★★★★★
Basin Street Kermit Ruffins has become Kermit, Inc., gathering crowds for regular gigs in New Orleans, running his own restaurant, touring and memorably playing himself--an eminently good-natured, way laidback jazz cat--on HBO's Treme. He's still releasing appealing audio souvenirs. This time, he applies his distinctive barking, slurring and growling playing and singing to traditional tunes, with several of the city's top-rank musicians, including drummer Shannon Powell, pianist Steve...
- www.jambands.com
2013-07-19
★★★★★
Basin Street Kermit Ruffins has become Kermit, Inc., gathering crowds for regular gigs in New Orleans, running his own restaurant, touring and memorably playing himself--an eminently good-natured, way laidback jazz cat--on HBO's Treme. He's still releasing appealing audio souvenirs. This time, he applies his distinctive barking, slurring and growling playing and singing to traditional tunes, with several of the city's top-rank musicians, including drummer Shannon Powell, pianist Steve...
- www.relix.com
2013-07-03
★★★★★
The market for contemporary New Orleans music has been booming in recent years and the two artists leading the charge, Trombone Shorty and Kermit Ruffins, have only recently taken different paths away from the Second Line. Shorty, otherwise known as Troy Andrews, followed up his 2010 coming out party, Backatown, with the decidedly more polished and less interesting pseudo duets set, 2011's For True...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-06-14
★★★★★
New Orleans music in 2013 is perhaps not like music in any other city--though that might be true of Nashville or New York or Austin too. There are a couple of singular musical traditions that are so cleanly associated with New Orleans that they don't quite live anywhere else with such present vibrancy: funky brass bands, a certain strain of R&B, and a certain kind of jazz...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-06-12
★★★★★
Buy it from Buy the CDDownload as MP3Kermit RuffinsHappy TalkBasin Street2010 Of all the latter-day New Orleans trumpeters, Ruffins comes closest to the spirit of Armstrong and other jazz entertainers of the classic era. His intention with this selection of cheery tunes, from the old New Orleans march "Panama" to "High Hopes", is to "put a bounce in your step and a smile on your face" - and you couldn't imagine Mr Marsalis saying that...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2010-11-15
★★★★★
Some albums might sound like a group is having a bunch of fun. With the meeting of Kermit Ruffins and his previous band and old buddies the ReBirth Brass Band you just know they really are having a ball. Trumpeter and vocalist Ruffins kicks in with a casual scat before warning, "Make Way for the ReBirth" and a blast of horns sounding like a thunderous train whistle, announces the arrival of the brassy ensemble. "Back up, give us some room," Ruffins requests as the engine roars down the tracks...
- www.offbeat.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Live albums either work spectacularly or they don't work very well at all. There was a feral, musical restlessness in the MC5 that was only captured on Kick Out the Jams, and Coltrane's Live at the Village Vanguard presented Coltrane diving into the deep end of the pool, exploring ideas at unprecedented lengths in his solos. Far more often, though, live albums either feel like business-driven career retrospectives or souvenirs from shows you really had to be there to appreciate...
- www.offbeat.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Kermit Ruffins has two subjects for songs: How much he loves New Orleans and how much he loves the Treme. Everything else spins off of one of those two themes. Why does he love them so? That's not always clear. In "Good Morning New Orleans," it seems to be the sunlight, the breeze and the stars twinkling by the river. In "I Got Mine," he seems happy that something's always going on...
- www.offbeat.com
2010-11-02
★★★★★
In 2007, Kermit Ruffins got married in Woldenberg Park during the French Quarter Festival. As his beloved bride Juicee mounted the stage, Kermit and the fellas pointed their horns in her direction and the audience roared. Just as things hit a crescendo, the Steamboat Natchez passed and blew its whistle. It was another epically sweet moment when you re-appreciate our intimacy with music. Grinning in of that bond for four decades now, Kermit is family...
- www.offbeat.com
2010-11-02
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