Liliana Hart Cooper

Grammy Nominated singer/songwriter Beth Hart treats fans to an intimate performance at New York's Iridium in this special episode of Front & Center. She first rose to fame in 1999 with her single "L.A. Song (Out of This Town)". Hart performs some material from her latest album, Fire On the Floor, including "Jazz Man," "Let's Get Together," and "Fat Man." On Friday April 13, 2018 Beth Hart will release "Front and Center - Live From New York" on Mascot Label Group/Provogue. It features a 15 track live CD and the Front and Center broadcast on DVD with an in-depth interview, 3 full band songs and 3 acoustic songs as bonus material.

Time traveler Alvin Youngblood Hart's albums have darted from crusty Delta fingerpicking and hollering to Hendrixian hellfire to crunchy, primal rockin' blues, all with the ring of authority that comes from complete commitment to the music. This time, he's set the wayback machine to the early '30s, using guitars, mandolin, banjo, and a lot of heart to interpret tunes by Son House, Charley Patton, Skip James, Leadbelly, and others. Somehow, the dust of old Mississippi, the state where the Oakland-born musician now resides, seems to have gotten into his blood. Hart sounds like Parchman Farm's newest inmate as he wails and moans through "How Long Before I Can Change My Clothes," plucking notes from a National resonator guitar. Chiming out chords and quick runs on banjo, he makes Odetta's "Chilly Winds" seem like they're carrying the voices of lost ghosts, recounting their lives of misery under Jim Crow's wing. Hart tends to take many of these classics, like Patton's "Tom Rushen Blues" and Leadbelly's "Alberta," at slightly slower tempos, which gives him more time to squeeze gut emotions from his lightly graveled phrases and lets his pluck-and-drone playing work its hypnotic effect. Stark and impressive for the power Hart generates alone, this may be the acoustic blues album of the year.

Trombonist Dicky Wells once said that Al Cooper's Savoy Sultans were "…a living headache to everyone. They could swing and make most bands happy to play 'Home Sweet Home.' When a band like that's on your tail, the night seems to never end. They didn't seem to know the meaning of letting up." As the house band at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom, this group undoubtedly knew how to keep a large crowd entertained with music for dancing purposes. In person they must have been tight and right in order to warrant such praise from other musicians and to hold down their gig at the Savoy for nine years…

Wayne Shorter has written a number of landmark jazz compositions that have found favor among fellow jazz musicians, but Mysterious Shorter marks a rare occasion when an entire CD is devoted to his music. Trumpeter Nicholas Payton heads a strong quintet, including saxophonist Bob Belden (who doubles on soprano and tenor saxes, like Shorter, and contributed all of the arrangements), organist Sam Yahel, guitarist John Hart, and drummer Billy Drummond. Since six of the eight songs are from Shorter's early Blue Note CDs prior to his move toward fusion, the substitution of Yahel's laid-back organ for the more striking sound of the piano softens the sound of Belden's charts, giving them a bit more of a mysterious flavor, especially in the brisk, playful setting of "Footprints." Payton is known for his powerful trumpet playing, but displays a quiet lyrical touch in "Teru."

Grammy Nominated singer/songwriter Beth Hart treats fans to an intimate performance at New York’s Iridium in this special episode of Front & Center. She first rose to fame in 1999 with her single “LA Song (Out of This Town)” which was a number one hit in New Zealand and peaked in the top five on the US Adult Contemporary chart and number 7 on the Billboard Adult Top 40 Chart. Hart performs some material from her latest album, Fire On the Floor, including “Jazz Man,” “Let’s Get Together,” and “Fat Man.”

The Alice Cooper Show is a live album by Alice Cooper, released by Warner Bros. in December 1977. It was recorded live in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Hotel on August 19 and 20, 1977, during Cooper's "King of the Silver Screen" United States tour. The TV special Alice Cooper and Friends featured live footage from that tour.