Author Archives: Joseph Neff

In the annals of jazz, tenor saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins is simply incomparable. A man without a creative weakness, he is equally celebrated as an innovator and for his sublime transformations of jazz standards and classic American song. No record gets to the core of Rollins’ greatness better than Way Out West. Originally released in 1957, it comes out in a fresh 180 gram vinyl edition this week via Craft Recordings as part of the label’s Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds series, remastered from the original tapes by Bernie Grundman and tucked into an utterly swank tip-on jacket.

Having debuted on record in 1949, backing hipster jazz vocalist Babs Gonzalez in his band Three Bips and a Bop on a 10-inch 78 rpm disc for the Capitol label, Sonny Rollins played and recorded extensively and by the mid-1950s he was the top tenor saxophonist in jazz. After cutting an LP a year as a leader from 1953-’56 for Prestige, Rollins exploded onto the marketplace in ’56 with a half dozen albums, all for Prestige, including what many consider his greatest recording, Saxophone Colossus.

After exiting his Prestige contract, Rollins became something of a free agent across an equally productive stretch, cutting three albums for Blue Note and one record for Riverside, plus half of a split album shared with the Thad Jones Ensemble for the Period label and the record under review here, all released in 1957.

Of the studio albums, Way Out West stands out for it’s lack of piano. On Rollins’ trip to California (hence the title and its accompanying cover motif, which was reportedly Rollins’ idea), he was joined by bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne in a foray into what the saxophonist described as “strolling,” which in short means improvising in a band that lacks a chordal instrument (e.g. piano or guitar).

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Monk’s Music was the fifth Thelonious Monk LP released by Riverside Records across a strong mid-1950s stretch. It helped to increase the pianist-composer-bandleader’s visibility on the scene and repair an undeservedly formidable reputation, but even after it was selected for inclusion in the Original Jazz Classics series of reissues, it’s become one of the less celebrated masterpieces in Monk’s extensive discography. But a fresh mono edition by Craft Recordings should help raise the profile of an immensely pleasurable session with an august supporting cast. It’s available now on 180 gram vinyl, mastered from the original tapes in an attractive tip-on sleeve.

It might seem strange given Thelonious Monk’s secure position in the jazz pantheon, but the first two records he cut for Riverside consisted solely of standards, with his debut for the label entirely devoted to compositions by Duke Ellington and the second offering a blend of well-known selections from the American Songbook. Both hit stores in 1956.

Thelonious Monk debuted on record as a leader in 1951 for the Blue Note label with two 10-inch discs, each titled Genius of Modern Music. In 1956, those volumes were expanded into LPs with additional material from the original series of sessions Alfred Lion organized from 1947–’51, plus one more date from the following year. Those two albums, further expanded in the CD era, are the logical place to begin a solid Monk collection, but they didn’t a cause retail firestorm. The five records Monk cut for Prestige from ’52–’54 saw no curtailing of creative momentum but befell similar the same commercial fate.

In 1957, Riverside’s Orrin Keepnews pivoted with Brilliant Corners, which featured all Monk tunes save for one. Later in the year Thelonious Himself, a more balanced mix of originals and standards, was released. As the title suggests, Himself is a solo piano affair, with the exception of closing track “Monk’s Mood,” where tenor saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Wilber Ware are added.

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Moroccan vocalist and guimbri player Maalem Houssam Guinia is poised to make a huge splash with his third release Dead of Night; it’s available now on vinyl and digital from Hive Mind Records. Guinia specializes in Gnawa music, a dynamic style with a long history that can be traced back to the Royal Black Guard of Morocco. Guinia’s father Maalem Mahmoud Guinia was one of the most renowned masters of Gnawa music; with the release of Dead of Night, it’s clear as day the style is in good hands.

Maalem Houssam Guinia first rose to international prominence through a collaboration with the British electronic musician James Holden, the 12-inch EP “Three Live Takes” released in 2018 on Holden’s Border Community label. Previously, Holden and Floating Points had collaborated with Houssam’s father Maalem Mahmoud Guinia on another 12-inch EP, “Marhaba,” which came out in 2015, also on Border Community.

