new album that taps into the energy and formulas of Journey's hitmaking era, there's little reason to doubt Journey has ability to keep their train moving with new passengers boarding at every stop.
But there's more than immediately meets the eye. Beyond it's pair of smart moves - the hiring of Pineda and the Wal-Mart exclusive release of "Revelation" - there are timing issues as well. The pop world is so devoid of well-crafted and polished rock music and bands with uniquely identifiable elements that Journey rises above the landscape like one of those birds on their album covers. There are plenty of us who looked at Journey differently  when  "Don't Stop Believin'" closed out "The Sopranos,"  but that's not who sold out the Greek for two nights; these fans, whether new or veteran, are attracted to the oeuvre and, for a certain segment, the nationality of the new singer.
Like Santana, who employed Neal Schon prior to him creating Journey in 1973, the band has gone through a series of reinventions in the last decade before coming to this point, a focused celebration of the "Infinity" to "Frontiers" ('78-'83) edition of the band.(Santana learned how a bit of focus can help your career back in '99).
Everything about Journey feels rejuvenated - the energy in the playing, the songwriting, the feeding off the energy of the fans and, maybe quite significantly, their re-establishment as bona-fide headliners. Yes, without journeys into all that has defined Journey, their 90 minutes are divided into blocks of screaming rock tunes and power ballads, but there's nothing to derail them - no obsessive solos, nothing sonically wayward or off-putting and nothing that does not sound exactly like the audience's image of Journey.
This summer, Journey has headlined one of the smartest triple bills of the last several years. Cheap Trick played the nostalgia card and performed every tune that made it into heavy rotation 20-30 years ago. Ann Wilson demonstrated her pipes are still Superman-like and that the guitar riffs in Heart's songs still put smiles on the band members' faces; they perform like they're still eying potential in their act to breakthrough to headliner status.
It's not simply evidence that tours  packaging artists whose heydays  came in the late 1970s and early '80s will win over fans every time. Journey and Heart are full of life and vigor, making their standards such as "Lights" and "Magic Man" sound powerful and from the heart.   

Here is my review that was published.   

The tough call in reviewing is almost always how much of curve is one willing to grade on when it comes to a legend.
Recently, Glen Campbell, Solomon Burke and Steely Dan made it easy. Campbell, for example,showed up with a big band of ace rock and country musicians capable of re-creating his current album and his hits from the '60s. The others were impeccable.
Some acts you go in knowing it might be  a struggle. Crosby, Stills and Nash can't find a note to save their lives on some nights, but if they don't embarrass themselves or tarnish their legacy they get the benefit of the doubt. Al Green is chief among the artists whose careers began in the '60s and '50s who always gives a good show yet rarely a great one.
Then there's Bob Dylan, the ultimate iconoclast. How in the world does one judge one of his performances without basing the quality of the show on the critic's experiences? Can a show's greatness be determined by a setlist? Can the abilities of the backing band scale the bar that separates good from great? Can exuberance in Bob's vocals make up for problems in pitch?
It seems like anyone seeing Dylan for the first times, whether they are a critic or an observer making a post on a website, cut considerable slack for Bob and his crusty vocal delivery. For those of us who see nearly every show on every tour, a line has to be drawn between nitpicking and deciding whether he is as good as he could be on any given night. I gave a thumbs down to Wednesday night's show, one of the last concerts on his North America trek, even though he thrilled another critic or two.
In this case it's personal. My odyssey with Dylan recordings began when I was 10 and I acquired Dylan's "Greatest Hits." "Positively Fourth Street" hit like few other songs; "Blowin' in the Wind" felt like it was 100 years old. I kept buying more records until the Dylan section was the largest in my collection. That occurred when I was in high school and remained true for a decade after college. "Blood on the Tracks," released when I was 15,was one of those life-changing records, music that makes you see the world through a different set of eyes.
As far as concerts go, my first  came in 1978, when Dylan was wearing the clear mask and traveling with a good-sized band, many of the musicians carrying over from the Rolling Thunder Revue that never got closer than 1,500 miles to my home.
But over the years I never got that great Dylan show, regardless of whether I was seeing him in New York, Philly, Boston or L.A. A Hollywood Bowl show came close, but it was not until the December 1997 run at the El Rey that I finally saw a great one, a concert worthy of his stature that made the songs all magical. Night one of the El Rey stand was my 14th Dylan concert, bringing about a monumental shift in my desire to see him every time he visits.
That run from 1997 to 2002 really spoiled us, and for a good three or four years after that it was quite easy to cut him a break, especially when he was moving between piano and guitar. Wednesday night it felt like Bob forced my critical and fan sides into a corner, making it hard to defend his 100 minutes onstage. He's still the greatest, he just does not look it.

