On The Blue Room, her second Decca recording, Madeleine Peyroux and producer Larry Klein re-examine the influence of Ray Charles' revolutionary 1962 date, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. They don't try to re-create the album, but remake some of its songs and include others by composers whose work would benefit from the genre-blurring treatment Charles pioneered. Bassist David Pilch, drummer Jay Bellerose, guitarist Dean Parks, and pianist/organist Larry Goldings are the perfect collaborators. Most these ten tracks feature string arrangements by Vince Mendoza. Five tunes here are reinterpretations of Charles' from MSICAWM. "Take These Chains" commences as a sultry jazz tune, and in Peyroux's vocal, there is no supplication – only a demand. Parks' pedal steel moves between sounding like itself and a clarinet. Goldings' alternating B-3 and Rhodes piano offer wonderful color contrast and make it swing. Her take on "Bye Bye Love" feels as if it's being narrated to a confidante, and juxtaposes early Western swing with a bluesy stroll. A rock guitar introduces "I Can't Stop Loving You," but Peyroux's phrasing has more country-blues in it than we've heard from her before. The use of a trumpet in "Born to Lose" and "You Don't Know Me," with Mendoza's dreamy strings, allow for Peyroux to deliver her most stylized jazz performances on the set.

Recorded in 1956 and officially unreleased until 1998 on Guitarchives Music, Boy Wonder offers an invaluable historical window into the early genius of guitar icon Lenny Breau. Captured when Breau was just 15 years old, these private home and studio recordings reveal a prodigy already displaying breathtaking thumb-pick technique, lightning Chet Atkins-style fingerpicking, and early hints of his revolutionary harmonic language. Spanning 28 archival tracks, the album moves rapidly through country-swing standards, blues improvisations, and early jazz explorations—including "Cannon Ball Rag," "Caravan," "Out Of Nowhere," and extended improvs like "Blues In Extension." Complete with rare alternate takes and an archival interview with Breau's mother Betty Cody-Breau, Boy Wonder is a crucial artifact documenting the birth of a jazz guitar legend.

Recorded in 1971, shortly after he departed Cadet where he served as a house sideman-playing on dozens of records and a prefferred guitarist for Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler, Phil Upchurch headed for the West Coast and Blue Thumb Records. Produced by Tommy LiPuma, Upchurch's Darkness, Darkness is his quintessential (double) album, full of laid-back funky grooves, elegant, mind-blowing guitar work, elegant string and horn arrangements, and fine Fender Rhodes work from Donny Hathaway with legendary session bassist Chuck Rainey and smooth jazz piano great Joe Sample in the house. Upchurch effortlessly walks the line where jazz, blues, rock, soul, and funk fold into one another, yet he never gives quarter in the process.

Time Can Change is the seventh studio album by roots music artist Seth Walker, released in 2012 by Roe Records. Written and recorded following his move from Austin to Nashville, the album marks a deliberate shift toward a grittier, stripped-down, and more intimate approach to songwriting compared to his polished earlier work. Driven by Walker's soulful tenor vocals, warm acoustic guitar grooves, Steve Mackey's supple bass, and Derrek Phillips' spare percussion, the twelve-track collection captures a relaxed and organic vibe. Key highlights include the easygoing opener Love Is Through With Me, the classic soul ballad In The Meantime, the understated groove of Stronger Than You Need To Be, and the rollicking, Gary Nicholson-co-written crowd-pleaser More Days Like This. Honest and emotionally resonant, Time Can Change stands as one of Walker's most purest acoustic blues and singer-songwriter releases.

The 2014 career-spanning anthology Keep Me in Your Heart for a While: The Best of Madeleine Peyroux, showcases tracks from throughout the Georgia-born, Paris-based vocalist's career. Starting with her 1996 debut album, Dreamland, and running through her 2013 studio effort The Blue Room, Keep Me in Your Heart for a While reveals Peyroux's transformation from a bluesy, Billie Holiday-influenced vocal ingenue to a mature and sophisticated interpreter of popular song, both new and old. Here we get such tracks as "La Vie en Rose," "Smile," "Between the Bars," "Dance Me to the End of Love," and more. Also included is Peyroux's previously unreleased recording of Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart," from the film Union Square.