Maalem Mahmoud Guinia passed in 2015, leaving behind a wealth of recordings, the majority of them released in Morocco on cassette. His son’s discography is much smaller, at least apparently so; following “Three Live Takes,” there is Mosawi Swiri, released in 2019 on cassette and digital by Hive Mind, and now Dead of Night.

While Gnawa isn’t the most high profile of African styles, the healing ceremonial music is far from unknown outside of Morocco, in no small part due to Mahmoud Guinia’s body of work. His most famous release remains The Trance of Seven Colors, a live recording from 1994 captured in Essaouira, Morocco by Bill Laswell and issued on his Axiom label. It paired Mahmoud on guimbri with free jazz tenor sax titan Pharoah Sanders. The success of that recording surely inspired The Wels Concert with multi-horn man Peter Brötzmann and drummer Hamid Drake, which was released in 1997 on Okka Disk.

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Formed in Cincinnati before migrating westward to San Fransisco, cLOUDDEAD emerged at the turn of the century to profoundly impact the sound of experimental hip hop. Comprised of lyricists Yoni Wolf (Why?) and Doseone (Adam Drucker) and producer Odd Nosdam (David P. Madson), cLOUDDEAD debuted with a series of six 10-inch EPs that were in turn compiled to form the group’s debut album in 2001, an eponymous 3LP set that still carries an avant-garde thrust nearly a quarter century later. Superior Viaduct’s reissue is due on November 29.

Experimental (or underground) hip hop was burgeoning from the late 1990s and into the new century, with Anticon, a label formed by seven individuals including the three members of cLOUDDEAD, one part of a wave that encompassed imprints ranging from Rawkus (Company Flow, Mos Def, Talib Kweli), Definitive Jux (Aesop Rock, Cannibal Ox, Mr. Lif, RJD2), Stones Throw (JDilla, Madlib, MF Doom), and 75 Ark (Antipop Consortium, The Coup, Dan the Automator).

Anticon was formed in 1998 and gathered a deep roster that crossed over into electronica and indie rock. cLOUDDEAD is amongst the label’s most lauded projects while also being somewhat mysterious, even as all three members were active prior to the group’s formation. Wolf and Drucker met in the mid-’90s and were part of the group Apogee before forming Greenthink as a duo and releasing two albums. With the addition of Madson, they became cLOUDDEAD.

Occasionally the experimental tag has been applied to hip hop that was better assessed as just quirky or raw or perhaps just dense with ideas. But in the case of cLOUDDEAD, the descriptor of experimental really fits, and to the point where some would argue that what they were up to wasn’t hip hop at all. But of course, upon encountering new developments in the music, many have decried “that’s not hip hop” for decades.

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Trumpeter-composer Richard Allen “Blue” Mitchell recorded steady as a leader and sideman from the early 1950 until his premature death from cancer in 1979. Along the way, Mitchell played rhythm and blues, funk, rock, and a whole lot of hard bop jazz, the style for which he is most renowned, if too often overlooked. His initial run of sessions as a leader were cut for the Riverside label, and one of the best is Blue’s Moods, a quartet date from 1960 featuring pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Roy Brooks. Added to the Original Jazz Classics line in 1984, it’s available now in a fresh 180 gram vinyl edition cut from the original tapes in a tip on jacket with an obi strip from Craft Recordings.

Blue Mitchell was a perennially inside guy, never dabbling in the avant-garde, even as a sideman. He debuted on record straight out of high school in 1951, playing R&B (unsurprising given his nickname) as a sideman in Paul Williams’ Hucklebuckers. Other R&B bands that benefitted from Mitchell’s contribution during these early days were those of Earl Bostic and Red Prysock. Entering the jazz field during this period, Mitchell worked first with alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, then altoist Cannonball Adderley, who brought him into the sphere of the Riverside label, and after that, pianist Horace Silver.

But if a solidly inside player, Mitchell wasn’t a traditionalist, touring with Brit blues-rock kingpin John Mayall as documented on the 1972 live set Jazz Blues Fusion. Later in the decade, like a few of his contemporaries, Mitchell searched for commercial success by taking a trip to the Funktion Junction, his not highly regarded 1976 LP for RCA.

In terms of critical reception, Mitchell’s peak stretch began in 1958, the year he cut Portrait of Cannonball and his first LP as a leader, Big 6, and continued deep into the following decade as a productive run for Blue Note was winding down. Blue’s Moods, Mitchell’s fourth of six for Riverside, stands out in part through the lack of an additional horn in the lineup (his prior albums featured tenor sax and trombone).

