Though this is Pierre Lacocque's band, and he is the principal songwriter and stage front with his harmonica, there is an ensemble feel to all of Mississippi Heat albums. When you listen to this superb CD, you're not just hearing a band. You're hearing a family, one with a deep love, understanding, and respect for each other. That special guest Sax Gordon is so seamlessly incorporated into their signature sound speaks volumes. Fourteen of the sixteen songs here are new originals. From straight-ahead Chicago blues, boogie and swing to Latin beat, Caribbean and funk Warning Shot is a remarkable musical achievement.

Willie Buck has been leading his own bands for over 40 years. He's been on the scene since his arrival in Chicago as a teenager in the midst of the heyday of Chicago blues in 1953. He put out his only album in the early 80s which became a collector's item over the years and was re-issued in 2010 as The Life I Love (Delmark 805). At that time it was decided Willie would create a new album for Delmark but it wasn't until Rockin' Johnny stepped forward that the project got off the ground. Cell Phone Man features 16 songs with a heavy dose of Muddy Waters Chicago Blues. Johnny's Band is Rick Kreher, Barrelhouse Chuck, John Sefner, Steve Bass and special guest Bharath Rajakumar.

In a review of Weld's first Delmark CD, Living Blues magazine said: "Burnin' Love is a raucous monster, Weld performs wonderfully wild guitar their sweet vocal harmonies are as animated as Weld's wicked and rockin' slide guitar."(Monica's) "Talk Dirty" is equally suited for a sultry blues diva here Myhre displays her burly pipes." The songwriting team of Weld/Myhre has reached new heights with the sublime title track, the self-described "Sweet Rockin' Soul" and the crossover "Sweet Love (Dulce Amor)". With special guests Bobby Rush adding harp on 2 songs, Greg Guy (son of Buddy Guy) on guitar on one and Sax Gordon on tenor and baritone sax.

As this new album A Dance and a Hop makes clear, jazz cornet player Josh Berman's music has grown by leaps and bounds (or hops). It's only his third as leader-the first two, also on Delmark, were Old Idea (2009) and There Now (2012). Berman is accompanied by label mates Jason Roebke, bass and Frank Rosaly, drums. Berman points out that the eleven original tunes "are directly related to content that I play on cornet; I rarely write without it. I am very interested in the way Jason plays the bass and Frank plays the drums, and how the tunes live without space being filled by reeds, vibraphone, other voices. I think I wanted to hear what 'my idea' sounds like without everything else."

For a decade jazz cornet player Josh Berman has been a mainstay of the post-Vandermark generation of Chicago improvisers, a wide circle of ambitious musicians who meet up in varied ad hoc or fixed settings: A circle including all the players in Josh's group Old Idea. He's already recorded some as part of a quartet on Chicago-Luzern Exchange alongside tenor saxophonist Keefe Jackson, with Jackson's big and small bands Project Project and Fast Citizens, with Jason Adasiewicz's quintet Rolldown and Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra. Old Idea is Josh's debut CD as leader. With Keefe Jackson - tenor sax; Jason Adasiewicz - vibes; Anton Hatwich - bass; Nori Tanaka - drums.

MESSAGE IN BLUE

Perhaps best known as a blues label Delmark Records actually has issued more jazz albums than blues and was the first label to record Chicago's AACM jazz collective. Founded in 1953 by Bob Koester, Delmark Records continues to record jazz and blues under Koester's leadership including today's cutting edge jazz scene in Chicago. Delmark 60th Anniversary: Jazz features Red Holloway, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis from masters originally recorded for the Apollo label but never issued on CD, Sonny Stitt, Nicole Mitchell, Corey Wilkes, Ernest Dawkins, Kahil El'Zabar, a sneak preview of the forthcoming new album from The Fat Babies, Ira Sullivan with the Jim Holman Trio, Keefe Jackson, Josh Berman and more.

The debut release by Chicago's newest hot jazz group, The Fat Babies. The band was started two years ago by string bassist and band leader, Beau Sample, and has held down a Sunday residency at Chicago's Honky Tonk BBQ ever since. The Fat Babies consists of Sample, bass; Andy Schumm, cornet; John Otto, clarinet/saxophone; Dave Bock, trombone; Paul Asaro, piano; Jake Sanders, tenor banjo; and Alex Hall, drums. Chicago Hot is a collection of 20s and 30s tunes mostly from Chicago's south side. The band takes on recordings by King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Erskine Tate, Freddie Keppard, Jimmy Noone, Bix Beiderbecke which are infectiously danceable and endlessly engaging.

Queen Sylvia Embry is best known as the bass-playing vocalist in Lefty Dizz and the Shock Treatment during the late 70s. The group was immensely popular and played some of the best (and wildest) blues music in Chicago. It seemed as if Sylvia was poised to break out as Chicago's leading blues woman as she started to front her own band and recording for three different labels in just a few years. They were married for a time but by the time they recorded this album they had divorced. Recorded on January 19, 1979 by the tiny Razor label the original album, known as After Work, is long out-of-print. This new CD contains previously unissued material.

One of Dave McDonnell's biggest takeaways from putting time in with dozens of outfits is a desire for his own music to be immediate and reactive, mindful of pulse and the body's innate rhythm but also cerebral. A groove-oriented framework functions as rhythmic scaffolding for his complex harmonic motifs: witness the stacked polyrhythms on the hard-driving "Bullitt" and lithe "Vox Orion," or the lively Latin feel of "Nodes of the Moon." "Brandywine" is hook-laden and swings hard, similar to the bookends of "Bakers Man," the bulk of which is dominated by explosive free-improv fireworks.

The debut album of the Jason Stein Quartet, the Story This Time, brings together Chicago bass clarinetist Jason Stein with three of his favorite improvisers. With Joshua Abrams on bass, Frank Rosaly on drums, and Keefe Jackson on tenor saxophone and contrabass clarinet, the album features five original compositions by Stein and six under explored compositions by jazz luminaries Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Lenny Tristano, and Thelonious Monk. Following three critically acclaimed albums with his trio Locksmith Isidore, Stein's new Chicago quartet seamlessly integrates rigorous written material with fierce and imaginative improvisational flights.

Formed in 2002, the Fast Citizens are the Chicago-based sextet of Aram Shelton, Keefe Jackson, Josh Berman, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Anton Hatwich and Frank Rosaly. With a rotating leadership, they have made three records, each featuring a different member. Continuing the exploratory tradition of their first two albums - Jackson's Ready Everyday (DMK 571) and Shelton's Two Cities (DMK 590) - Gather augments their jazz, experimental and free improvised vocabulary with an ever expanding set of references ranging from the popular to the esoteric. "Fast Citizens continues to forge it's own direction, reaching beyond formulaic conventions to embrace new forms." - All About Jazz.

FROM THE REGION

BACK TO CHICAGO

Jason Ajemian's music conjures a fever dream of multiple musical universes. The bassist-composer has acquired a high profile during his years in Chicago & New York, performing with Marc Ribot's Sun Ship, Matt Bauder's Day In Pictures, Matana Robert's CoinCoin, Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra & Chicago Underground Trio. Folklords has an outstanding group of New York improvisers (Kid Bliss, Owen Stewart-Robertson & Jason Nazary) performing conceptual, visual & sonic landscapes: meditative Mingus ballads, imaginary conversations between Sun Ra & Thelonious Monk, poetic takes on pop culture, and an elegy for Malachi Rischter.