Post by Matt Kivel

The F Yeah fest wrapped this past Sunday with an intimate performance by Baltimore's Dan Deacon at Hanger 1018 in downtown LA. Attendance was surprisingly sparse due to a last minute location change (the gig was originally planned for the 6th street warehouse -- an equally obscure locale), but the small crowd was anything but diminutive in its unyielding display of affection and enthusiasm for Deacon's neck-snapping electronica.

100 to 200 hundred kids piled into the hanger's medium-sized front room and formed an ebullient circle around Deacon, who sang and spazzed ferociously. The group's collective body heat transformed the once airy space into a dense, oven-like enclosure. Intrepid fans unveiled a large quilt, which continually rose and receded above the bobbing audience who -- despite the effervescent sweat and body odor -- danced beneath its stitched patterns with reckless abandon. Deacon capped his 45 minute set with the epic sing-along "Silence Like The Wind Overtakes Me."

All in all, this F Yeah Fest was a wonderful celebration of Los Angeles' vibrant youth culture. It rallied independent music lovers and benefited from a truly positive, cynicism-free ethos that all but equaled the transcendent spirit of Arthurfest in 2005.   

Check out the F Yeah Fest photo gallery.

Post by David Lewis

Recently reunited post rock/mathrock/whatever pioneers Polvo (above) graced the Echoplex stage Sunday night in a show presented by the F Yeah Fest. Playing a long (nearly two hour) set of their challenging, extremely tight, mostly instrumental music made for a long -- but rewarding -- night. The quartet sounded as good as they did in their prime -- a decade ago -- and they had a hard time leaving the stage ("No one has to work tomorrow, right?" joked frontman Ash Bowie). A new album is rumored to be in the works, and if the crowd's enthusiasm Sunday was any indication, it will be warmly received.

Openers Trans Am are no slouches themselves when it comes to post rock noise, although their songs have more of an electronic influence than Polvo's guitar-driven rock. Vocals were minimal, and largely synnthesized, allowing the singer/keyboard player to chow down on some chips during their set.

Check out the F Yeah Fest photo gallery.

Post by Matt Kivel

It may be strange to acknowledge, but New York's Animal Collective might just be the most influential indie group of the last 3 years. Ever since "Sung Tongs" came out, bands just keep cropping up with mixing boards and samples pushed heavily to the forefront. Deeply layered reverb, ethereal harmonies and tribal percussion are all components of this now commonly used aesthetic -- displayed in the sounds of artists like El Guincho, Health and now Brooklyn's High Places.

High Places is a duo comprised of vocalist Mary Pearson and percussionist Rob Barber. The Echoplex stage seemed like a bit of a stretch for the band who have only recently begun to enjoy some notoriety in the online music press. As a result, the crowd was thin and a bit bewildered by Pearson's breathy refrains and Barber's wildly undulating electronic beats.

There are shades of shoegaze, Steve Reich and Tropicalia in High Places' sound, but their live performance definitely left room for improvement. The vocals and looped samples coagulated to form this sort of vague, impenetrable wall of sound that made it difficult to digest the complexity and catchiness of some of the tunes. It's evident that they are very much a studio project at the moment, but their set hinted at a rich and rewarding album lying beneath the oblique sonic constructions.

Post by Sammy JC

Abe Vigoda played a set of highly inventive songs with rollicking rhythms, echo- drenched guitars, dub-thick bass lines and yelping dual vocals that put their sound somewhere between Sonic Youth, Talking Heads and calypso music. However, the jam-packed audience never let their hipster-selves get too lost in the danceable grooves and instead, remained polite and patient even when one of the guitar players took a few minutes to change a broken string.

Coupled with the sweet smell of bar-b-q wafting in from the back of the club, the band socialized with friends between numbers and kept the mood loose and carefree. Fixtures of the LA scene, much of the F Yeah Fest would play out as a celebration of Abe Vigoda and other Smell-based bands like No Age and Mika Miko whose recent success seems to have taken the whole community by surprise.

Photo by Dan Monick

Post by Matt Kivel

Alright, we get it. Country is cool. Late nights barnstorming, plowing through bottles of Jack Daniels, lamenting broken love affairs, firing a 12-gauge -- it's all well and good, but where is the new angle? Where is the next level of artistic depth that once seemed inevitable when bands like Uncle Tupelo and The Jayhawks roamed the midwest? David Vandervelde is cut from that same cloth of talented country songsmiths as Tweedy, Louris and Farrar, but he really doesn't stray from the tried and true formula of honky-tonk rave-ups and weep into your Pabst ballads that seems to define nearly every band under the alt-country tag. 

His trio proved to be a nice change of pace for the Echo stage, whose audience was ready for a reprieve after an altercation with the police and a brutal series of hardcore acts. Bass, drums and guitar, simply played with Vandervelde's axe floating high above the mix. They dutifully channelled the hard-rocking power of Southern rock overlords Lynard Skynard and were met with a modest reception from the weary crowd of punks and hardcore addicts. 