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Elemental Music’s Motown Sound Collection continues to roll in November with a stylistically varied slate of three vinyl reissues: there’s a mono edition of Marvin Gaye’ When I’m Alone I Cry, a mono edition of the Four Tops’ self-titled debut, and a full-blown stereo edition of Eddie Kendricks’ People…Hold On, all available November 15.

Listeners who know Marvin Gaye primarily through his 1960s hits “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and his ’70s masterpieces What’s Going On and Let’s Get It On, can be initially struck and then perhaps perplexed by just how tightly Gaye embraced a Middle of the Road sensibility early in his career.

An abbreviated assessment is that Gaye was following in the footsteps of Nat “King” Cole. That’s a smidge reductive, but it’s not off target as he did record A Tribute to the Great Nat “King” Cole for Motown in 1965. And it wasn’t Gaye’s only attempt at harnessing the supper club vibe, as the year prior he cut the pop and jazz standards set When I’m Alone I Cry.

What was Gaye up to? It’s important to remember that circa the early 1960s the supper club represented adult sophistication, not shmaltz. Note that The Supremes had success traveling down this avenue. Gaye was strong enough on vocals to pull it off, but he also wasn’t especially memorable in this mode. The arrangements are better than expected for this sort of thing, avoiding an overabundance of syrup, but the best tracks, “You’ve Changed” and “I’ll Be Around,” come early. Although not for completists only, a whole bunch of Gaye records should be picked up before When I’m Alone I Cry.

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Pianist Andrew Hill is most celebrated for his diverse run of recordings for the Blue Note label in the 1960s, but his work after that stretch is no less worthy of consideration. He continued pushing boundaries until the very end, and no recording illustrates this better than A Beautiful Day, Revisited, which expands and remasters exquisite 2002 live big band performances by the Andrew Hill Sextet Plus 10 from the stage of Birdland. An additional recording of the title composition is this new edition’s centerpiece, illuminating Hill’s method, which thrives on the spontaneity of a skilled, unified ensemble. The set is out now in vinyl, compact disc, and digital from Palmetto Records.

If Andrew Hill’s representation in the jazz canon is slimmed down to a single LP (which is frankly harsh treatment for such an important if undersung figure), then that record is almost certainly Point of Departure. Released in 1964, it was the fourth album he cut for Blue Note and the third to be released by the label, featuring Joe Henderson on tenor sax and flute, Eric Dolphy on alto sax, bass clarinet, and flute, Kenny Dorham in trumpet, Richard Davis on bass, and Tony Williams on drums.

The focus on Hill’s association with Blue Note is deepened by a return to the label for a pair of albums, Eternal Spirit and But Not Farewell, in 1989 and ’91. Time Lines, Hill’s final studio album prior to his passing in 2007, was also released by Blue Note in ’06; during the same period, a handful of unissued sessions from the Blue Note archive emerged, Passing Ships in ’03, Pax in ’06, and Change in ’07.

Sadly, Hill’s work for SteepleChase, Freedom, East Wind, Artist House, and Soul Note in the 1970s and ’80s is still too often overlooked. Dusk, the first of two records for the Palmetto label (A Beautiful Day being the other), is amongst Hill’s best-known work however, as it was chosen as the best album of 2001 by both DownBeat and JazzTimes magazines.

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Consisting of highly skilled enthusiasts, The Blasters stand tall amongst the very strongest exponents of the stripped down and wild sound that shaped the 20th century heyday of what the band described as American Music. For an extended taste of this outfit’s rare talents, just get in line on Record Store Day Black Friday November 29 for a copy of Over There, Live at the Venue, London – The Complete Concert, which expands a sharp six-song live EP originally released in 1982 to 23 tracks spread across four sides of vinyl. But heads up; only 1,500 copies of this double set were pressed by Liberation Hall, so interested parties should prepare to be disappointed. Demand will definitely exceed supply.

