WMS

The newest album from Rhiannon Giddens', You're the One is her third solo studio album and her first of all original songs. This collection of 12 songs written over the course of Giddens' career bursts with life-affirming energy, drawing from the folk music that she knows so deeply, as well as its pop descendants. Produced by Jack Splash (Solange, Alicia Keys, Valerie June), You're the One features some of Giddens' closest musical collaborators from the past decade, including multi-instrumentalists Francesco Turrisi and Dirk Powell, bassist Jason Sypher, and Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu. The album features electric and upright bass, conga, Cajun and Piano accordions, guitars, a Western string section, and Miami horns, among other instruments, capturing the inclusive spirit that channels through all of her work. <br/><br/>"I hope that people just hear American music," Giddens says. "Blues, jazz, Cajun, country, gospel, and rock-it's all there. I like to be where it meets organically. They're fun songs, and I wanted them to have as much of a chance as they could to reach people who might dig them but don't know anything about what I do. If they're introduced to me through this record, they might go listen to other music I've made with a different set of ears."

For this album, Mehldau and producer Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Elliott Smith, Mac Miller) experimented with electronic instrumentation on originals and borrowed tunes (including Radiohead's 'Paranoid Android' and The Beatles' 'Dear Prudence'). It was the first record of Mehldau's that departed from either the piano trio or solo format, and it can be seen as the culmination of musical experiences that he gathered while living in Los Angeles, most notably the music he heard at Largo, the club in Hollywood, which he went to regularly and pays tribute to in the title of the record. <br/><br/>Mehldau explained, "I heard a lot of terrific singer-songwriters there for the first time - people like Rufus Wainright, Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith and Aimee Mann. I got re-introduced to how beautiful a good pop song can be through hearing them. Its depth is more about pairing something down, chiseling it into a strong, succinct statement - very different than jazz, which for me is often about going out on a limb and staying there."

Dans till storband, tillhör det en svunnen tid? Berätta det i så fall inte för Leif Kronlund. Vid 87 är denne mästare av svensk storbandsdans hetare än någonsin. Då har hans eviga orkester ändå spelat för sådana som Elizabeth Taylor och Frank Sinatra på några av världens mest fashionabla nattklubbar. Även Ann-Louise Hanson, Towa Carson & Anna-Lena Löfgren är exempel på artister som slagit igenom som sångare i orkestern. <br/><br/>Leif Kronlunds Orkester drar tusentals dansande och dussintals fullastade bussar från hela landet till sina showkvällar. 2017 blev Kronlund trefaldigt prisbelönad - inklusive av kungen för sina tjänster för dansen. Nu firar han det med att ge ut ett helt nytt album, "Keep Swinging", som spelats in i samma studio i Stockholm där han gjorde sina första inspelningar för mer än 60 år sedan.

Transparent Blue Vinyl

Adams Terry: Terrible [CD]

Rachael & Vilray: Rachael & Vilray [CD]

Mehldau Brad: Après Fauré [CD]