There is no doubt that David Vandervelde is good at what he does -- especially the ultra morose ballads, which are quite reminiscent of Secretly Canadian labelmate Jason Molina's work. His high wail cuts clear and warbly, much like Neil Young's more somber vocal inflections ("Old Man" and "Mellow My Mind"). But he's just not adding anything new or exciting to the tested songwriting formulas.

Photo by Nick Befort

Post by David Lewis

Most bands interact with the crowd to form a "we're all together" bond. Some bands stage-dive and let the crowd hold them up, passing them around the venue on a sea of fans' hands. Monotonix tops them all, by playing while crowd surfing. At their late-night Echo performance, the Israeli trio skipped playing on the stage (too pedestrian), opting instead to perform with their instruments set up in the middle of the crowd. It made for difficult viewing, but an electrifying performance.

Before long, singer Ami Shalev was being passed over the heads of the packed crowd, singing all the while. Likewise, guitarist Yonatan Gat was raised up high in the air by a groups of fans, while hammering out sloppy arena-style solos. The coup de grace came when various audience members hoisted seated drummer Haggai Fershtman up high, along with multiple pieces of his drumkit (hi-hat, snare drum). He then played more than just a few bars while seemingly floating in thin air. The music itself, though somewhat of a moot point, was non-stop garage rock, chock full of Zeppelinish riffs.

Best of all was the fact that they pulled off all of these maneuvers with out cordless equipment. Meaning that there was still a length of cord, originating from the amp on stage, snaking through the audience even after Gat had been passed right out the exit. They then proceeded to play outside the venue for the brief remainder of their set.

Photos by Bryce Frees.

Post by Andrew Barker

Considering the band is comprised of only two people, it's simply astounding how much noise No Age is capable of generating. Waves of noise, looped and layered over each other, bubbling over with low hypnotic patterns and building to epic catharses, all the while never dipping below the red. And yet you don't even notice just how loud they are until you step out into the street afterward and notice the painful ringing in your ears, so perfectly controlled and oddly soothing is their deeply original, brilliantly crafted brand of beautiful chaos.

Delivering the headlining set of Saturday's F Yeah Festival, the L.A. duo justified the substantial attention they've been receiving of late, making for a perfect closer to a day filled with excitement, energy and experimentation.

Whereas the band's recordings can often hew too closely to the same formula (a gentle, syncopated instrumental suite followed by a bone-rattling blast of blissed-out noise pop, or vice-versa), here they let the songs stretch, drag and bleed into one another as needed, reinventing a number of them entirely. Guitarist Randy Randall climbed the amps and covered every square foot of the stage like the bastard son of Kevin Shields and Angus Young, while drummer/singer Dean Spunt proved an engaging, watchable frontman, despite being seated for most of the performance.

It was also a perfectly structured show, beginning on a loose, improvisatory note, then slowly ratcheting up the energy to the mid-set one-two punch of "Brain Burners" and "Eraser" (the latter of which would be a top 10 hit in a slightly skewed parallel universe), cooling down a bit to the dreamy "Ripped Knees," then ending on an explosive, feedback drenched cover of the Misfits' "Night of the Living Dead" that likely left anyone within 10 feet of the speakers with permanent hearing damage.

For all the obvious attention that No Age put into the instrumental side of their music, Spunt's vocals can often seem an afterthought, and are frequently buried so far down in the live mix that they might as well be -- hopefully this is an area the band will continue to fine tune and develop. As it is, No Age still have more potential than any new band in recent memory.

Photo by Bryce Frees.

Check out the Set List's video interview with No Age's Randy Randall.

Check out the F Yeah Fest photo gallery.

Post by Andrew Barker

Brooklyn alterna-dance duo Matt and Kim were on some serious happy drugs Saturday night, with keyboard player/singer Matt frequently jumping up from his seat and cutting himself off mid-song, too eager to get to the next one, and perpetually smiling drummer Kim bobbing her head with a maniacal intensity. The crowd responded in kind, becoming an ebullient, throbbing mass, even prompting this reporter to attempt his first crowd surf since a Descendents concert in 1996 (semi-successfully).

Photo by Bryce Frees.

Check out the F Yeah Fest photo gallery.

Post by David Lewis

Toronto hardcore iconoclasts Fucked Up (a name somewhat appropriate for this particular festival) have been building a significant buzz over the last few years due to their reputedly raucous live shows and their willingness to experiment on record (unexpected instrumentation, pop sounds, epic-length songs, guest vocalists). Raucous their F yeah set was, but it was short on experimentation and stuck rigidly to traditional, but relentlessly entertaining, hardcore punk.

