Toni Braxton is both a song stylist and a popular entertainer; and she has touched places in an audience that used to be reserved for the obscure divas requiring special introductions and interpretations. It says much that her toughness is direct but not frightening, and that her sensuality is easy to see but does not diminish respect for her.
A review of Junior MasterChef Australia
Having your children make their own teacher gifts would pay for the cost of the book, and would also be a lovely way to encourage them to participate and take pleasure in gift giving in a way that just doesn’t happen with bought gifts. Come to think of it, there’s no reason why your children couldn’t make their own holiday and birthday presents either, as well as cooking up their own parties.
A review of The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers
Having experienced domestic violence first hand and gone on to work with the perpetrators of such violence, there is no one better equipped than Meyers to write a story like this. I would categorise, The Murderer’s Daughters as faction—a skilful blending of fact and fiction.
A review of Night Road by Kristin Hannah
Hannah writes firmly in the present, putting the readers in both Jude and Lexi’s thoughts at the moment of her narration. Even though Hannah makes many references to painful events in her characters’ pasts, she doesn’t delve into those moments with any great depth.
A review of Page Truly and the Journey to Nearandfar by L. B. Gschwandtner
In a world where kids are used to the kill or be killed mentality of video games, it’s a pleasure to find a story that demonstrates how the most obvious solution to a problem is not necessarily the best. So, too, it demonstrates creativity and compassion, and shows readers how that which is evident on the surface is not necessarily what lies beneath.
Let Us Now Praise Sensitive Men: Bob Baldwin, Never Can Say Goodbye: A Tribute to Michael Jackson
In tribute to a man lost much too soon, the jazz pianist Bob Baldwin has produced an album that executes with delicacy the established and known rhythm patterns of Michael Jackson’s songs, and, sometimes, even adds intensity, but, for the most part, Bob Baldwin does not extend the songs into new territory, new invention.
Freedom and Discipline: Turtle Island Quartet, Have You Ever Been…?
In the interpretation of the Turtle Island Quartet, I hear something fine and sensuous. Just as the native rhythms that might have sounded one way when played on an African landscape with African instruments sounded differently when played on European instruments on American soil as part of the improvisations on composed music that is jazz, the sound of Jimi Hendrix’s songs are different with classical instrumentation and technique.
A Gentleman, a Model: Brian McKnight, Evolution of a Man
Brian McKnight does not sing of ghetto life in run-down tenements, violent hustles and narcotic sales, of whores and pimps, or rats and roaches; nor does he sing of temporary jobs and unemployment checks, of bad bosses and landlords, of sudden evictions and midnights spent deciding whether to beg, borrow, steal—or die. He sings of love as game, luxury, and spiritual fulfillment.
Eastern States, Tunisian Oud: The Astounding Eyes of Rita by Anouar Brahem
By Daniel Garrett Anouar Brahem, The Astounding Eyes of Rita Produced by Manfred Eicher ECM, 2009 The oud is a lute, a traditional instrument in the music of Tunisia, a music featuring significant woodwind instruments and lutes in an ancient…
This is the Time for Change: the album Grand Isle by Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys
How many people know the music of Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys; or are likely to learn of it? Often people lament that the music industry is in a crisis, and that music criticism is as well: the multiple sources for finding and commenting on music make it hard to identify and push a few artists forward and up, for the industry to self-select its preferred stars, allowing them fame and wealth, leaving others to struggle vainly to achieve the same. More music is available and known by smaller populations, but fewer musicians are loved by all of us.