Bloggerhythms

Bett Butler and her husband Joël Dilley have been featured in Bloggerhythms a few times in the past, separately and as a team. Dilley is a bass player and composer who works in multiple genres including jazz, funk, R&B and Latin music. Butler, the more mainstream artist of the two, is a singer-songwriting pianist with a soulful voice who also works in many styles but appears to favor mainstream jazz. I became familiar with Butler first. She recorded two albums of original jazz tunes followed by an album of covers from the Great American Songbook that features only her voice and Dilley's piano. Butler's last original solo work is the finest record in her catalog so far, a 2016 Christmas release, Songs For The Christmas Child . It is not a record for children.    In 2020, Dilley wrote and composed a soundtrack to the politically influenced film,  Wall In The Desert , with Butler assisting the multi-instrumentalist by reciting the fam...

Released this past March,  Wall in the Desert is a solo project by jazz bassist Joël Dilley. The San Antonio native played all of the instruments and arranged, recorded, mixed, and produced it himself. It's quite an accomplishment. The approximately thirty minute soundtrack is part of a documentary of the same name about the notorious and extremely controversial wall along America's Southwestern border. I have only seen the trailer, not the entire film, so I can only make an educated guess about its message but the music is good enough to stand on its own. According to an April 2020 press release from Dragon Lady Records , "all proceeds from digital sales and streaming will benefit the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, a faith-based collaborative movement meeting the changing needs of asylum seekers and immigrants at risk." Wall in the Desert  is a different kind of listening experience. If you're looking for hooks, riffs, and memorable melodies you won't find th...

Below is an edited and updated blast from the past that was published on Bloggerhythms in its original form on December 1, 2006. Since then I've listened to a lot of new Christmas music so, seven years later, it's time for the 2013 edition of The Top 10 Christmas Albums Of All Time . You can see the older version here . _________________________________________________________ Every year, new holiday fare is released to the public to satiate their never-ending desire to hear Christmas music. It amazes me how the music industry continues to recycle the same Christmas songs year after year in various packages, by every conceivable artist known to man, and we keep buying. From James Galway, to Willie Nelson, to Lynyrd Skynrd, and everybody in between, Christmas music sells and sells and sells. One of the nice things about this time of year is we all enjoy music by artists that we would never otherwise think of listening to the rest of the year. A case in point is my adult daug...

Christmas Santa Fe is the second holiday album by acoustic, new age, guitarist Ottmar Liebert . It's better than his first, Poets and Angels, Music 4 the Holidays (1991) because the song selection is superior. On every track Liebert plays his laid back guitar while blending his own original compositions, all with titles related to the season, into the midsections of traditional holiday tunes. They include "Michelle's Song/The Holly and the Ivy," "Santa Dancing/Deck the Halls," Peace/I Saw Three Ships, "Snow White/Silent Night," and nine others. Liebert adds bongos and other tastefully played percussion instruments to the arrangements in lieu of a full set of drums. That gives the disc a slightly Southwestern or Latin feel (perhaps that's where the CD's title comes from) and deftly placed muted horns are used as embellishment. Liebert may not be John Fahey but his Yuletide fare is pleasurable as background dinner music or for roast...

In short, Festival of the Heart is one of the best Christmas albums ever recorded. Even the cover art is gorgeous. The crystal clear production of this totally instrumental CD is only one of the many wonders you will notice upon listening to John Boswell's beautiful arrangements of fourteen immortal Christmas classics plus two of his originals. Most of these traditional songs are heard so often over the holiday season one tends to forget that many of these carols are some of the best melodies ever written. Boswell's sparse arrangements remind you that Christmas carols are music and not just audio decorations that complement your nutcracker and tree ornaments. His intensely melodic piano playing makes you understand and appreciate just how beautiful the melodies to "O Come All Ye Faithful," "Silent Night," "What Child Is This (Greensleeves)," and "O Holy Night" really are. Boswell’s supporting cast enhances each track while playing su...