The sweaty crowd was packed in tight and it was clear from the outset that they came to fuck things up: Many audience members started moshing a split-second before the band even began, anticipating a large, savage pit. Fucked Up frontman, a 300-pound dude named Damian Abraham, was intimidating but surprisingly charming, funny and self-deprecating. He spent half of his time interacting with the crowd, offering audience members the mic and stage-diving in equal measure. Likewise, the band seemed to have a strong sense of humor often missing from the hardcore scene, even playing a few bars of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Having three guitars allowed the sextet to create an endless stream of speedy, distorted crunch, but in the spacious Echoplex, the specific riffs melted away, leaving a deafening wall of white noise.

They're obviously informed by the early days of hardcore (including Negative Approach, who played immediately after them), but Fucked Up push the envelope musically and are significantly more populist and accessible than some of their peers. The F Yeah Fest in general is the same way: Look to the early days of DIY punk, but mix in new elements and invite everybody to contribute in some way.

Check out the F Yeah Fest photo gallery.

Post by Andrew Barker

Playing in the early evening at the Echo, Bay Area duo Two Gallants' blend of vintage folk melodies, blues riffs and sea shanties should have been a welcome respite from the steady hardcore that dominated the afternoon. They certainly exhibited good taste in the styles they chose to emulate, and it's encouraging to see a roots band dig back further into the blues/folk vault than the simple Mississippi Delta/Woody Guthrie diet that sustains most retro-minded rockers.

But Two Gallants just simply didn't swing, despite a style that demands it. Perhaps it was the strange lack of chemistry between the two men (a drummer and guitarist/singer), or their sour-faced lack of enthusiasm performing, or the fact that their singer sounds far more like Geddy Lee than Leadbelly, but there was something uncomfortably amiss about the whole performance.

Check out the F Yeah Fest photo gallery.

Post by David Lewis

Vancouver's Ladyhawk* suffered one of the day's few major technical glitches. As a result, they took to the stage about 15 minutes late, but vocalist Duffy Driediger passed the time by riffing on Canada, U.S. vs. Canadian money (someone in the crowd gave him a Canadian $5 bill), and, hilariously, the awkwardness that follows when a fellow male compliments his well-groomed beard (it was pretty handsome, to be honest). He later kept the comedy vibe going by jokingly yelling "Yeah Ladyhawk! Worst band ever!" between songs.

Decked out in vintage tees (including the Grateful Dead and Elvis) and vintage sneakers, Ladyhawk is also most comfortable drawing their music from the past. Echoes of Neil Young creep into their largely late '80s-early '90s-inspired (think Dinosaur Jr., Replacements, even Built to Spill) arsenal of rootsy, guitar-driven indie rock. At the 3/4-full Echo they got jammy in a welcomed, My Morning Jacket kind of way, but their final song (for which the drummer and guitarist swapped instruments) was jammy in a bad way. They also played the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated," which was itself rather sedated.

*Not to be confused with buzzy New Zealand electro-poppers Ladyhawke (like the Matthew Broderick film), who will be gracing the Echo's stage in October.

Check out the F Yeah Fest photo gallery.

Post by Matt Kivel

The first day of the F Yeah Fest in Echo Park proudly displayed a veritable all star team of bands from Los Angeles' vibrant counterculture. Hipsters and teenagers decked out in florescent t-shirts and wide-rimmed spectacles engulfed the three block stretch of Sunset Blvd between Glendale Blvd and Echo Park Ave, within which which the Echo and Echoplex venues reside.

Festivities kicked off at around 3: 30 PM and for the most part, early concerts enjoyed moderate attendance. The Mae Shi proved to be an exception. Fans packed into the Echoplex at around 4: 15 PM to catch a glimpse of the band's spastic punk rock -- a refreshingly unpretentious blend of seemingly incongruous musical sub-genres. Some of the songs employ long, avant-garde freak outs and Kraut-flavored improvisations while others borrow unashamedly from early 90s mainstream FM radio with epic hooks and gleeful crowd-bating chants.

Band members propelled themselves across the stage and the lead vocalists screamed and shouted in tandem, echoing each other's refrains and hammering home the choruses. The Mae Shi set was galvanizing in the best of ways, revving up the crowd and uniting concertgoers from different ends of the musical spectrum. Hardcore and punk fans pumped fists with pop-lovers and ska fans alike -- that sort of unity among fans regardless of musical preference continued throughout the night and made for a celebratory concert experience.

Photo by Faith Crawford

Check out the F Yeah Fest photo gallery.

On a four-day staycation, I spent a fair amount of time going through stacks and stacks of CDs. Plenty were tossed out after just a couple of tunes, but several stayed in for a full listen. These are the 12 albums worthy of recommendation after a single listen, plus a review of recordings of an old song.

