What's your latest "Discovery"

Here's 6:41 o' fun if you dig Latin jazz: Go to young pianist Alex Brown's website and check out his composition "The Wrong Jacket", a positively infectious, multi-tempoed, acoustic bass/drums+percussion/electric piano workout (you can preview it in lo-fi, and the hi-fi download don't sound bad thru the big rig, but it's not yet released on CD).

Feist "The Reminder"
Scissors for Lefty "Underhanded Romance"
Cat Power "The Covers Record"

Truly great stuff.

The Wayfaring Strangers: Both "Shifting Sands of Time," and "This Train," are killers.

Thom Jurek (allmusic.com) writes about "This Train":
"........the virtually stunning "Sit Down Servant," where Delta blues, New Orleans jazz, country gospel, bluegrass, and strange Eastern modalism all come together to swirl into an organically transcendent groove. Even without the guest appearances by Ralph Stanley and Jennifer Kimball on "Shifting Sands of Time," "This Train," like its predecessor, is one of the most gratifying, provocative, and original takes on true roots American music — as it comes from the rest of the world — on record. It is simply moving and beautiful."

Nouvelle Vague Bande A Part. Available on vinyl or CD. The Lp is recorded about as well as they come. The covers are enjoyable and Melane Pain's smokey voice is a delight.

Kenny Drew "Undercurrent" (Blue Note, 1960) All devotees of the great vintage BN 'hard bop' house style need this album! Other than his sideman turn on "Blue Trane" I didn't know much about pianist Drew, but picked this disk up when I saw he wrote all six tunes, and had a frontline of Hank Mobley and a young Freddie Hubbard. Turns out this set is just as fine (and concise) as it got -- equally archetypal as any more famous Blue Notes of the period. (And featuring very inviting sound to boot -- and my copy isn't even the new RVG remaster...Sorry, don't know about the availability of audiophile vinyl.) Drew's accessibly moddish tunes are ace, the confidently probing horn tandem simply kills, each man pushing the other to make every note count, and the group as a whole (with Sam Jones on bass and Louis Hayes on drums) sounds as if they've been playing together forever, with the nominal leader (who in no way dominates the proceedings) displaying light and lithe articulateness and swing. According to AMG, the late Drew, who'd been active as a sideman and occasional leader in the 50's, became an ex-pat after this, his second date for the label, and didn't record again as a leader until the 70's. If classic Blue Note is yer bag and you don't own it yet, take it from me, this one here's a winner.