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McCoy Tyner

"Guitars"

McCoy Tyner Music/Half Note

He’s perhaps best known as John Coltrane’s pianist during the saxophonist’s most fertile years. Until now, McCoy Tyner had never made a recording with electric guitars, nor had he recorded with banjo players. Supported by the equally estimable Ron Carter (bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums), Tyner pounds out his thick, harmonically encompassing chords alongside five of jazz’s finest fret-men, with varying degrees of success. The 14-track album includes a DVD documenting five of these performances.

Outgoing and experimental Marc Ribot, who improvises freely with Tyner, and inward-looking and experimental Bill Frisell, who contributes a pair of West Africa-inspired compositions, bring the most to these casual sessions. John Scofield, on the other hand, is solid if uninspiring. And Allman Brothers Band guitarist Derek Trucks, the nephew of drummer Butch, sounds overwhelmed by the company. Banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, alas, squanders his opportunity to do anything unexpected with the Coltrane Quartet staple, "My Favorite Things."

Jackson Browne

"Time the Conqueror"

Inside Recordings 

On his recent album, "Harps & Angels," Randy Newman satirically calls out Jackson Browne as our national singer-songwriter-savior. Browne proves Newman’s characterization more or less apt on "Time the Conqueror" in such rabble-rousing, left-leaning tracks as "The Drums of War," "Going Down to Cuba," and "Far From the Arms of Hunger," all of which are far more musically compelling than their titles might suggest. Browne contemplates time’s double-edged nature (it both heals and harms) in the title track and elsewhere sings about l-o-v-e with refreshing maturity and a really hot band.