Jay McShann was 83 at the time of this CD, but the pianist-singer sounds very much in prime form and had certainly not lost his enthusiasm. He teams up with some of the better Kansas City musicians active in the late '90s (tenor saxophonist Ahmad Alaadeen, guitarist Sonny Kenner, bassist Gerald Spaits, and drummer Todd Strait) on a variety of blues, originals, and swinging tunes, some of which are taken as instrumentals. Even if "What a Wonderful World" did not need to be played yet again, there are plenty of high points throughout this joyous set from McShann & friends.

This is a live recording from the City Blues legend Albert King in L.A. Many great artists were presented there: Koko Taylor, Clifton Chenier and many others. He played some of his standards and the people liked that! A mix of jazz blues!

For their sixth Concord recording, there was a major change in the personnel of the Cheathams' Sweet Baby Blues Band. Jimmie Noone, Jr. had passed away, and his replacement was the popular tenor Rickey Woodard, who on this set also plays some effective alto and clarinet (the latter on "Buddy Bolden's Blues"). But Woodard is only one of a bunch of colorful soloists, which include pianist/singer Jeannie Cheatham, Jimmy Cheatham on bass trombone, altoist Curtis Peagler, Snooky Young and Nolan Smith on trumpets, baritonist Dinky Morris and guest Frank Wess on tenor and flute. With bassist Red Callender and drummer John "Ironman" Harris keeping the ensembles swinging and driving, this is a particularly memorable set…

When producer Chris Albertson brought Lonnie Johnson and guitarist Elmer Snowden into a studio for this album on April 9, 1960, both musicians hadn't recorded in a number of years. Indeed, Snowden hadn't seen the inside of a studio in 26 years, but you'd never know it by the fleet-fingered work he employs on the opening "Lester Leaps In," where he rips off one hot chorus after another. Johnson plays a dark-toned electric while Snowden plays acoustic, with Wendell Marshall rounding things out on bass. Given Johnson's reputation as a closet jazzer, it's remarkable that he merely comps rhythm behind Snowden's leads on "C-Jam Blues" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street." Johnson handles all the vocals, turning in an especially strong turn on the second take of "Stormy Weather"…

When Charlie Parker first came to New York in 1942, he was a sideman in Jay McShann's big band. Every jazz fan knows what happened after that - Parker changed the world and McShann became a footnote in Parker's biography. That's too bad, and not just for him; if the 1978 session remastered and reissued on this disc is anything to go by, McShann had much more to offer the world than his role as caregiver to the inventor of bebop. Leading an all-star cast that includes saxophonist Paul Quinichette, the ubiquitous Milt Hinton on bass, and a young, up-and-coming guitarist named John Scofield, McShann teaches an entire course on the history of blues-based jazz, going from his own "Confessin' the Blues" through "Hootie Blues" (which he co-wrote with Parker and Walter Brown) and an intensely swinging version of Count Basie's "Jumpin' at the Woodside"…

One of the many unfairly overlooked albums from Witherspoon's early career, Hey Mrs. Jones is a marvelous discovery, although its lack of stylistic unity, whilst showing Witherspoon's versatility, also accounts for a occasionally confusing listening experience. The best cuts on the album are priceless Witherspoon - "The Masquerade Is Over" contains one of Witherspoon's most emotional and desperate performances, while "Have Faith" is a great gospel song, sung with genuine fervor. The album is marred slightly by a few novelty numbers, and it's hard to see anyone listening to "Pink Champagne" or "Lovey Dovey" many times, but this is a slight criticism of an album which is still one of Witherspoon's greatest.