Despite a rough up-and-down life, Baker remained an excellent trumpeter to the end of his career. This concert, performed two weeks before his mysterious fall out of an Amsterdam hotel window (and his last known recording), is a near-perfect summation of his career. The emphasis is on his trumpet playing and Baker, whether backed by a symphony orchestra, a big band or playing in a small group with altoist Herb Geller, is in inspired form. This double-CD set is also available as two separate CDs and, in one form or another, is highly recommended.© Scott Yanow /TiVo

Of all the dance-pop/teen pop singers to emerge in 1999, Pink seemed the least likely to have success. She didn't have an easy-to-market image like Britney or Christina, nor were her singles all that distinctive, so it was a real shock when she reinvented herself as a badass dance-rock chick for her second album, M!ssundaztood. It wasn't just that the album revealed a unique, forceful personality; it was that it crafted an original, dynamic sound from seemingly contradictory sources, as Pink hauled out forgotten 4 Non Blondes leader Linda Perry for her primary collaborator, piled on the hard rock riffs, and sharpened up the R&B rhythms, while writing as nakedly as a confessional singer/songwriter. It was a big surprise that Pink had an album like M!ssundaztood in her, but that surprise is nearly equalled by its successor, Try This, which proves that she can pull off the same trick twice -- an unpredictable giant leap forward, assisted by unlikely collaborators, that winds up being among the best pop music of its given year. While Perry is still around, she only collaborates on three tracks, since Pink has picked another left-field choice for her main co-writer/producer for Try This: Tim Armstrong, one of the lead singer/songwriters for the acclaimed neo-punk band Rancid. Armstrong co-writes and produces eight of the 13 songs here, and while it's true that he helps steer Pink into harder-rocking territory, the end result isn't quite as simple as Try This being a straight-up rock & roll album. Instead, hard rock is used as the foundation for the record (even some of the Perry-written tracks rock very hard), and then it stretches out into several different styles and sounds. Some are familiar -- there's a handful of dance-oriented tracks, a quiet ballad, such as the closer, "Love Song" -- but, like M!ssundaztood, this is pop music that knows no boundaries, borrowing ideas from punk, soul, ska, new wave, and electronica to create an exhilarating listen that crackles with energy and inventiveness. This music has reference points, some intentional and some not -- the similarities of "Trouble" and Nirvana's cover of the Vaselines' "Molly's Lips" may be on purpose, but the echoes of Blur's "Pressure on Julian" on "God Is a DJ" is surely coincidental -- but it's presentation is original and exceptionally well-written. This time around, she's not as consciously confessional, which makes for a nice fit for Armstrong's strong sense of songcraft and pop hooks, resulting in music that is immediately grabbing yet so sturdily crafted it only seems stronger, even catchier, with repeated listens. While Pink's peers take incremental, cautious artistic steps forward, she's slyly fearless, choosing the right collaborators that help her create pop music that has both style and substance to spare. Britney Spears, Pink's avowed arch-nemesis, may claim that she's taking advice from Madonna, but here Pink illustrates that she's the true heir to Madonna's throne, since she displays a restlessness similar to the Material Girl in the '80s, while never once sounding like Madonna -- or other spiritual predecessors like Pat Benatar, Stevie Nicks, or Debbie Harry, for that matter. With Try This, Pink has firmly established a voice of her own, and in doing so, she's made another tremendous modern pop record.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

4 stars out of 5 -- "Jawny’s larger-than-life personality remains in full bloom across the record. There’s a carefree spirit behind the plucky daydream of ‘La La La’, which swirls with the dizzying joy of a new love."© TiVo

On his third record, Come Home with Me, Cam'ron began paving the way for a few of his protégés (Juelz Santana, Jimmy Jones [aka the Ghetto's Advocate], Freekey Zekey), and the foursome came together as the Diplomats for a massive two-disc extravaganza, Diplomatic Immunity. With three of the four due for another full Roc-A-Fella release later in 2003 -- plus a film release for Come Home with Me -- the big question became quantity control, so it's no wonder that their combined talents can't keep this two-hour release together. As on Come Home with Me, the combination of Cam'ron with producer Just Blaze provides the highlights, "I Really Mean It" and the Starship-sampling "Built This City." Both of them appear on the second disc, and there really isn't much to recommend on the first. There's a pointless remix of the Cam'ron/Juelz Santana/Freekey Zekey feature "Hey Ma" (originally on Come Home with Me), with Toya providing some R&B vocals, and the bizarre inclusion of "Bout It Bout It, Pt. III" featuring Master P himself. Aside from Cam'ron, the Diplomats aren't good enough to carry these tracks themselves, and the lack of quality productions (or producers) makes this an easy one to skip, even for fans of Cam'ron. © John Bush /TiVo

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What does World music sound like when filtered through Jacob Collier’s harmonic kaleidoscope? His prismatic vision – piling arrangements on top of each like a glass pyramid – has already earned him a Grammy in 2017, for You and I, from his debut album. Then, Djesse came along, like a tornado of styles, a jazz-world fusion where the London-based multi-instrumentalist extended his conceptual and technical dominion to even vaster musical landscapes. So vast, that apparently it’s only the first in a series of 4. If any proof was still needed that Collier is a musical genius in the highest sense, Djesse Vol. 2 is in the pudding. The scope is still extremely wide, thanks to Jacob’s ability to fit any sort of instrument into a song: bag pipes, slap bass and acoustic guitars are all a part of the opening track Sky Above. But that same scope is also widened through different features: Pino Palladino and Lianne La Havas on the romantic soul-trance of Feel, Steve Vai and his unmistakable shredding on top of the polyrythmic funk of Do You Feel Love, and even Chris Thile and his mandolin, threading the needle on the tender I Heard You Singing. The latter song is actually a fair representation of the artistic direction on the second volume of Djesse: there are more references to the Anglo-Saxon tradition, thanks to bagpipes, mandolin and harps galore. Collier also seems to have taken a step back from his jazz influences: his practice of negative harmony through a capella parts certainly highlighted his vocal abilities, but apart from tracks such as Moon River his signature technique is sparser. That certainly contributes to making the music more relatable and more intimate. If Djesse Vol. 2 doesn’t necessarily break any ground from a theoretical perspective, the production value is on point and it also signals Collier’s emotional growth. As a musician, he certainly has nothing to prove, but his evocative power as an artist is still showing considerable improvement compared to previous records. © Alexis Renaudat/Qobuz

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