CD Reviews

Moz Live is the new album by the Chris Fast Band, who have been gigging all over SoCal. The blues quartet is fronted by Fast on vocals and harp, and the new disc was cut live in Laguna Beach. The ten tracks are blues combo standards (at least half by Little Walter), the idea was […]

San Diego (by way of Brooklyn) flute virtuoso Lori Bell has been collaborating with singer/guitarist Ron Satterfield and percussionist Tommy Aros for many years under the aegis of Trio de Janeiro. They’ve developed a truly unique sonic signature that belies their rather sparse instrumentation: it’s not easy to get such a full sound without a […]

Over the last 75 years rock music is strewn with lost and unrecognized classic albums. Some have remained lost. Others are found, dusted off, repackaged, and returned to the mantle of the success they deserved all along. The case for the high-flying Byrd, Gene Clark’s 1974 contemplative Americana masterpiece No Other, has long been acknowledged […]

I’m old enough to remember when alto saxophone virtuoso Christopher Hollyday swirled into the jazz public consciousness in the early 1980s—mentioned in the same breath in Downbeat magazine as Wynton Marsalis and Roy Hargrove. Hollyday had been burning up stages in hometown Boston-area gigs for years before his 21st birthday, and he secured a major […]

Nathan Hubbard and his trio have performed around San Diego for years, with dates at Dizzy’s, Panama 66, and other music venues. Finally making it into the studio, Hubbard wrote up eight new compositions for himself and the band. The resulting studio performances have the solidity of a well-grounded trio; yet the sound is fresh, […]

The Murderers of Love are built around founder Jaime Muehlhausen, whose San Diego roots date back to the nineties, to days as a coffee shop artist and spots in bands that included the Deadlites. After some time away from music as a graphic designer, the singer/songwriter got back into the music scene in 2017 with […]

One of the most fascinating things about Nena Anderson’s musical journey is her creative unpredictability. Sure, she has blues roots and rock riffs, and the woman excels in the Americana/country genre… but a Christmas album? She smiles when she says, “It’s a jazz record, a vocal jazz record, something I haven’t done in years. But […]

Now for the “something completely different” department, folk songs from the opposite corner of America by Mark Alan Lovewell, who bills himself as a Martha’s Vineyard folksinger. San Diego certainly qualifies as a seafaring town, even one with a history of being a fishing center, so while Lovewell’s CD, With the Fishes, may concern itself […]

If you’re the sort of person who likes your sacred cow carved up and served well done, this is the Christmas album for you! The husband and wife duo of Joe and Jaye MacAskill, who call their musical comedy act Pony Death Ride, present a collection of twisted Yuletide tunes aimed at “people like us, […]