Jim Hynes

Marc Ribot’ s Map of a Blue City is uneven, unsettling, intriguing, and surprisingly warm but not easily accessible to most. It comes off, probably just as he intended, as a late-night conversation that goes in several directions with the prevailing theme about feeling lost. Even though this is the first time Ribot has added vocals, this is not of the singer-songwriter variety but more as spoken word meditations over his customarily inventive guitar work. Given that many of these songs, some thirty years old, began as home demos, Ribot is mostly delivering a solo album. Yet the production work, which we’ll get into in more detail later, adds twelve other musicians on select tracks. A few familiar names from the Creative Music scene appear here, such as cellist Christopher Hoffman and percussionist Ches Smith, yet only “Daddy’s Trip to Brazil,” with Doug Wieselman on flute and saxophone, feels like a full band track. Only two tracks have drums, for example.

Watchhouse, formerly Mandolin Orange, is the North Carolina duo of Andrew Marlin a nd Emily Frantz. Now they return four years later with Rituals, this time producing in conjunction with Ryan Gustafson (The Dead Tongues). Their sound is moving even further away from the bluegrass of Mandolin Orange into dreamy folk music, with both musicians embracing a wider array of string instruments. They blend the electric with the acoustic, a combination that has long been at the core of their sound. The fully rounded sound, though, goes far beyond just the duo, as they are backed throughout by a full band of bassist Clint Mullican, drummer Jamie Dick, keyboardist Nat Smith, multi-instrumentalists Josh Oliver and Gustafson, as well as pedal steel player Matt Smith. Where the mandolin was once prominent, it’s now just one of many. Their sound is now layered and highly textured.

New Vienna is the fourth concert released from Keith Jarrett’s 2016 European tour, following Munich 2016, Budapest Concert, and Bordeaux Concert, the

Grammy-nominated harpist Brandee Younger delivers her third album and first with all-original music for Gadabout Season on Impulse! Known mostly for her

Guitarist and vocalist Larry McCray takes the ‘big production’ route for “Heartbreak City.” Just as Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia enlisted the

Protest music is on the rise as it should be. We Insist! Max Roach’s “Freedom Now Suite” (1960), an important collaboration between jazz drummer Max Roach and lyricist Oscar Brown Jr., featuring vocals by Abbey Lincoln and contributions from Coleman Hawkins and Booker Little, is a defining statement of the early Black American civil rights movement. Unfortunately, many issues from that era are still with us. The album, controversial in its time, was recognized by the Library of Congress as one of the most essential jazz albums in history. Who better to reimagine this classic album than NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington, a drummer, composer, educator, bandleader, and activist, who has been at the forefront of social justice as the founder of Berklee’s Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice?

Welcome back, James McMurtry. It’s been four years since 2021’s The Horses and The Hounds. We’ve missed his wit, political insights, and unparalleled storytelling. These new songs on The Black Dog and The Wandering Boy are memories from his family’s past, an old poem by a family friend, confronting old age, outlaw sagas, and both blatant and well-disguised political rants. Well, that’s just some of it.

The Western Kentucky singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman may be the best writer of Southern Gothic songs since Lucinda Williams first brought her genius to the forefront in the ‘90s. Goodman’s distinctive Kentucky drawl also gives us one of those singular voices. Few write and sing with the combination of vivid detail, empathy, and relativity. Planting By Signs is Goodman’s fourth album in a recording career that began in 2017.

Most artists signed to the premier blues label, Alligator, have established careers; however, occasionally, youthful talent emerges, such as Louisiana-born D.K. Harrell, a skillful guitarist, accomplished songwriter, and powerful vocalist. The 27-year-old Harrell is already playing blues festivals globally and was a headliner at the Chicago Blues Festival this past week. This is Harrell’s second album, having debuted on Little Village with The Right Man in 2023, working with Kid Andersen and Jim Pugh’s session players. Pugh, who rose to prominence first as Robert Cray’s keyboardist and later as Executive Director of the Little Village Foundation, deserves credit for giving Harrell his first break, leading to Harrell winning the BMA for Best Emerging Artist. It’s one thing to be able to play the blues guitar and sing soulfully, but what separates Harrell from most is his songwriting. His first album had all original songs, and Talkin’ Heavy follows suit with Harrell writing or co-writing eleven of the dozen.

Missouri-based folksinger Willi Carlisle i s the living embodiment of Kris Kristofferson’s famous lines – “He’s a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.” Carlisle’s appeal is his ability to write deeply incisive, provocative, and socially relevant songs without being preachy, while taking a few lighthearted detours through these eleven songs on Winged Victory. Carlisle is serious without taking himself too seriously as he champions the weirdos, the outcasts, and the dreamers who find it increasingly difficult to thrive in our chaotic state. The liners contain a bold headline – “These Songs Feel Poised on the Edge of the Apocalypse.”