Music

Rock historian Ed Ward reviews a new 4-CD box set from Buffalo Springfield

World music critic Milo Miles profiles Indigedisc, a new record label that specializes in vintage and current African pop.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the new NSync CD, entitled Celebrity.

Rock historian Ed Ward remembers Beale street 1952 the place in Memphis that launched the careers of Ike Turner, Rosco Gordon, Bobby Bland, Little Junior Parker, and B.B. King.

Otis Taylor brings his banjo to the studio for a concert and conversation. We'll hear tracks from his new CD, White African. Taylor plays guitar and ukelele in addition to banjo. His music is often described as minimalist, and his lyrics are often stories of race and racism. He's been compared to John Lee Hooker.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews Thrill Jockey, the new CD from the Chicago Underground Quartet. He also talks about a new re-issue of Miles Davis Live at the Fillmore East recordings.

Rock critic Ken Tucker looks at two very different female musicians: Gillian Welch, whose new CD is Time The Revelator, and Nikka Costa, whose debut release is Everybody Got their Something.

We remember the world best known player of the mouth organ, Larry Adler. He died recently at the age of 87. He got started on vaudeville, and went on to perform with Fred Astaire, George Gershwin, Jack Benny and many others. When George Gershwin first heard Adler play Rhapsody in Blue on the mouth-organ he said, "It sounds as if the goddamned thing was written for you." Adler also played classical music and performed with a number of symphony orchestras. Adler moved to England after being blacklisted during the McCarthy hearings.

Music critic Milo Miles reviews Avalon Blues, (Vanguard) a new tribute album to country blues performer Mississippi John Hurt.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Del and the Boys by the Del McCoury Band.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews Three Mo' Tenors, a PBS Great Performances program and a new CD. It features the African-American tenors Rodrick Dixon, Victor Trent Cook and Thomas Young.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews two new Armstrong reissues: Louis and the Angels and Louis and the Good Book (both recorded in the 1950s, and released on Verve).

August 4th is the 100th anniversary of Armstrong's birth. The archive contains 5000 photographs, 350 pages of autobiographical manuscripts, 270 sets of band part manuscripts, 650 home-made tape recordings and more. Hear excerpts from the tapes. Director of the Louis Armstrong House & Archives Michael Cogswell is in the process of converting the Louis Armstrong House in Queens, where Louis and his wife Lucille lived for almost thirty years, into a museum and educational center. The House is expected to open in 2002.

It's not not surprising that Rufus Wainwright would become a musician and singer. He is the son of singer-songwriters Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle (of the McGarrigle sisters). He has just released his second album, Poses.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews –Fear Not the Obvious— (Bloodshot Records) the debut album by a group called the Yayhoos.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the new anthology Woody Herman - Blowin' Up a Storm: The Columbia Years 1945-47.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the New edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

The grandson of singer and songwriter Jimmy McHugh, McHugh and his family manage the estate of the legendary artist. Songwriter Jimmy McHugh was famous in the forties and fifties for songs like “The Sunny Side of the Street.” Today, McHugh talks about the resurgence of interest in his grandfather’s jazz standards. Several remakes of McHugh’s songs presently hold top spots in the jazz charts.

Film critic Henry Sheehan reviews The Score starring Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, and Ed Norton.

Critic Milo Miles reviews White African (Northern Blues label) by blues man Otis Taylor.