American music is essentially African-American-derived. From the deep African-American influences on Anglo-American folk, bluegrass, and country music, to its development of its musical forms ragtime and minstrelsy of the late 19th century and jazz and rock 'n' roll of the 20th century, the global impact of African-American music is phenomenal. But from the roots of these popular music genres stand the early African-American folk songs that consist of work songs, spirituals, and field hollers. Producer Andrew Calhoun & Campground's 2008 compilation Bound to Go, with its 35 songs performed by 18 musicians, stands as a wonderful, authentic musical testament to this lasting African-American contribution to U.S. history and culture.

Before listening to the music on the album, one could read a preface by Calhoun found in the booklet that explains the origins and history of African-American folk songs and his own close association with that type of music. Calhoun also provides his readers examples of the song texts within and gives useful (albeit brief) descriptions of each track on the CD. There's also a list of selected books to peruse on the topic and recommended recordings for the interested listeners. This background information could satisfy newcomers to African-American folk music or augment the knowledge of its enthusiasts.

The collection of songs on Bound To Go are wide-ranging, each taken from notable American songbooks that include Slave Songs of the United States (1867), Religious Folk Songs of the Negro (1924), and Negro Folk Rhymes, Wise and Otherwise (1922), to name a few. One of the musical motifs found throughout the album is the random ordering of the songs. The mixture of familiar tunes with less familiar ones (many which have never been committed to record) could take the listener on a surprising aural expedition. The interchange of male and female vocal leads is wonderful, and the instruments span the typical banjo, fiddle, piano, and harmonica to the not so familiar djembe, bodhan, and hambone. Even the album cover is convincing: the enslaved African-American female looks toward the sky as if in great hope and optimism.

Bound to Go opens with male and female harmony in "Blow Your Trumpet, Gabriel," which features the trumpet (uncommon in folk). From there, a selection of slave songs ("O'er the Crossin," "Come and Go With Me," "Wake Up Jacob"), ballads ("Back Home in Georgia," "Lost John #," "No More Cane on the Brazos," the latter the longest tune on the record), and spirituals ("Run To Jesus," "Four and Twenty Elders," "I'll Hear the Trumpet Sound") dominate the record. While many of the tracks are under two minutes in length, there is great diversity therein. "Run, Brother, Run" is an upbeat fiddle tune, "Sheep and Goat" makes good use of the African-styled percussive body slaps known as "patting juba," "Sandy Land" demonstrates instruments imitating shifting sands, "Rough and Rolling Sea" is calm and mellow, "Hammering Judgment" is heavily punctuated by the "hammerin'" calls of the chorus, and "Ol' Elder Brown" is propelled by a contagious piano line. There are even male a cappella leads in "Ol' Egyp'" and "Uncle Billy." One standout track is "Tree of Life," full of male and female harmony with call-and-response patterns not only through the singers but through the trumpet as well. "We all gotta right to the tree of life," they sing. This is a great way to end the album, as African-American folk songs are the tree of life -- not only to the endurance of the African-American community and spirit but to American music in general.

"Folk songs carry the emotional truth of our history," Andrew Calhoun writes. Bound to Go is a brilliant showcase that revives African-American folk music to the utmost degree and shows the diversity and strength of a community that has triumphed and prevailed through hardships. This collection of songs relates not only to African-American history, but our history.

Falcon, the band, has never written a song, nor do they plan to in the future. Vocalist and guitarist Neil Rosen and guitarist Shannon Ferguson came together to bring an old classmates' lyrics to life. Jared Falcon, a prodigy of his time, wrote 336 songs until he was institutionalized in 1988. Band members Neil and Shannon both live in New York, where they formed their band with drummer Jason Molina, and bassist Christian Bongers.

Jared Falcon's lyrics have developed a life and style of their own in the production of the album. The recording initiates a feeling of forward movement. There is no break or shift in rhythm for most of the songs, until the last track, "Bees," which initiates a feeling of forward movement due to the songs being relatively short with simple transitions between them.

"A lot of the songs are about animals," says Rosen. "And many don't have what one might conventionally think of as a chorus, or the standard pop structure."

On a whole the album is easy to listen to from start to finish. The first track, "Sandblaster," is uplifting, and starts with a melodic guitar intro followed by a perpetual drumbeat. On "Q of T" the beginning stays the same, with a guitar melody and 1-2-3 drum beat, but the lyrics become more emotional. It makes one wonder what the 14-year-old songwriter was experiencing to be able to create songs that say, "I only awake at dawn to say goodbye to my dreams at night."

The album wraps up with "Bees." where there is a stronger presence from bassist Christian Bongers, and a slower rhythm with an even upward and downward keel. Jared Falcon's intrepid imagination will continue to thrive with Falcon. As vocalist Rosen explains, "songs this good have a life of their own."

One listen to the experimental like intro "Play" on British rocker Kate Nash's debut album Made of Bricks will encourage listeners to brace for an ambitious aural journey. First a hit in Europe in 2007, achieving platinum status in the U.K. alone, the record bolted up the U.S. Top 40 charts the following year and was given a generally positive critical standing from the American press. If one digs the popular pop-rocker singer-songwriter Lily Allen, an artist Kate Nash is often compared to, this should pique one's interest.

