Chris Oshiro's Holiday Picks

BLUE DOG JAM's Chris Oshiro Recommends These Stocking Stuffers

David Grisman Quintet: Dawganova (CD)

Acoustic music (mandolin, guitar, flute, bass, percussion) that's interesting, intriguing, rhythmic. Grisman makes his music listenable, mixing elements of folk, bluegrass, jazz and latin. His group members play solos that seem meant to impress listeners rather than fellow musicians, which is not say that they aren't great...they are. The solos shine in their simple, clean lines, always in tune with the structure of the song you're listening to. Plus, when you listen in the car to Dawganova after spending a day at work, the music takes you away...probably faster than you ought to go. Wonderful!

Madeleine Peyroux: Half The Perfect World (CD)

Ms. Peyroux blends Pop, Folk, Blues and Jazz into a sultry and thrilling mix. She's a throwback, but thoroughly up to date. Half The Perfect World starts out swinging, includes a Tom Waits gem ("Heart Of Saturday Night") and a Nilsson cover ("Everybody's Talkin'"), a spare arrangement with lyrics sung in French ("La Javanaise"), and wraps up swinging and bluesy. If you own an ipod you could easily include songs from this album on at least seven or eight different playlists, and they'd be at the top of each one. That's how good this CD is.

Russo: Street Music Music - Three Pieces for Blues Band and Orchestra (CD)

In the late 1960s Corky Siegel began exploring how to fuse the blues with classical. Tracks 5, 6 and 7 represent the stunning culmination of that journey. Siegel's group the Siegel-Schwall Band, recorded "Three Pieces for Blues Band and Orchestra" with the San Francisco Symphony in 1972. At the time, this unique combination of the blues with classical stood alone, no one else had tried it--at least there's not much evidence of it. It still shines today as a powerful testament to how two distinct and separate genres can meld into one beautiful body of work. There's nothing like it. Also included on the disc is a blues concierto and George Gershwin's "An American in Paris".

Open Range (DVD)

I like westerns. I REALLY like Open Range, which stars Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall. The story concerns free grazers who drive cattle and live off the land on the open range, and their fight to keep their right to do so. There's great action, and interaction, as well as heart wrenching emotion. But Open Range, to me, is about right and wrong, loyalty and love, devotion and character, with flaws and scars for all to see.