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Various San Francisco Plasma Funk Vol.1 (Mephisto/Om/Fusion III) That strange dust the U.S. government sprinkled over San Fran in the early '60s may not have been too good for the environment, but maybe it's in some way responsible for the mass of great music that comes out of there. Either that or there's a vortex over the Bay Area. Here the Mephisto and Om labels team up to bring you Plasma Funk, a collection of gritty funk, breaks and slow burnin' grooves from lo-fi allstars like Q-Burn, Sci-Fi Select and Orpheos. 8/10 (Krista) Various Racubah! (Comet/Fusion III)
Silk Tonight (Warner)
Corey Harris Greens From the Garden (Alligator)
Jefferson Grant Quintet JGQ (Nisapa) The debut of one of the very best jazz combos of recent years. The co-leaders, saxophonist Kelly Jefferson and trombonist Kelsley Grant are ably assisted by a great rhythm team--Guy Dubuc, George Mitchell and Martin Auguste. Michel Cusson guests on one of the tracks, of which there are four by Grant and three by Jefferson. The latter's "The Adirondack" is a high point. Check them out next time they make a live appearance locally. 8.5/10 (Len Dobbin) Patricia O'Callaghan Slow Fox (Marquis Classics/EMI)
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There's a good omen in the fact that the first real day of spring, about two weeks back, was also the first time I laid my greasy paws on this disc. This collection of cool, raw '70s afro funk is like a 5" x 5" slab of pure sunshine. Here's just a couple of reasons to get this: Tony Allen (Fela Kuti's drummer) serves up 12 minutes of "Afro-Disco-Beat," the Tempos deliver a cover of Aretha Franklin's "Save Me" that jumps and goes "pow!" like popcorn, and Manu Dibango plays it more cagey than usual with "Wilderness," a track that's pure panther on the prowl. You need this. 9/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)
How many R&B guy groups does it take to sing about love? Way too damn many. The sophomore set from this five-man vocal ensemble starts out promising enough with the gospel-tinged "The Return," followed by the funky-despite-themselves title track. But it's downhill from there. One plodding love song after another makes this set uninspired, unoriginal and definitely not sexy. The fact that they can "sang" doesn't hide the fact that they have nothing to say. 5/10 (Gerard Dee)
Corey Harris possesses one of those voices that seem to come straight from the gut or even further reaches located south of the belt line. This New Orleans street musician cooks up quite a fine musical gumbo using blues as his roux and adding a smidgen of reggae, zydeco, bossa nova and rag. He manages to keep any highbrow aspirations out of the mix, which is the most important non-ingredient to any half-decent blues music. The spoken interludes on how to prepare greens is a nice touch as well. 8/10 (Johnson Cummins)
Young Toronto soprano Patricia O'Callaghan might not be the first from the classical world to take on the trenchant cabaret songs of Kurt Weill, but what with her range of interests (opera at Avignon; art songs at the Rivoli) she's in a much better position than a Teresa Stratas to become the reigning interpretess of Weill--in the wake of Dagmar Krause (ex-Henry Cow) and Marianne Faithfull (ex-Rolling Stones). O'Callaghan's second album of such material also applies her liquid-crystal voice to songs by Arnold Schoenberg and Leonard Cohen, and all is well as long as the Marquis label doesn't turn her into another classical-kitten crossover. 8/10 (Chris Yurkiw)