great new release by norah. she has bounced around in styles in the last few years, all done very tastefully and competently, but here she returns to the format that made her famous. much of it is piano based jazz orientations with a country blues shading, but she also throws in a few pop laden gems as well. all originals, save for three covers – neil young, duke ellington, and horace silver. on the latter two i was pleasantly surprised to hear my old friend wayne shorter on sax. they both sound better than ever.

 

 

john prine just turned 70. on his new release, he revisits the album he put out in 1999 after recovering from cancer, ‘in spite of ourselves’. that release was comprised of duets with some of his favorite female vocalists, and consisted mostly of covers of old country songs. some of those songbirds return here, plus a few new ones. alison kraus, miranda lambert, kasey musgraves, susan tedeschi, holly williams, amanda shires and others join in to pay tribute to one of the great artists of our generation. his voice is older and gravelly, but it is clear he still has that spunk of his youth, and his back up band performs wonderfully here.

 

wilco puts out a follow up to their ‘star wars’ release from last year. supposedly it was recorded in the same sessions from that album, but it is hard for me to hear the similarities. this feels like a totally different vibe. the overall feel is a little more laid back, measured, and not exactly uplifting. and i don’t mean the latter in a bad way. this isn’t a cd you put in the car on the way home after work on friday night. but it is one you can listen to when you have some time to appreciate a different twist on the world as tweedy sees it. the last couple of years have seen some interesting times in this country and, although none of the lyrics are expressly political, the anxiety seems to bubble to the surface here. and of course i may just be projecting. possibly somewhat related – you can usually pick up tweedy’s influences in his work, and i seem to hear a lot of john lennon in his vocals on this one. this band just gets better with age. quite simply one of the best groups out there playing today. if they come to your town, you should go see them.