A little late to the party, but what the heck. I have a number of AIX discs -- just reviewed the ones I have which have hi-res polls here.
If you liked Nitty Gritty Surround, I would strongly recommend "The Brand New Opry / Another Time" (I have not heard the new BNO disc yet). Same idea as NGS, but I think the music is even better. "Fool Around" should have been a hit, "Lowlands" is outstanding, some of the others are really good too. HOT TIP: try Amazon right now, this is currently bargain basement priced.
On the strength of BNO, I bought everything they had with Jonathan McEwen and/or Jaime Hanna on it. "Hanna-McEwen / Tried and True" and "Jonathan McEwen / One Step Ahead" are both good, but there is some track duplication with BNO and they don't get as much spin around here. Maybe they should.
That's all I have for AIX in that style of music.
Laurence Juber -- outstanding. if you like acoustic fingerstyle guitar, buy it. Every time I play it it sounds better than I expect it to. Dorian Michael is bluesier than Juber, very good but not as stunning. I've been meaning to get the Peppino D'Agostino release and see what it's like.
Calamari, The Paul Smith Trio, and the Afro Cuban Latin Jazz project are all good jazz discs, Grant Geissman is pretty good big band, the Steve Huffsteter Big Band is a bit too laid back for me.
Bad Haggis is bizarre, though good -- every time I listen to it I think "Well, that's different." Deacon John's Jump Blues has some great music on it but the recording/mix didn't strike me as being up to AIX's usual recording/mixing standards. Zephyr is a cappella and definitely surroundy, some have raved about it but I could not play it all the way through even once. Straight to the trade block.
Someone page QQ'er Guy Robinson, I think he has more of these than any of us.
Mark Z
