Rusty Trombone and All That Jazz (Funk)...

Jayhawks – “Hollywood Town Hall”

Solid alt-country effort from these guys…definitely stands up to the past 10 years or so…not a lot to say about it other than I really enjoy a no-frills, guitar-bass-drum sound with smart lyrics and genuine vocals and this is the whole package. 4

Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa – “Don’t Explain”

OK, so this CD was touted as being an inspired work of some great blues and soul classics, and as far as the song choices go, they are some great blues and soul classics, but I didn’t find it terribly inspiring. I liked “I Would Rather Go Blind”, but other than that, it was just a good female voice and a technically proficient guitarist trying too hard to pretend to have soul. 2 ½.

Trombone Shorty

This was a pleasant surprise, though I couldn’t find out when this was recorded or released. It’s not 2004-2008 N.O. Jazz Festival stuff, but whenever it’s from, it’s pretty cool. This has great musicianship, nice arrangements and an awesome lead guitar player to keep it interesting. I didn’t know anything about him, so it interested me to find out that he was played on Lenny Kravitz’s tours and that he’s been out there since 2004 as a 17 year old player. Someone has to tell me where that riff from “Suburbia” came from…it’s making me crazy. Anyway… 3 ½.

Dennis Coffey - Dennis Coffey

It can be either be very cool or very sad when a 70 year old tries to mount a musical comeback…this fits into the “cool” category, although between this CD and Trombone Shorty, that’s more wah-wah guitar than I’ve heard in a month since I cut high school classes in June of 1975 to go see porn movies. Anyway, I was more of a fan of the vocal tracks than the jams, and “Somebody’s Been Sleeping” was a top 40 tune when I was a kid, so it was fun to hear that again. All in all, not something I’d listen to repeatedly, but definitely worth the 39 minutes. 3

Queen – Jazz

I’m a Queen fan, so I was familiar with this CD. I haven’t listened to it in its entirety for many years, so it was a “fresh listen”. I had forgotten both how much this CD rocked, though I also had forgotten how I didn’t enjoy “Mustapha” as much as I did enjoy “Fat Bottomed Girls and Bicycle Race” For me, it’s not as great as “A Night at the Opera”, “A Day at the Races” or “News of the World”, but it’s very good Queen, none the less. 4.


Warren Zevon – GH

I have always liked his music and his performances…I didn’t have many of these tracks so it was great to get this compilation. . I also enjoyed the sequencing of these tracks, but felt that by definition of “Greatest Hits” that it should have had “Werewolves of London” on it…the only other track I would have expected was “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”, but knowing his story made “Keep Me In Your Heart” the perfect closing track to this CD. Thanks, Mike.


Topic – Whose i-Pod is that anyway?...