Formed in Downey, California in 1979 by vocalist-guitarist Phil Alvin, lead guitarist Dave Alvin, bassist John Bazz, and drummer Bill Bateman, by the time The Blasters recorded their self-titled second album released by Slash Records in 1981, they’d added boogie-woogie piano specialist and former Canned Heat member Gene Taylor, baritone saxophonist Steve Berlin (a contemporary from the Los Angeles scene) and veteran tenor saxophonist Lee “Walkin’ With Mr. Lee” Allen to the lineup. Upon landing in England to support Nick Lowe, they were a well-oiled machine just bursting with spontaneity and energy.

Perhaps the key component in The Blasters’ artistic success is that they couldn’t sit stylistically still for very long. Over There’s complete performance spans rockabilly, rhythm & blues, country, swamp blues, and soul. But on the downside (for the band; certainly not for listeners), this sheer diversity likely limited their commercial potential. Doing one thing repeatedly, e.g. the neo-rockabilly of The Stray Cats, increases the chances of breaking through, if only briefly. The Blasters had some chart success, but they never took a ride on the flash in the pan rollercoaster.

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Celebrating Andy Partridge, born on this day in 1953. —Ed.

In their early days XTC released a copious amount of singles, with this output appropriately corralled onto a handful of compilations situating the band as one of the more interesting acts produced in the late-‘70s UK. Amongst these songs were the three cuts that comprise their debut, ‘77’s “3D EP.” Many consider it as a strong but minor first effort in a scenario of future greatness, but investigating them apart from the group’s initial prolific tide provided this writer with the key that unlocked XTC’s substantial value.

By the time I became acquainted with them in the mid-‘80s, XTC was essentially a critics’ fave and one that was largely functioning as an album band. This was the era of Skylarking, and while “Dear God,” the b-side of that LP’s first single “Grass,” kicked up quite a bit of dust via MTV and even replaced “Mermaid Smiled” on the US version of the disc, in the US it only managed to land on a now defunct barometer of radio play named the Billboard Album Rock Chart, where it found modest success.

And on their home turf it barely even entered the Singles Chart, peaking at the severe back end at #99. This really is no surprise, since “Dear God” is a truly eloquent dispatch of religious disbelief, a song that likely would’ve caused their countryman Bertrand Russell to stand up and cheer had he only lived to hear it.

“Dear God” was so cogent (while simultaneously manifesting a well-harnessed anger) that more than a few believers in my personal circle considered it a legitimate expression of doubt and questioning rather than quickly dismissing it as merely sacrilegious. The tune’s that good. But even though ‘86’s Skylarking and its follow up Oranges & Lemons were both strong sellers and the group was very popular on college radio, the rise of their singles during this period seemed mainly tied to video play.

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Celebrating Joni Mitchell on her 81st birthday. —Ed.

Joni Mitchell’s discography gathers 19 original albums spanning from the masterful to varying degrees of flawed, a range highlighting her lack of artistic complacency. She’s had her share of compilations, and Rhino’s Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting to be Danced is the third box set devoted to her work. Containing four CDs curated by Mitchell from a long stretch of productivity, it eschews chronology for a quite personal and sometimes frustrating thematic vision.

The first inapt tag I’ve read applied to Love Has Many Faces is “career-spanning,” its usage positing Mitchell’s musical activity beginning with 1971’s Blue. Indeed, nothing from ‘68’s Joni Mitchell/Song to a Seagull, ‘69’s Clouds or ‘70’s Ladies of the Canyon is included here, and it leads me to a minor quibble in the casual use of “greatest-hits” to describe this collection; a few of her larger singles did make the cut, but absent is “Big Yellow Taxi” from Ladies or “Help Me” from ‘74’s Court and Spark.

Given the specifics of this box, the omissions make sense. Artist-assembled and love song-themed (the subject nowhere near as constrictive as a Joni newbie might suppose), these 53 tracks essentially underscore what Mitchell’s made clear since the arrival of Blue; in particular, she’s anything but just another strumming folkie, and as Love Has Many Faces’ accompanying book rounds up 54 poems and six new paintings, at this late date it’s hard to imagine anybody lumping her into that bag.

“I am a painter who writes songs,” Mitchell is quoted in the press materials, and after spending time with the entirety of this set, at less than a minute shy of four hours long no small undertaking, I consider the key portion of her statement as “writes songs.” Over the years she’s done a good job transcending mere writing to enter the realm of robust musicality, though her self-assessment does differ, and at points substantially, with this reviewer’s evaluation of her oeuvre.