"Foundations," the second single from Made of Bricks, bulleted to no. 2 on the U.K. singles charts for five weeks (surprisingly missing Billboard's Hot 100 chart) and became one of the year's critically noticed records, and all for good reason: it's irresistibly contagious and confrontational, dealing with "the cracks in our foundations" of dissolving relationships. The tune's intimacy and confrontational manner, joined with eclectic pop-etched grooves, staccato-laden piano-driven lines, and Nash's thick British accent talk-singing style, is a Made of Bricks hallmark.

If "Foundations" fails to connect, one could try the next pop-rock nuggent, "Mouthwash," also a charter hit in the U.K. Top 40 singles chart. IThe witty and acoustic "Birds" is another slow number, originally the b-side to the non-album first single "Caroline's a Victim." The album picks up vitality again with another highlight, "We Get On," somewhat reminiscent of a Fats Domino shuffler in terms of its rhythm.

Kate Nash's British sing-speak vocalizing, set to a piano rock backdrop replete with electronic trappings, is what ambitious pop should be, a work with enough guts and originality to indicate the direction needed for today's relatively same-sounding mainstream pop-rock music.

The title says it all. Van Morrison's thirty-third studio album is partly a nostalgic look back at life, and partly a view of his life today, with the perspective of someone who's done and seen it all. It provides a soulful mix of storytelling and smart, minimal instrumental arrangements that lend nicely to the simplistic yet steady songs.

Everything from the arrangements to simple blues based-chord structures lend themselves to his message of simplicity, yet even though the musicality of the songs can be described as basic, the messages of the songs are anything but. In "How can a poor boy?" he makes statements about religion. "I've been anointed, been appointed. Even been magnified. Spied a chapel all of gold. The priest was laying down with the wine. Watch of the illusion of false security. Play of the shadows that move."

The title track, "Keep it Simple," warns about the dangers of greed and disappointment, while "Don't Go to Nightclubs Anymore" talks about how Van Morrison doesn't need alcohol anymore. He practices musically what he preaches. The simple solid foundation of the instrumentation allows Van Morrison's steady, sage voice to flow over the song and get his message across with a voice that sounds like it has seen its fair share of living.

The entirety of the album stresses the importance of simplicity in everything, and how the human race is getting too far ahead of itself. Not only is the album a nostalgic look back at his own experiences, it is a cautionary work meant to give people sage advice.

The highly influential, inventive and legendary jazz piano wizard Art Tatum's masterwork Piano Starts Here, which has been in print for more than 50 years since its release on Columbia/Legacy, was already a classic before Zenph Studios in conjunction with Sony re-engineered and enhanced the record. In its original form. The album featured four solo 78-rpms from a March 21, 1933 studio session on the legendary Brunswick label and nine other compositions from Tatum's famous solo concert at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, in 1949. To re-create these past experiences for a modern audience, Zenph Studios used state-of-the-art technology to improve the disc's sound quality, to correct the speed, and to duplicate Tatum's piano mastery in order to fill in missing segments.

Interestingly, Piano Starts Here: Live at the Shrine conveniently provides listeners with two ways to experience Tatum's chestnuts, first through stereo-surround version and then through binaural stereo version intended for headphone listening. Whichever stereo version you prefer, nothing is taken from this miraculous jazz recording that will continue to transfix (and terrify) jazz pianists and devotees for decades to come. The palette offers his incredible interpretations of jazz standards such as "St. Louis Blues" (a vital blues number in the jazz repertoire), "Tea for Two," "How High the Moon," "Willow Weep for Me" and "Sophisticated Lady," as well as his brilliant renditions of musical show tune gems such as "Yesterdays" (Roberta) and "Someone to Watch over Me" (Oh, Kay! ). Tatum's own "Tatum Pole Boogie" (his version of boogie-woogie), the glorious (and restored) "Gershwin Melody," and his take on Czech classical composer Antonin Dvorák's "Humoresque" are equally wonderful, but clearly nothing tops his phenomenal showpiece signature "Tiger Rag," an enduring jazz piece that through him achieved immortality.

In this breathtaking and busy composition, Tatum demonstrates his blistering speed on the piano, courtesy of his trademark advanced stride piano style, where it seems as if six hands are playing the keys. The chords and harmonies here are years, perhaps decades, ahead of their time and serve as proof that Tatum had the greatest technical facility of any jazz pianist. For this, he has received adulation from critics and classical and jazz musicians as diverse as Vladimir Horowitz, Fats Waller and Count Basie (the latter called him the Eighth Wonder of the World, while Tatum's contemporaries have called him "God," making him jazz music's Eric Clapton). One word for this composition alone: genius.

Zenph Studio's "re-engineering" of Art Tatum's jazz milestone Piano Starts Here: Live At the Shrine is a remarkable effort that serves Tatum justice. Listening to this disc is like escaping back to see Tatum record his first solo studio sessions or like bringing his stage performance straight to the convenience of one's home. Piano should influence other record companies and studios that such an achievement of restructuring classic back catalogs is possible if handled with care and finesse and that offering listeners two ways to experience such classic music will bring out the best of an album.