B.B. King "One Kind Favor" (Geffen)
Influence of producer T Bone Burnett is felt most deeply on the opening track, a gurgling, sparse and treble-free take on Blind Lemon Jefferson's "See That My Grave is Kept Clean." Otherwise, Burnett makes sure the sharp and invigorating horns land in the right places and that King's voice still sounds like man consumed with despair finding a way to smile. 

Jack Rose "Dr. Ragtime & Pals" (Beautiful Happiness)
Jack Rose and James Blackshaw have quietly emerged as the John Fahey and Leo Kottke for a new generation, acoustic guitarists steeped in  blues and folk melodies who fingerpick at blazing speeds. On "Dr. ragtime," Rose keeps the songs short and limits his use of ragas, instead choosing to play it straight as he explores blues and rags, occasionally with guest players. "Fishtown Flower," one of his new compositions that sounds hill-born a few years after WWI,  is a regular march down Main Street U.S.A., the guitar working at a pace of pride and a banjo clopping along like a well-mannered horse.

Mike Gordon "The Green Sparrow" (Rounder)
The former Phish bassist delivers a playful, easy-going version of Phish-funk, a Vermont spin on New Orleans rhythms. Perfect for hacky sack or an afternoon barbecue, Gordon's a laid-back singer with a crew that includes some veteran all-stars - Bill Kreutzmann, Trey Anastasio, Chuck Leavell - but the snappiest and possibly most convincing track is "Andelman's Yard," which goes on a bit too long at six minutes, 13 seconds. It's the one tune in which he played all the instruments.   

Jonatha Brooke "The Works" (Bad Dog Records)
Soft-rocker gets an invite to dig through the Woody Guthrie archives and picks over whatever Billy Bragg left behind when he did his "Mermaid Avenue" project. Rather than the rustic route Bragg took with Wilco when he finished off some of Guthrie's tunes, Brooke brings together a collection of jazz musicians (Christian McBride, Joe Sample, Steve Gadd) and studio aces (Mitchell Froom, Greg Leisz) to make a record that should appeal to the Norah Jones-Bonnie Raitt set. It's a lot of love songs and none of it feels very Guthrie-ish; the bluesier material is the strongest, "You Oughta be Satisfied Now" being the standout.

Boz Scaggs "Speak Low" (Decca)
The always elegant Boz makes a significant leap from his first collection of standards, bringing a strong sensual edge to "Speak Low." Not only does he sound thoroughly involved but he has an acoustic bassist as a sparring partner, dancing around his vocals and peppering the empty spaces with flair. Album will be released on vinyl on Sept 30.

Glen Campbell  "Meet Glen Campbell" (Capitol)
Given the sort of strings and pop backing he was afforded on albums such as "Galveston," Campbell leaps into a rock 'n' roll repertoire and emerges with impressive results. Two Tom Petty tunes sparkle brightest, "Angel Dream" and Walls," though one wonders why he never recorded Jackson Browne's "These Days," a song that seems tailor made for him. I wish we could A/B between two versions, one he cut when he was 32 and one he's done now, at 72.

This Is Ivy League "S/T"
Baroque folk-pop, this spin-off from Cobra Starship reaches back to Love's "Forever Changes," Lee Hazelwood, the Left Banke and early Scott Walker to create a lovely album rich in summer splendor. The heart-tugging, bossa-loungey "Viola" would have made women in beehives swoon back in '68.   

Roy Harper "Counter Culture" (Science Friction)
Disc one of this 25-song career overview is an endorsement for Harper's place in the evolution of British folk music alongside Richard Thompson, Nick Drake and John Renbourn. Covering 1966 through '75, the music is an ambitious integration of American and U.K. folk styles, the selections sticking with songs that relish structure. Harper has long had a jazz player's sense of adventure and on some of the recent reissues from his catalog it's clear that got the best of him at times.         

John Pizzarelli "With a Song in My Heart" (Telarc)
An all Richard Rogers program from the ace jazz guitarist and singer, this is one of the best-sounding recordings of 2008. Telarc, which prides itself on the quality of its recordings, can often deliver sterile sounding albums, but here there's a sense of space and warmth. Pizzarelli is, of course, superb on the guitar solos, and his voice gets the job done, setting the tunes on a balancing beam between jazz and cabaret. He's in truly fine voice on "Happy Talk," "Mountain Greenery" and "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught"; his father Bucky guests on "It's Easy to Remember."   