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As one of the greatest of tenor saxophonists, Ben Webster amassed a sizable discography across a long career. His live performances were also extensive and on occasion, those nights were recorded. Released posthumously in 1985, At the Renaissance is a fine introduction to Webster’s full-bodied, mature style as he stretches out with a sharp band. On November 8, Craft Recordings reissues an expanded edition of the original LP on 180 gram vinyl as part of the label’s Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds series. There are certainly more important albums in Ben Webster’s body of work, but he rarely sounded better than he does right here.

Ben Webster is most renowned for his work with Duke Ellington, who he joined for an extended period in 1940 after playing in numerous bands, including those of Bennie Moten, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, and Cab Calloway. Considered one of the “big three” tenor saxophonists of the swing era (the others are Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young), Webster was the first major player on the instrument to have a significant role in Ellington’s band, though by 1943 he’d made his exit for the clubs of 52nd Street.

Webster briefly rejoined Ellington later in the decade (he’d first played with Duke in the mid-’30s), but from the mid-’40s onward his career path is noted for an association with promoter Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic initiative, co-led sessions with Hawkins, pianists Art Tatum and Oscar Pederson and saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, plus plenty of records and club dates as a leader.

At the Renaissance is just one of numerous albums capturing those club dates. Prior to departing for Europe in 1964, Webster gigged frequently at the Los Angeles club the Renaissance, often with Mulligan, but on October 14, 1960 he was leading the band heard here, with Jimmy Rowles on piano, Jim Hall on guitar, Red Mitchell on bass, and Frank Butler on drums.

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The Ladybug Transistor’s The Albemarle Sound, an ambitious but tightly focused serving of baroque and at times lightly psychedelic pop, was released by Merge Records as the 1990s wound to a close. Having achieved classic status, it’s now receiving a 25th anniversary reissue on vinyl and compact disc from Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records in a deluxe limited edition that includes a mobile, a button set, a silkscreen print, and bonus tracks on the CD and accompanying the LP on a digital download. Bold and assured, it’s an essential addition to any comprehensive ’90s indie shelf.

It’s a common generalization that the music of indie rock’s heyday (let’s demark the late 1980s through the ’90s), if not as unembellished as the din that dominated the punk explosion of yore, is still modestly scaled, stripped down, and structurally straightforward, at least in comparison to the mainstream pop and rock sounds of the same era.

As is often the case, there’s a kernel of reality in that simplification, although plenty of exceptions did emerge to illuminate ambitiousness from across the indie scene’s wide stylistic spectrum. Arriving late in the timeframe established above, The Albemarle Sound remains a standout example, if maybe a bit undersung as part of the Elephant 6 Collective (Brooklyn wing).

The formative debut Marlborough Farms (Park ‘N Ride, 1995) and stronger, more focused follow-up Beverley Atonale (Merge, ’97) precede it, but the third time really was the charm from the group of Gary Olson (vocals, trumpet), Jeff Baron (guitar), Jennifer Baron (bass), Sasha Bell (keyboards, flute), San Fadyl (drums), and Julia Rydholm (violin).

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Body Meπa is a powerhouse ensemble that’s lacking in a weak link. Their sound has some affinities with post-rock but the band prefers to describe their thing as “New York City body music.” While conducive to the movement of torsos and limbs, the collective energies soar from a rock framework, thoroughly unburdened by cliché. Available October 25 on vinyl (limited clear with a green tint, unlimited black), compact disc, and digital via Hausu Mountain, Body Meπa’s second full-length Prayer in Dub takes its place amongst the best records of 2024.

Body Meπa features Grey McMurray (Sō Percussion, Tyondai Braxton, John Cale, Colin Stetson) and Sasha Frere-Jones (UI, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Calvinist) on guitars, Melvin Gibbs (Defunkt, Power Tools, Rollins Band, Harriet Tubman) on bass, and Greg Fox (Teeth Mountain, Guardian Alien, Fox Millions Duo, Colin Stetson).

