The production quality of the Havana Cultura music is quite good; the current development of technology facilitates first-rate recording sound, no matter where one is recording, something very different from the anthropological work of decades ago. The horn sounds official, triumphalist in “La Vida Interlude,” but the beat in the song is great.
The Country Dance Music of Fiddler Joel Savoy: Linzay Young & Joel Savoy, together; and The Right Combination by Jesse Lege, Joel Savoy, and the Cajun Country Revival
They are keepers of a tradition that includes Dewey Balfa, Michael Doucet, Feufollet, Wade Fruge, Doc Guidry, D.L. Menard, Dennis McGee, Steve Riley, and Horace Trahan. Yet Joel Savoy went on to explain that he listened to popular music: “My mom has very diverse taste in music, and we heard all kinds of stuff growing up. She used to make me mix tapes of all kinds of things like Django and Billie Holiday and lots of Cajun stuff—old-timey Cajun fiddlers, even some rock ‘n’ roll.” Savoy learned to play some of what was on those tapes; and, subsequently, he has performed with T-Bone Burnett, Allison Krauss, Steve Miller, and Linda Ronstadt.
An American Bluesman in Europe: Kid Man Blues by Bert Deivert
On the album Kid Man Blues, an album recorded in Sweden, Thailand, Germany, and the United States over a period of years, Bert Deivert does the Paul Jones song “Rob and Steal,” and there’s something very head-down-and-focused about the energy in the song, as if something burning in the music matches the intensity of the scavenging character being described. Downbeat, haunted, “Come Back Baby” is a moodily dramatic request for a lover’s return, featuring blues-rock guitar (that is, Dulyasit Srabua on electric guitar and John Dooley on electric bass).
Meeting and Memorial: Ray Charles’s duet anthology Genius & Friends, with Diana Ross and Angie Stone, Chris Isaak, Leela James, Idina Menzel, George Michael, John Legend, Willie Nelson, and Alicia Keys
The subject is desperation, being down on one’s luck, but the tone is self-aware, self-mocking, in the Charles-Nelson duet “Busted,” which was part of a 1991 television special, “Ray Charles: 50 Years in Music,” and the song has this chastening, truthful line: “I’m no thief, but a man can go wrong when he’s busted.” The collection Genius & Friends concludes with “America the Beautiful,” with Charles and Alicia Keys, whose singular, soulful voice is strong enough to carry the song, though she does not give it any special conviction.
A review of Home Front by Kristin Hannah
Home Front is a nail-biter from beginning to end. The descriptions of Jolene’s daily life in the military, which are likely far more horrific for a real-life soldier than what Hannah describes in the book, are both compelling and heart-wrenching. Jolene Zarkades is a fictional Army helicopter pilot, but her story reflects the all-too-real experience of servicemen and women trying to return to their families after a life-changing tour of duty.
A review of Ruth by Marlene S. Lewis
The new social order is shown in a scene in which Ruth has dinner with three key people in her life. Similarly, the recurrent Christmas celebrations, with their associations of goodwill, peace and justice, reinforce the new spirit of harmony. Christmas, as well, serves as a good structural device to show continuity despite the passage of time.
A review of Inheritance (Inheritance Cycle, Book 4) by Christopher Paolini
This notion of self-awareness is one that is handled delicately and with it, Paolini creates a book that is far more powerful than simply a fast-paced plot driven fantasy about a war between good and evil. Eragon’s growth is one that takes him beyond the moment of his conflict to a connectiveness with the world he lives in and beyond, through the older dragons he encounters.
A review Of Falling For Me: How I Hung Curtains, Learned to Cook, Traveled to Seville, and Fell in Love by Anna David
What’s so endearing about Falling For Me is that David does not try to portray herself as perfect. She’s just like any other single woman out there, putting her best foot forward trying to fall in love—the only difference is, she’s working on falling in love with herself first.
A review of 270 by Vincent Ware
When Mbala reaches his brother with two of his wives, one falls in love with him adding to their internal struggle. The differences, jealousy and dishonesty propel these two brothers into a struggle with violence of epic proportions. This was truly the best part of the book.
The Heroic Age of Denzel: the films Antwone Fisher and Unstoppable, starring Denzel Washington
I had thought the film a lot simpler than it was—I thought it was some kind of celebration of ghetto life, but I could not have been more wrong: it is about how an abused boy joins the military and meets a navy psychiatrist who helps him to understand his past and use his anger as energy for self-improvement, and to use his loneliness as a spur to connect with a healthy branch of his family. Consciousness leads to purpose.