"The Lady is a Tramp"
The weakest rendition on Pizzarelli's album is the Rodgers & Hart song Frank Sinatra made his own. Scrolling through my iTunes library, I decided to check out other takes on the tune. Sammy Davis Jr. does a balls to the wall version, which appeared on the Rhino box set "Yes I Can," that includes the first verse that Sinatra dropped. Tony Bennett did an intimate version in the mid-1970s with guitar and piano on "The Complete Improv Recordings." Sinatra recorded a cool jazz version with the vibraphonist Red Norvo on their 1959 live album. Oscar Peterson plays it at lightning speed - as does his guitarist Herb Ellis - and throws in some fascinating left turns in his chordings on "At the Concertgebouw." The pianist Bill Charlap plays it brisk with his bassist Peter Washington taking a refreshing and lyrical solo.    

Jerry Douglas "Glide" (Koch)
The dobro player goes in four different directions - bluegrass, Dixieland, country and ambient - maintaining a group feel to every piece. Not hot dogging - an oxymoron on most bluegrass discs - and on a  good half of the album it's hard to tell the dobro is the focal point. Still, the uptempo, organic numbers are the most impressive. Guests include Rodney Crowell, Sam Bush, Travis Tritt and Earl Scruggs.   

Delta Spirit "Ode to Sunshine" (Rounder)
"People, Turn Around" - a great call to arms. A great upright piano sound, proof that the influence of the Band lives on.

The Cowsills "The Cowsills/We Can Fly" (Cowchip)
Realizing I had no Cowsills in my library I picked this up recently and was pleasantly surprised the band had more to offer than "The Rain, the Park & Other Things." Success of "Mamma Mia!" suggests that audiences love the blending of male and female voices and this family band from the '60s did that a lot better than they ever received credit for. All 28 tracks on this two-fer are quite listenbable.

The Telegraph critic says it was a joy and a privlege to be on hand, citing "Black Dog" and "In My Time of Dying" as highlights.
The Times of London critic is beside himself in his rave, a review that uses the word "heaviosity."
The classics prove music "doesn’t rock like it used to," according to the Sun.
Bloomberg News found a fan willing to call it "the concert of the millennium."
Meanwhile, fans told to stay away from Bron-yr-Aur in northern Wales.

CONCERTS
CMJ Festival
The Eagles
Fiery Furnaces
Mary Cleere Haran
Interpol
Nicholas Payton
Sia
Richard Thompson

ALBUMS
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Sunset Rubdown
Carrie Underwood
Neil Young

While it may only be a game, I am happy to report my Variety colleague Steve Mirkin is a Guitar Slinger. His report on Rock Band:

The computer game craze has largely bypassed me — I’ve rarely touched a joystick since that yellow hussy Ms. Pac Man left me hanging at the console. But that may change with the introduction of Rock Band, a new video game for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. At a recent demo at MTV studios, I happily picked up the 3/4 sized reproduction of a Fender Stratocaster, switched it to lefty mode and, with other rock scribes taking the drums, bass and vocals, shredded away on the Mountain classic, “Mississippi Queen.”
OK, not quite. It took me a few minutes to get the hang of following the colored bars on the video screen you “shoot” by pressing the correct fret and strumming on a sensor (placed where you’d normally find the pickup); the hand/eye coordination most teenagers take for granted just wasn’t there. And, in one of the game’s many realistic details, as I repeatedly missed cues or played bum notes, my avatar started checking the amp, trying to blame my deficiencies on our equipment, the animated drummer took out his frustrations by tossing his sticks in my direction, my fellow band members stalked off the stage and the crowd at the dingy club where our band was booked started heckling. But once I got the hang of it, I was probably playing Leslie West’s solo almost as well as I did in my high school band. The leaning curve was equally quick playing the wired drum kit (which can also be set on lefty mode) on Radiohead’s “Creep,” although anyone who has played real drums might find the placement of the snare strange.
I was less interested in the fantasy aspect of the game, although it seemed quite strong. Players can personalize their avatars, deciding whether they want to be attitude filled punks, metalheads, classic rockers, choosing costumes, hairstyles, tattoos (I was upset to find there was no nerdy, shaggy-haired indy rocker...Decemberists fans, you're on your own) . As your playing gets better, your band moves from mom’s basement to small clubs to theaters and arenas. Players can also hook up over the internet so, just like those creepy duets albums, people can create music together even though they’re in different cities.
But I was impressed by the wide variety of songs available. Bands such as the Rolling Stones, the Clash, Rush, the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Black Sabbath and the Ramones have licensed their masters, so you’re playing along to the real version of the song. Forty-five tunes are included in the basic game, plus the guitar, drum kit, and microphone. It’s scheduled to ship Nov. 20 with a list price of $169.99 and is sure to find itself under many a Christmas tree or Hanukkah menorah, and hopefully, mine.

