DVR program 885 features cowboy songs (Bill Frisell, Cyril Pahinui and Bob Brozman, Sonny Chillingworth, Buddy Miller’s Majestic Silver Strings); character studies of Fancy, Delta Dawn, the Old Laughing Lady, Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold, the Meanest Man in the World, Slow Driving Man and the Wichita Lineman; flamenco rhythms (Chango Spasiuk, Alfredo Rodríguez with Antonio Lizana, Jerry González with Diego el Cigala); songs by and about Cuban bassist, composer and arranger Israel López, better known as Cachao; and new music from Oğuz Büyükberber and Tobias Klein, a clarinet duo based in Amsterdam.
DVR program 884 features country songs, bluegrass style (Lynn Morris, Cindy Woolf, Alecia Nugent, Del McCoury, Michael Daves); acoustic melancholia (Richmond Fontaine, John Mellencamp, Sara Watkins, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings); a choral arrangement of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” as the setting for the Christian prayer “Agnus Dei.”; music composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alva Noto and Bryce Dessner for Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu’s The Revenant; and guitarists Julian Lage, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Kevin Breit and Fred Frith. Also: new music from the nine-member Haitian ensemble Lakou Mizik and Cuban keyboardist Alfredo Rodríguez with Ibeyi.
DVR program 883 features Punch Brothers’ slightly skewed take on the Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus; more train songs (Bukka White with Washboard Sam, Robert Johnson, Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters); sad memories (Uncle Tupelo, Richmond Fontaine, Funeral Bonsai Wedding); back stabbers (Son House, the Undisputed Truth, the O’Jays); Eric Hofbauer’s interpretation of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”; and new music from Michael Daves, Bilal, Frostlake and Mavis Staples.
DVR program 882 features some homespun philosophy courtesy of John Prine, Lefty Frizzell by way of Willie Nelson, and Gillian Welch with David Rawlings; music by or associated with Blind Willie Johnson, including Taj Mahal, Robert Randolph and the Family Band with Ben Harper, Tom Waits and Pops Staples; and songs about the sea from the Unthanks, Hanan Townshend, June Tabor and Suvi Oskala.
Also: new music from Mavis Staples, Luther Dickinson, the Portland, Oregon-based quartet Richmond Fontaine, M. Ward, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and New York-based electronic musician and instrument builder Lesley Flanigan.
DVR program 881 features jazz-inflected country and country-flavored jazz (Asleep at the Wheel, Elizabeth Cook, Monica Rizzio, Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant, Ry Cooder, Merle Haggard’s Strangers, Julian Lage); Jay Farrar revisiting the Uncle Tupelo songbook with Son Volt, recorded live at NYC’s Bottom Line; William S. Burroughs reading from The Western Lands over music recorded by a Swiss quartet called Dub Spencer & Trance Hill; and Meshell Ndegeocello in outer space.
Also: new music from Loretta Lynn, Carrie Rodriguez & the Sacred Hearts, Buddy Miller with Lee Ann Womack, Ralph Alessi and Jazmine Sullivan with Robert Glasper.
DVR program 880 features Charles Lloyd and Willie Nelson’s new rendition of Ed McCurdy’s “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream”; blues mandolins and songs about trains (James Cotton with Joe Louis Walker, Luther Dickinson & the Cooperators, the South Memphis String Band, John Hiatt, John Mellencamp, Robert Plant with Buddy Miller, Captain Beefheart); and some old-school, non-Brooklyn hipster jazz (Little Willie John, Gloria Lynne, John Williams, Angelo Badalamenti, Ennio Morricone).
Also: new music from trumpeters Avishai Cohen and Ralph Alessi, and Ensemble Kolossus, an 18-piece big band led by bassist Michael Formanek.
DVR program 879 opens with Peggy Lee, Don Gibson and Merle Travis and features songs about heaven (Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Jim Lauderdale with Ralph Stanley, Luther Dickinson, Beat Circus, Lucinda Williams); Carrie Rodriguez’s story of a Mexican immigrant family’s struggles in the Llano Estacado region of Texas; new Latin jazz from trombonists Doug Beavers and Wayne Wallace; and the music of Thelonious Monk, as interpreted by Jerry González, Simona Premazzi and Aruán Ortiz.
Also: new music from Peter Case, who appears to have a problem with US mass incarceration, free-enterprise supermax prisons, and the effects of long-term solitary confinement.
DVR program 878 features brand-new tracks from Carrie Rodriguez with Bill Frisell, Lucinda Williams with Greg Leisz and Bill Frisell, and Charles Lloyd with, um, Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz; world rhythms (Juana Molina and Gaby Kerpel of Argentina, the Colombia-based quintet Sidestepper); and music from Ennio Morricone’s score to U Turn, Oliver Stone’s film adaptation of John Ridley’s novel Stray Dogs.
Also: new cuts from Peter Case with Ben Harper, Luther Dickinson with Jason Isbell, Callenberg, Pacific Harp Project, Three Cane Whale and trumpeter Avishai Cohen’s debut on the ECM label.