Dr. John: Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch
Not all the guest artists fit, and sometimes the connection to Satchmo seems tenuous indeed. But when it works, as it mostly does, the album delivers much pleasure and pleasant surprises.
George de Stefano
George De Stefano is a New York-based writer and editor specializing in culture and politics. He is the author of An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) and a contributor to numerous other books, including the Routledge History of Italian Americans, Our Naked Lives: Essays from Gay Italian American Men (Bordighera Press), Mafia Movies (University of Toronto) and The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky Presses). He is currently working on a book about the Sicilians of New Orleans. His articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Nation, Newsday, Film Comment, The Advocate, The Italian American Review, Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, and the online publications PopMatters, Rootsworld, and the New York Journal of Books, La Voce di New York and I-Italy. He also has appeared in the documentary films "Beyond Wiseguys," "The Godfather Legacy," and the four-part PBS series "The Italian Americans."
Bob Marley and the Wailers: Legend (30th Anniversary Edition)
Legend presents Bob Marley at his most unthreatening, and most anodyne. And that was intentional.
Bagels and Bongos: The Klezmatics Present Havana Nagila
With their new project, the boundary-breaching klezmer band revives and extends the Jewish-Latin musical connection.
David Krakauer: The Big Picture
With his new release, klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer has crafted his most successful and boundary-smashing work to date.
John Grant’s “Glacier”: Moving Past the Pain (video)
The video for “Glacier” telescopes nearly a century of gay history into its 7:57 running time.
Ipercussonici – “Quannu Moru (When I Die)” (video)
Ipercussonici, a band from Sicily, takes to the streets to honor anti-Mafia heroes
James Booker: Classified: Remixed and Expanded
James Booker's stature in New Orleans musical history can be gauged by the nicknames bestowed on the gifted, troubled, openly gay musician: the Bayou Maharajah, the Piano Pope, the Ivory Emperor, and the Piano Prince of New Orleans.