Here's My Top 5 Favorite CD's

These 5 CD's I'm going to present you with have been played back and forth for the past couple months. I guess once I start buying more CD's I'll do this "Top 5" thing more often, but for now, here is my Top 5 Favorite CD's (right now).

1. Michael Manring - THONK



THONK is a jazz fusion masterpiece in my opinion. The CD includes a lot of MM's classics including Monkey Businessman, My Three Moons, and The Enormous Room, but in my opinion, they are all truly fantastic songs. On some of the tracks, MM has various guitarists, drummers, and a pianist play on the tracks. These Musicians include Steve Morse and Alex Sklonick on Guitar, Tim "Herb" Alexander and Steve Morse on Drums, and Philip Aaberg on Piano. I wish MM still put out material like this, even though everything he comes out with today is still just as incredible as THONK.

2. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black



I really wish I was exposed to Amy sooner... I really would of loved to of seen her live after listening to this CD (I also have Frank, and her last release, Lioness). This CD is just beautiful. Amy has such a brilliant voice, which can be comparable to vocalists such as Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald, and her sound was very 50's and 60's doo wop and r&b. Every song on here just brings you on this crazy emotional rollercoaster. You go from one song being happy, the next song is a bit more pissy, then next is sad... she was really a genius when it came to incorporating emotion into her music, which I thing is rare nowadays with a lot of the pop trash coming in. When Amy Winehouse died I think we lost another 30 to 35 years of great music. I think if she was still alive she would become one of the greats. RIP

3. Esperanza Spalding - Chamber Music Society



I think Esperanza Spalding really changed how people see jazz today. A lot of people find jazz boring, just these typical jazz standards, running through scales like a madman type playing sometimes (although of love old school jazz), but Esperanza does a lot of different things on this CD, "Chamber Music Society". The CD has the jazz roots, but she expands from that, adding in a lot of r&b influence and South American influences. After listening to this CD you'll know why she won a grammy for best new artist last year.

4. Cephalic Carnage - Misled by Certainty



This CD really releases the bass nerd in me because Nick Schendzielos is such a fantastic bass player. CC as a whole rules, but lately I've been having a bass crush on Nick. Before I bought the CD I listened to the song "OHRWURM" and I think my head exploded. The tracks begins with Nick doing a very "Wooten" sounding double thump progression, and I think that's where my head exploded... then the song still remains to be awesome, just like this whole CD.

5. Dying Fetus - Descend into Depravity



Dying Fetus really gets my Death Metal loins in a bunge. This CD is not only their most technical CD, it grooves harder than 95% of all the death metal out there. Before I bought this CD I watched the video for "Shepherds Commandment" and immediately started to throw my head back and forth... it was fucking brutal. I then bought it, and listened tot he whole thing and fell in love with it, but I think my favorite track on the whole CD is the last song, "Ethos of Coercion". The whole album punches you in the face, every riff, every slam, every cookie monster growl... it's such a killer CD.

Thanks for Reading,
Jake Ryan.

Esperanza Spaulding

It's the end of the month, and I'd like to end this month with an artist I'm really crazy about. She's a very talented singer and bassist by the name of Esperanza Spaulding. Some of you may know her by her Grammy win for Best New Artist (beating out Justin Bieber, Drake, and Florence and the Machine), but I remember the first time I heard of her was seeing her perform her version of "Overjoyed" by Stevie Wonder for the president (on youtube of course). Her voice is incredible, and she is a fantastic bass player. Her Albums "Esperanza" and "Chamber Music Society" are both amazing, and I believe her next CD, "Radio Music Society" comes out in the first quarter of 2012. It's really hard to say what "genre" of music she plays, because her music has such a wide variety of different music styles. Some songs have more of a jazzy feel, or maybe r&b, funk, lounge, brazilian... it goes on!

Some fun facts about Esperanza: When she won her Grammy for Best New Artist she was the first Jazz Artist to ever win that. Almost immediately after graduation from college later the same year, Spalding was hired by Berklee College of Music, becoming one of the youngest professors in the institution's history, at age 20. She has also played for president Barack Obama four times!

If you've never heard of Esperanza Spaulding then look her up, listen to a couple songs, and then buy her CD's. She is a brilliant musician, and I believe everyone should listen to her.

Have a good one!
Jake Ryan.