Category Archives: CD Reviews

CD Review: Dahlia Dumont – Edith Piaf Comes To Brooklyn on a Reggae Bandwagon

Dahlia DumontArtist: Dahlia Dumont & The Blue Dahlia
Title:  The Blue Dahlia
Label: self produced
Genre: Pop-Reggae/French Reggae-Ska

CD Review by Dawoud Kringle

The second decade of the 21st century ushered in an unforeseen phenomenon: pretty young women with ukuleles. Those of us who were born in the 60s and 70s sure didn’t see this coming! And with such women who seek a serious professional career, they have a lot of preconceived ideas to get past. So, with as much of an open mind as I could muster (suppressing the subtle sexism I was programmed with in my native culture), I wondered what The Blue Daliah had to offer.

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David Belmont With Brent Arnold…An Experiment In Compressed Creativity

David Belmont Artist: David Belmont With With Brent Arnold
Title: International Steel Guitar
Label: Windwater Productions
Genre: World/blues/ambient soundscapes

CD Review by Dawoud Kringle

New York City based guitarist / composer / producer / co-director of the Castillo Theatre David Belmont has a history of producing music from ambient soundscapes, jazz / rock / world fusion and avant garde jazz. In International Steel Guitar, joined by Brent Arnold (cello) and Michael Walsh (keyboards), he takes things to musical places not normally associated with the Dobro guitar.

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CD Review: Spaghetti Eastern Music…using any musical device, any genre, any instrument, any abstract and ambient sound to make his statement

Spaghetti Eastern MusicArtist: Spaghetti Eastern Music
Title: Sketches of Spam
Label: Bad Egg Records
Genre: rock/post-rock/experimental

CD Review by Dawoud Kringle

Every now and again, my friend Sohrab Saadat (editor / publisher of DBDBD) just loves to give me music that challenges my ability as a reviewer. He did it again with Spaghetti Eastern Music‘s new release Sketches of Spam, the solo project of New York based musician Sal Cataldi.

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CD Review: Church of Betty…overall idealistic “neo-hippie-love-is-the-answer” vibe

Church Of BettyArtist: Church of Betty
Title: Swirled World
Label: Shop Fang Records
Genre: psychedelic rock / progressive world chamber rock

Review by Dawoud Kringle

Brooklyn’s Church of Betty, the brainchild of sitarist / guitarist Chris Rael, was, from its beginning, an interesting anomaly. Being a sitar player myself, I was intrigued by his concept. COB first hit the scene in 1998. An impressive list of musicians who performed and recorded with COB includes tabla master and Rael’s longtime collaborator, Deep Singh. Their live performances brought theatrics and dance to their live sound. Rael’s sitar style, far from orthodox classical raga, nonetheless used raga as a framework he built on a pop / rock / folk / psychedelic foundation.

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CD Review: the Liberation Music Collective…propel the momentum of jazz toward a sense of spiritual awareness and social responsibility that the world needs

The Liberation Music CollectiveArtist: The Liberation Music Collective
Title: Siglo XXI
Label: Ad Astrum Records
Genre: jazz

CD Review by Dawoud Kringle

The idea of jazz as a catalyst for social change is not new. Throughout its history, jazz musicians have sought to use the art form to articulate societal ills, and present solutions (which almost always focus on spiritual realms, although a few use it as a platform for a political agenda, such as socialism). The most fascinating aspect of this is that, unlike other music genres, folk, rap, etc., many such “jazz activists” have sought to do this through instrumental music. This is unique to jazz. However, those who do this have become rare in recent years.

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