While many balk at the usage of term outside of the late 1960s-early ’70s, supergroup is a fitting way to describe Body Meπa. In short, supergroups were/are aggregations formed by individuals already well-known, and in many cases renowned for their output, and most likely in a band context. The original supergroup impulse was essentially doomed by general arrogance and individual egos; notorious as one-and-done affairs when cutting records, supergroups are often scorned as part of a larger takedown of the rockist impulse.

And so it makes sense that some contemporary listeners would disdain the supergroup concept and that pertinent bands on the current scene might seek distance from the descriptor. It would be no surprise if this was the case with Body Meπa, as their ensemble thrust is unfettered by the drag downs of ego, and Prayer in Dub extends and expands upon the quality of their debut, The Work Is Slow, released in 2021, also by Hausu Mountain.

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The dB’s first record Stands for Decibels received its first ever US vinyl pressing earlier this year, and with little delay comes a reissue of its follow-up, which is also making its vinyl debut in the States. Compact disc and digital options offer a bonus track. For the band’s second go-round, the songs remained edgy and distinctive with occasional flareups of quirk while building upon classic models. The whole of Repercussion, brighter and a bit bolder, completes one of the great rapid fire combo-punches in pop-rock’s long history. It’s available now through Propeller Sound Recordings.

It’s fitting that Propeller Sound chose not to dillydally in getting the dB’s essential early albums into stores, as both Stands for Decibels and Repercussion were released in 1981. In consort with their UK label Albion, the speedy pace of the band’s productivity strengthened the 1960s foundation from which guitarist-vocalists Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey, bassist Gene Holder and drummer Will Rigby, sprang. Bands worked fast in the ’60s, often at the insistence of labels that would drop them if they didn’t; The dB’s set out to do the same.

Recorded in NYC and London, Repercussion marked the debut of Scott Litt as producer. For a long stretch in the late ’80s and ’90s, Litt had the rep as a guy who would sand down a band’s edges as he polished up their sound (therefore, he was something of a divisive figure), but the dB’s had too much momentum and Litt was just getting started, so while larger-scaled and more refined, Repercussion didn’t squander the energies of the debut.

Some will perhaps be thrown by the horn section in the opening cut, Holsapple’s “Living A Lie,” but it’s the Rumour Brass (backers of Graham Parker) who are doing the blowing, and the cumulative effect isn’t that far from the sound of Squeeze at the time. The next track, “We Were Happy There,” also a Holsapple tune, reins it in a bit (the Rumour Brass making their exit) and delivers a solid serving of power pop with new wavy tension.

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Remembering Laura Nyro, born on this day in 1947. —Ed.

In terms of elevated 2oth century pop songwriting, Laura Nyro has remained part of the discourse for decades, with her highest profile recordings likely her second and third LPs, both cut for Columbia in 1968-’69. But hey, don’t get the idea that her ’67 debut for Verve, More Than a New Discovery, is merely formative or somehow negligible. To the contrary, many know it under its reissue title of The First Songs, which featured a reshuffled track order and a mix with increased reverb. However, the Real Gone Records-Second Disc reissue, the first time the Verve edition has been repressed on wax, sets the track order right and offers Nyro’s preferred (and rare) original mono mix. 

The latter portion of the 1960s is loaded with singer-songwriters whose work is best known through the interpretations of others. Many of these cult figures are folky in comportment, but even as Nyro recorded her debut for Verve’s Folkways imprint (later renamed Verve Forecast) and made a crucial early song sale to Peter, Paul and Mary (“And When I Die,” later butchered by Blood, Sweat & Tears), she was a pop stylist of pronounced sophistication.

She was appealingly introspective as well, a quality putting her in the same neighborhood as Carole King, with sales figures excepted, as Nyro’s own albums never made a big impact commercially, although they did shift enough units that she never fell victim to record company disinterest. In this regard, she was similar to Randy Newman, and if he’s better known today that’s partly because he’s still alive and kicking (Nyro passed far too soon of ovarian cancer in 1997). Additionally, he benefits from a lucrative late-career pursuit in film scoring.

But the bigger difference between Newman and Nyro is the lack of the satirical and ironic in her work, though the songs of his that evince a palpable degree of sincerity provide a strong point of unification, as the two songwriters share a Tin Pan Alley foundation (and a piano-based approach) that is ultimately manifested in distinct sensibilities. That is, Nyro is as much of an auteur as Newman; once heard, she’s impossible to confuse with anybody else.

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