Upon returning to Los Angeles from the alternating sunshine and heavy rain of New York, most music pontificators had had enough of CMJ, others were as impressed by an act we both happened to stumble upon and, not surprisingly,  hyped bands secured more hype from reviewers who just can't get enough of shows that start after 1 a.m.
As the Internet wars or words raged over a (misguided?) piece about indie rock and race in the New Yorker, I was struck both by how impossible it is to assemble a true hierarchy for 21st century rock music and how CMJ plays into reinforcing that model; this was generally bill after bill of unfamiliar names with the occasional budding star thrown in. It lacks the communal spirit of any other festival, whether it be SXSW or Coachella. This was a scene made up of young people  finding an identity with people of a  similar stripe; music is not necessarily the bonding factor. For those of us who using the memories of the past, whether they be L.A. folk rock in the early '70s, New York punk in the '70s or Seattle, North Carolina   or Omaha, Neb., after that, there's a void at the center.
Blame the democracy on the Internet: indie rock is now a generally insular world that resonates with people who prefer to learn about music through personal recommendations and via MP3-filled websites. Seeing shows at venues  ill-equipped to present shows is no big deal.
And the acts on the verge of something bigger came and did their jobs: M.I.A., the Black Kids, Band  of Horses and St. Vincent  earned a big  thumbs up from the reviewers and bloggers; the challenge now is monetizing buzz.
My favorite moment, though, was one in which about 30 people were held in rapture by a man in his 60s appearing at a party outside the CMJ official lineup. Ed Askew made an off-the-wall folk album in 1968 album for the avant-garde jazz label ESP.    He is accompanied by a lute-like instrument called the tiple. A couple of years later, he made another series of recordings that were not released until 2003 and a few more were discovered and released this year; the man basically fell of the face of the earth.
He made it to his 7 p.m. show but his accompanist did not. He took it in stride and performed a capella, playing harmonica in between verses. His voice has a lovely calmness to it, no ragged edges here, and a poet's flair for combing the direct and the ethereal. It was the rare show that had obvious weight. He deserves a return visit to the recording studio.      

Do no web editors or critics feel any responsibility to review the MUSIC on Radiohead's "In Rainbows," released within the last 20 hours as a digital download?
Considering the sturm und drang of Internet pontificators, not to mention the global standing O that their decision to self-release received, it would seem that the world would be dying to give their opinion of the album. To use the words of the legendary sports talkshow host Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton: "Where are you Pitchfork Media?"
Since, Pitchfork has yet to review the actual album, we have searched high and low (no, not dry) for the praise of other indie rock crix. There's not too much out there as the album becomes nearly a day old.
The Times of London noted: "Its airless, bunker-bound anti-ambience recalls Kid A and Amnesiac, but the band themselves sound thrillingly alive, thrashing out a melody replicates on “real” instruments the gorgeous Cornish digi-folk of Aphex Twin’s Richard D. James – an album for which Radiohead have all been vocal in their affection."
A Wired blog writer says it gets better with each listen and Stereogum, rather than reviewing, chose to let readers post.
Rolling Stone spoke with Jonny Greenwood on the day Radiohead changed the world.
And good old-fashioned Variety posted a glowing review.

With covers albums swamping the release schedule this month, the Set List decided to explore whether anyone has anything positive to say about this discs. First stop was Metacritic, which does a fine job accumulating reviews, assigning a value to the reviewer’s opinion and then producing an average score. The problem was that Metacritic had deciphered data for only one of the albums on my list, Ann Wilson’s “Hope & Glory.” Based on four reviews, they gave it a 79. (That’s a lot higher than I would have given it).
Deciding to take on the data collection myself, suddenly I have new-found respect for what a chore this is. It appears major publications are either cutting way back on CD reviews or hiding them so Google’s search engine won’t discover them until the searcher has gone through four pages of Amazon, cduniverse and Barnes and Noble pages.
While overall it’s a glimmer hope that typing in the word “Tesla” does not yield many results or fan sites, it becomes a bit staggering to think Babyface just doesn’t get his albums reviewed like he did back in the day.
Searching for anything on some of these discs takes you to some rather clueless reviews. One self-appointed typist-critic of New Found Glory’s latest decided a) he didn’t like the songs they selected; b) that he didn’t like the way the songs were performed; and c) admitted that he went in with high expectations. But, he notes, it’s “a good time.” Oy.
Most shocking is how well liked some of these discs were. Have negative reviews become passé?
Barry Manilow’s “Greatest Songs of the Seventies” earned a rave from the BBC that said “For those who love Manilow, this is a must. For those who don’t, this could well be the disc to make them change their minds.” The Boston Herald said  his singing is “more impassioned” than ever.
Chaka Khan’s “Funk This” got two thumbs up from Robert Christgau at Rolling Stone and Mark Edward Nero’s Guide to R&B. The dean of rock criticism noted: “Chaka Khan has never bothered with great albums because she has such a great voice -- juicy, airy, spunky, transported. Though she's 54, it's also unfrayed, one reason this committed if never classic comeback makes its mark.”
“Playlist,” a collection of 1970s singer-songwriter material from Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds , finds Entertainment Weekly noting that he can take bland or treacly material and “render it superior to the original with delicate or atypical phrasing plus sheer commitment.” They loved his take on Bob Dylan's ''Knockin' on Heaven's Door''; disliked Jim Croce's “'Time in a Bottle.”
Herbie Hancock has released a tribute to Joni Mitchell titled “River: The Joni Letters.” New York magazine called it “a success”; the L.A. Times called Hancock “interpreter (who) really grasps the key to Mitchell's genius”; and the Boston Phoenix was impressed with his  “languid, meditative takes on the Mitchell songbook.”
The soundtrack to “Across the Universe” —  actors and Bono singing Beatles songs — received an indifferent review from the L.A. Times. “Even with many inviting arrangements and inventive production work from T Bone Burnett and Elliot Goldenthal, the Lennon-McCartney and Harrison songs too often wind up in nowhere land.”
The two-CD  “Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino” features a multitude of artists who got allmusicguide.com to rave: “Just how loved Fats Domino is by the music community is borne out by the A-list names who've contributed to one of the more remarkable tribute albums to surface in recent years.”
The Boston Globe uses words such as “fizzy,” “zippy,” “sultry” and “sassy” in a complimentary assessment of  “Trav'lin' Light” by Queen Latifah.
No publication or website has published anything on “Real to Reel Vol. 2” by Tesla or Boyz II Men’s “Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA.”
But as covers go, will any of them endiure or even compare with this?

