Blue Standard – A Good Thing

This CD does what it says on the tin and does it well. The proverbial tin says that this is a debut album which was recorded ‘live off the floor with no overdubs’ at Canterbury Music Company in Toronto. Twelve standards, some unfamiliar, chosen because Blue Standard felt inspired by takes of these songs done by famous names such as Nat King Cole and Chet Baker. Raoul Bhaneja is an actor who sings blues, as well as jazz and Jesse Whiteley, is well known on the Canadian music scene as he comes from a family of musicians involved in roots music, and he has performed with the likes of Clark Terry and Cleo Laine.(bebop spoken here)

Whitehorse – The Northern South Vol 2

The latest volume of Whitehorse’s Northern South, a collection of blues, soul and other music from the American South, must have been fun to play: the grooves are locked down, the percussion is smart and the rhythm section is as steady as a freight train. Melissa McClelland sings lead on a number of these tracks — she can work breathy or she can belt and the variety of her instrument is often beautiful. She knows the material, and the harmonies with Luke Doucet carry historically laden texts unusually well. Doucet’s guitar grind has a looping, “hound dog going after a rabbit” quality, especially in the first minute of “Baby, Scratch My Back.”(Exclaim!)