Sunday, January 1 1995
Nick Jaina: Snakes & Umbrellas
Unpolished and sparse, Nick Jaina’s Snakes & Umbrellas excels at understatement. Recorded simply, his jazz influenced pop is eclectic but approachable, and his charged lyrics…
Jet Set Six: Life in the Jet Age
New York-based Jet Set Six burst onto the swing/pop scene with the acclaimed debut CD Livin’ It Up in 1998, but John Ceparano promised more…
Etta James: Tell Mama - The Complete Muscle Shoals Sessions
“Something told me it was overWhen I saw you and her talking.Something deep down in my soul said cry girl,When I saw you and that…
Junk Male: Temp
Back in 1993, while working for my college radio station, I received a promotional disc from Warner Brothers entitled Black Light Special subtitled a “developing…
Jackie-O-Motherfucker: Fig.5
Please forgive any initial bias in this review, for last spring, my girlfriend had subletted her Lower East Side apartment to two members of this…
Brad Jones’s Aka Alias: Uncivilized Poise
Bassist Brad Jones cut his teeth in jazz monster The Jazz Passengers. With a reputation for insane chops and skillful cross-genre song writing (he’s penned…
JPP, String Tease
Finland’s premier fiddle band JPP possess both a deep appreciation for traditional Finnish folk music and brilliant musical technique honed by classical conservatory training. The…
Mark Johnson: Last Night on the Roller Coaster
The best songwriters make you feel like you did when you were a child looking into a mirror. You react by reaching out, trying to…
Jumprope: Suitcase and Umbrella
There’s an old Peanuts cartoon in whichh Sally enters holding a limp jump rope. When asked what’s the matter she replies that she doesn’t know,…
James Gang: Yer’ Album / Rides Again / Thirds
The reissue of James Gang’s first three albums by MCA is somewhat appropriate given the consistent historical relevance this band has had over the last…
Jackson 5: Anthology
Too often, the Jackson 5 are written off as simply being the group that gave Michael Jackson his start. What is equally significant about the…
Kepa Junkera: Bilbao 00:00 h
Kepa Junkera is a prodigious and prolific accordionist from the Basque region of Spain.
Jessica Six: All Good Things
So they’re from Houston. You’d never know. The semi-anthology that is All Good Things aims to highlight the works of a band that has since…
Jewel: Joy: A Holiday Collection
A few of the songs on Jewel’s new Christmas offering, Joy: A Holiday Collection, are wonderful. Just like Jewel’s early work, they’re cute and fun.…
Al Jarreau: Tomorrow Today
I saw Al Jarreau live about two years ago at an outdoor festival, and if Mother Nature would have kept away the small scale typhoon…
Jejune: R.I.P.
When a band you’ve followed calls it quits, you at least are left with the satisfaction that you saw them grow and develop over the…
J-Majesty: self-titled
Just goes to show how small the world’s gotten: even kids from the reportedly music-starved oasis of Salt Lake City love Fugazi. “No School,” if…
Junior Varsity: Bam Bam Bam!
File under sock-hop. Taking cues from fellow ‘50s rehashers Grieving Eucalyptus and the Kung Fu Monkeys, Texas’ Junior Varsity bangs out 14 songs in a…
Tom Jones: The Best of Tom Jones: The Millennium Collection
I dare anyone over forty to listen to Tom Jones’ “Its Not Unusual” without singing along to the chorus and attempting a brief Joneslike hip…