The unspectacular Video Music Awards drove the point that so much of modern music is disposable.
Highlighting songs with the shelf life of bread crumbs, Britney Spears' ill-prepared, lip-synch performance provided the perfect distraction. While Kanye West, Justin Timberlake and Foo Fighters will have long careers and make some of pop's most memorable  songs, there's little sense that these will be remembered as classics a decade from now.  Good as Kanye was, there's only one "Jesus Walks"; Timberlake  could get away with remaking "Sexy Back" for his next four albums and fans would probably not notice.
Meanwhile...
While West's performance was one of the better ones on the show, he says he will not appear on the network again. Ever. 
Roger Friedman says Britney Spears' horrid performance kills off hopes for significant sales of her Nov. 13 release - and he blames her manager.
Mark Caro come up with advice for other pop tartlets who see the VMAs as a comeback arena.
Time magazine's blogger had a good take on the deterioration of MTV.
Like an episode of "Cops," one scraggly tattooed longhair dude is charged with beating on another scraggly tattooed longhair. Rather than fighting over some crack addict, this gal was pretty.

Forty years ago this week, while the nation was dealing with race riots and their aftermath, Variety was touting the hot singles being released that week. The list: Eric Burdon & the Animals’ “San Franciscan Nights,” Frank Sinatra’s “The Word We Knew,” Beach Boys’ “Heroes and Villains,” the Byrds’ “Lady Friend,” the Youngbloods’ “Get Together,” Traffic’s “Paper Sun,” Jackie Wilson’s “(You’re Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher” and Otis Redding’s “Glory of Love.” Takes your breath away. It’s a reminder there are no slates of releases like that anymore.
On a positive note, though, Variety has resumed reviewing albums after decades of sticking to concerts. Reviews of albums by Nicole Atkins, Corey Harris, U.N.K.L.E. and others are found on the Variety music page.

The most positively reviewed performer this year - for album and live shows -  is quite likely Leslie Feist, the Canadian singer who emerged leading Broken Social Scene and has now made three albums under her surname.

Some samples: "("The Reminder" is) the album that should transform her from the darling of the indie-rock circuit to a full-fledged star, and do it without compromises (New York Times); "alternately raw and soothing" (Variety); and "Feist's voice, even more than the average singer's, is the wellspring of her appeal" (LA Times).

Latest rave comes from the Los Angeles Times, which joins highly praised shows in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and New York City. (L.A. was the last city in her North American tour). The pre-release enthusiasm began with a profile in the New York Times, which was followed by this glowing account in the Washington Post.

Pitchfork, which has Euro dates here, and its ilk, which certainly propped her up early, gave "The Reminder" a  rating of 8.8. For all this coverage, only this week will  "Reminder," which was released May 1, surpass sales of her 2004 disc, "Let it Die," which has sold 131,000 copies.

Here is the Feist-approved video of her performance on Conan O'Brien.

Led Zep's John Paul Jones finds plenty of musicians to jam with; Ornette Coleman is felled by heat stroke; and Wilco, Richard Thompson and Warren Haynes turn in spirited performances. Rich Nieciecki endures the heat and dust to wrap up Bonnaroo '07 from Manchester, Tenn.