Aaron Cohen

In a welcome change, the 21st Chicago Gospel Festival has stepped up from the Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park to Millennium Park's acoustically superior Jay Pritzker Pavilion. THE WILLIAMS...

Venezuelan songwriter Simon Diaz has yet to achieve the fame he deserves in this country, but he is revered across South America. After recording more than seventy albums, this is...

In the late 1990s, the melancholia of Cape Verdean morna arrived on the international scene, primarily through Cesaria Evora. This disc from Evora's occasional protege, Lura, reveals more of the...

Singer Kiran Ahluwalia was born in India and raised near Toronto, and her music stems from constant transcontinental traveling. Much of her disc is based on ghazals, part of a...

The title of Turkish composer Mercan Dede's disc means "water," and it could symbolize his vision of international musical ideas flowing together. But even if this image and his electronic...

Yusa is a young Cuban musician who stands apart from her contemporaries. She's one of the few women who's specialized in the indigenous tres-guitar in her country's prestigious conservatory system....

Antena's tunes remain novel French singer Isabelle Antena was effervescent throughout her set at HotHouse on Friday. Between songs, she talked about why this appearance made her so giddy. Her...

Henri Dikongue's recent disc shows why he is Cameroon's most dependable contemporary singer. His gently charming voice and quiet approach is more enduring than many of his region's attempts to...

In terms of size, Sudan is the largest nation in Africa and this mass is the source of a wide ethnic diversity. Much of the country's equally varied musical panorama...

This latest edition in an excellent series that chronicles Ethiopian jazz and funk showcases the mesmerizing voice of Mahmoud Ahmed (who is also the focus of volumes six and seven)....