The Whole Music Experience

Good Lovelies Let the Rain Fall Six Shooter Records/Warner Bros. While the US had its sweethearts Doris Day and the Andrew Sisters, Canada presents its own version of the musical girls next door, better known as Good Lovelies.   This trio, like the Wailin’ Jennys, blends their sweet-honeyed voices on songs that swing. But unlike the Wailin’ Jennys, there’s not a prairie in sight. I'm also reminded of the rockabilly group Stray Cats of the 80's.  Good Lovelies perform urban grass songs that portray women getting around a city on bikes, and the simplicities of domestic life on their third album, Let the Rain Fall . With these adorable ditties and toe-tapping tunes, even us poor folks living under rain clouds for 6 months feel uplifted. The album’s warm production features lap steel, guitar, Wurlitzer (organ), bass, drums, mandolin, and harmonica.   But the instrumentation merely offers a backdrop for the vocal harmonies and the stories featured in each ...

Kayhan Kalhor and Ali Bahrami Fard I Will Not Stand Alone World Village I have a small pile of CDs sitting next to my laptop in which Iranian spike-fiddle player Kayhan Kalhor appears. Since reviewing Ghazal’s Rain on ECM in 2003, in which Kalhor performed in a musical exchange with sitarist Shujaat Husain Khan, I have come across a recording each year featuring Kahlhor in collaborations with Iranian, Turkish, American (Brooklyn Rider, a string quartet and Yo-Yo Ma), and Indian musicians.  And in each of these recordings, the spike fiddle player (aka kamancheh), offers a transcendental performance. If you see Kayhan Kalhor’s name gracing the cover of a CD, make sure you give that recording a good listen.  Otherwise you pass up an opportunity to hear truly exotic music fired by the heart and soul of its performer. The most recent recording, or musical chapter, I Will Not Stand Alone , brings its listeners a ray of hope, but only after having suffered the torme...

Mark Sherman With Bill Cunliffe, John Chiodini, Charles Ruggiero The LA Sessions Miles High Records While I have reviewed instrumental recordings featuring an array of instruments Mark Sherman’s The LA Sessions is the first vibraphone album that has ended up in my mailbox. Vibraphones have wonderful resonance that warms up the heart chakra and the be bop jazz classics that appear on this recording certainly provide an uplifting groove.  Sherman’s quartet includes Bill Cunliffe on hammond organ, John Chiodini on guitar, and Charles Ruggiero on drums and this combo's be bop renovations turn heads and get feet tapping. This uptempo album features songs by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Milt Jackson, John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Burke Van Heusen, and one lone track by Sherman.  The album acts as an homage to the musicians who inspired Sherman during his formative years and when at 18 years of age he switched from drums to vibraphone t...