Richard Weize Archives
At 30 tracks, “Byrd’s Expedition” is the second-longest (after a five-disc Bill Monroe box) of 20 or so releases to date from the boutique startup launched last year by Richard Weize, founder of Germany’s highly regarded country/rock ’n’ roll reissue label Bear Family.
Capitol/EMI
San Francisco Bay Area-based Ancient Future was all about “world fusion” before world music was even a genre. To honor the band’s reunion this summer after a 15-year performance hiatus, Capitol/EMI is giving their fifth and most accessible disc its first digital release.
Hear Music
There’s not a lot of Anglo-American or British rock musicians who’ve recorded albums that draw heavily on multicultural rhythms and melodies, supported by handpicked musicians from around the globe. Simon is one, along with Peter Gabriel, Sting and a few others.
Pass Out
The Waitiki 7 are not a revivalist group like Don Tiki — which W7 drummer Abe Lagrimas Jr. was a member of before he and longtime friend/fellow Hawaiian Randy Wong co-founded the original Waitiki quartet — but rather an exotica jam band. The septet updates the genre by augmenting the requisite vibraphone with plenty of sax and violin and often employing dead-serious jazz improvisation.
Columbia
These are heady days for slide guitar fans.
The old guard (Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Sonny Landreth) continues to crank out albums, although with age the output seems to have slowed to about one every five years — collectively.
