New and noteworthy

Jesus-Christ Ne Deçoit Pas 

Jess Sah Bi

Thirty-four years after it came out as a limited-edition cassette for sale only in Ivory Coast, Jess Sah Bi’s lone solo album finally gets global release. Bi called it Jesus-Christ Ne Deçoit Pas (“Jesus Christ Never Gives Up”) because, he said, he’d sought and received healing from a nearly fatal illness at an evangelical revival. These seven songs and one extended remix were his way of saying, in French and in Guro, thanks. Other reasons to spend 25 minutes checking it out: lithe, ebullient singing, lilting folk rhythms, and English translations available on Bandcamp.

The Moment of Truth: Ella at the Coliseum 

Ella Fitzgerald

In 2020, Verve Records gave us Ella: The Lost Berlin Tapes, recorded in 1962, in 2022 Ella at the Hollywood Bowl: The Irving Berlin Songbook, recorded in 1958—both different, both thrilling. Now we get an Oakland show from 1967. And, apples and oranges aside, it may be the best of them all. Totally in the moment, nailing song after song, accompanied by members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra (“at its prime,” the PR assures us), and improvising like nobody’s business, Fitzgerald pulls out all the stops. She climaxes the 41-minute show with a “Mack the Knife” that could cause heart attacks. It would be quite a way to go.

Long After the Fire 

Vicki Peterson & John Cowsill

Vicki Peterson is the on-again, off-again Bangle and Continental Drifter. John Cowsill is the former Beach Boys touring drummer and member of the Cowsills. The composers are John’s late brothers Bill and Barry. The former, it turns out, was quite the country songwriter, the latter a not bad if rather straightforward rock or Americana one. Peterson’s alto we’ve known and loved since the ’80s. Appreciation for Cowsill’s baritone is long overdue.

The Book of Isaiah: Modern Jazz Ministry 

Isaiah J. Thompson

All of 28, this jazz pianist has already had enough acclaim (and playing-related tendinitis) to undergo a spiritual crisis. So he read the Bible, went to seminary, and began attending church. The South African singer Vuyo Sotashe, who has a Stevie Wonder tribute album in his future, illuminates three of the four songs that have words, including a version of the Lord’s Prayer in which everything that’s good about the rest—swing, bop, Julian Lee’s tenor sax—comes together with devotional pizzazz.

Isaiah J. Thompson Handout / isaiahjthompson.com

Encore

It isn’t clear exactly where Isaiah J. Thompson was in his spiritual journey when he recorded his 2023 live album The Power of the Spirit (Blue Engine) at Dizzy’s Club in New York. But the title cut gives us a clue. For the first half of its 15 minutes, the saxophonist Julian Lee, urged along by the rhythm section, builds toward a squealin’ feelin’ that puts everything before it, accomplished though it is, to shame. Thompson, on piano, tries to top him and almost succeeds before easing up and introducing the group.

Then, as the combo comps on, Thompson delivers a mini-sermon in which he explains that the song is about three struggles: adversity (“Sometimes, you’re in battle with yourself, right? Because the mind, it can play tricks on itself, right?”), deception (“Sometimes, we’re in battle with external forces, with other people. … You’re allowed to feel how you feel, but your reaction is your decision”), and last, “how you overcome all of that, and that’s through the power of the spirit.” Or maybe it’s “Spirit.” —A.O.