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Pursuance: Music Of John Coltrane is Kenny Garrett's tribute to John Coltrane. Working with musicians like Pat Metheny, Brian Blade, and Rodney Whitaker, Garrett creates a loving tribute, one that is respectful to Coltrane's legacy but one that doesn't mimic his sound. It's a moving record that reveals more layers every time you listen to it. ~ Thom Owens, All Music Guide



PERSONNEL
Kenny Garrett - Saxophone
Brian Blade - Drums
Pat Metheny - Guitar
Rodney Whitaker - Bass

Taj Mahal is a walking encyclopedia of black music and one of its most genial, enthusiastic partisans. To the catalog of genres he has mastered, both as a musician and as a scholar, contemporary R&B now can be added. Like Never Before finds him integrating synths, programming, turntable trickery and high-gloss studio polish on certain tracks. Understandable, that: Like everyone else, he wants to be heard. But unlike everyone else, he has assimilated a broad inventory of styles, sees them all as part of an evolving continuum and wants to share that wisdom.

Taj Mahal has been processing acoustic and electric blues, ragtime, calypso, reggae and native African forms for a quarter of a century now. So while Like Never Before makes its timely nods to current trends, it also slips into older, more rough-hewn modes. The album can be seen as a guided tour, starting from a point familiar to contemporary listeners and then gradually backtracking into the blues and other roots styles. Because it also is the most crisp, detailed recording Taj has ever made – fuzzy sound quality has been a hindrance on some of his wonderful early work – Like Never Before might just be the definitive Taj Mahal album.

"Don't Call Us" opens the album with a showbiz truism – "Those same people you meet on the way up/Are the same people you meet on the way down" – as Taj's gruff voice provides a shot of soul among the synths. "River of Love" could be an old Temptations side – it's bright and upbeat, with caressing harmonies. From there on out, Taj gets noticeably more idiomatic and eclectic. He slips into Jamaican patois and reggae rhythms on "Scattered" and avails himself of Howlin' Wolf-like moans on "Blues With a Feeling."

Taj's friendly nature and big, smile-filled voice make "Ev'ry Wind (in the River)" convey well-being without leaving a saccharine aftertaste. The neatest act of assimilation is the way D.J. Jazzy Jeff is worked into a jumping, old-time boogie called "Squat That Rabbit," whose lyrics are a pastiche of familiar blues rhymes. By the time Taj gets to "Love Up" and "Cakewalk Into Town" (a Dixieland-style remake of his best-known song), the horn section is out and blowing, and friends like Dr. John and the Pointer Sisters help him turn up the heat. Finally, a breathtaking reworking of "Take a Giant Step" – yes, the Monkees tune penned by Carole King and Gerry Goffin and first recorded by Taj in 1969 – closes the album, its instrumentation pointing to Africa, and Taj's vocal gently targeting the heart.
--PARKE PUTERBAUGH, RollingStone


Featuring
Hiram Bullock
DJ Jazzy Jeff
The Pointer Sisters
Dr. John
Sheryl Crow
Hall & Oates
Howard Johnson

Doin' Something, Soulive's Blue Note debut and second album overall, sees the organ-based groove-jazz trio creatively stretching beyond their heralded debut, Turn It Out. Where that session was a lean, live cooker that cemented the trio's appeal to the acid-jazz and jam-band crowd, Doin' Something reaps the rewards of time spent in the studio--there are overdubs and, more importantly, an ambitious, varied overall vision. Rather than just rattling off a dozen jams based on a single line, the tunes here are actual songs with memorable melodies that draw upon hip-hop, soul, funk, and pop to go along with the rump-shaking jazz grooves. Furthering the funk foundation, the trio--guitarist Eric Krasno and brothers Neal and Alan Evans on organ and drums, respectively, also brought in James Brown-veteran trombonist Fred Wesley to lead a four-piece brass section (and contribute horn arrangements) on a few tracks. This is the sound of a hot young band putting its best foot forward, and the great thing is, you won't be able to keep your foot from bouncing along. --Tad Hendrickson, Amazon.com

Michael Franti's worldview and his music are so tightly entangled that it's difficult to imagine one existing without the other. So none of his fans could have been all that surprised when Franti returned from a 2004 trip to war-torn regions of Iraq, Israel, and Palestine and subsequently released both I Know I'm Not Alone, a documentary film/DVD based on his travels, and Yell Fire!, his most socially conscious album to date. While Yell Fire! is nothing as precious as a concept album, neither is there a song on the lyrically direct set that doesn't find Franti driving home a point, be it on the precarious state of our planet and those who've rendered it so, or the fragile condition of human relationships and the urgency with which people need to repair them. Recorded in both Kingston, Jamaica (the legendary Riddim Twins of reggae, Sly & Robbie, each guest on four tracks), and in San Francisco, Yell Fire! is stacked with deep grooves: the opening "Time to Go Home," "Everyone ona Move," the title track, and "Light Up Ya Lighter" all share a clarity of vision, attitude of great magnitude, and a levels-deep lyrical richness, all while kicking serious rhythmic ass. But even the texturally lighter moments -- the ballads "One Step Closer to You" (with harmony vocals by Pink), "Tolerance," and "Is Love Enough?" -- follow through on the album's thread of righteous positivity, no-brainer pacifism, accept-it-or-die tolerance, and the universal unification of spirit. Franti's brain-stimulating songwriting rises to a new level of proficiency here -- the playful "Hello Bonjour" is as much a shout out to truth and justice as the knife-sharp "See You in the Light." If there is a weakness, it's that the arrangements to which Franti's listen-carefully lyrics are set often fall subservient to his boosted-in-the-mix vocals. At times that leaves Spearhead's reggae/funk/dancehall/hip-hop amalgams necessarily shadowed by their leader's real-life, life-affirming commentaries. But never does Yell Fire! suffer for it. What Franti is saying here is what needs to be heard -- sooner than later. ~ Jeff Tamarkin, All Music Guide