Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Christian McBride, Kenny Garrett & Vinnie Colaiuta - Five Peace Band Live

Chick Corea and John McLaughlin are icons of jazz and jazz fusion and this is clearly a CD for their many fans and dedicated fans of improvisational jazz fusion in general. If you're not a real fan you might consider a double CD a bit too much retro fusion, if it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Generically, this group may not be breaking new ground, but that's not necessarily meant as criticism. Nobody does what is done here better than Chick Corea and John McLaughlin. And there's plenty to enjoy in this 2-disc set recorded live during the band's 2008 tour. According to Corea, from the liner notes, the band is just playing the music they enjoy. They didn't see the need to define guidelines for genre or influences. There was no intent to do cutting-edge...MORE

The Subdudes At The Hard Rock Cafe-Cavern Club, Boston, MA, June 8, 2009

The Subdudes are a five-member New Orleans roots R&B vocal and instrumental group. They appeared Monday, June 8, 2009 at the Cavern Club at the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston.

The Subdudes are unusual in several ways making it somewhat difficult to characterize their live performance in a few words. It is largely acoustic (the bass and two guitars are lightly amplified) and accessible, but there's a musical flamboyance, richness and mastery of material. As accordionist John Magnie recently said (The Music Box, April 2009, Volume 16, #4, written by John Metzger), one way to characterize the band's sound is like a "...Led Zeppelin approach to folk."...MORE