You Gotta Be Loose
This live album from the ageless Q(uartet) comes on solid and spooky, like DC Comics' old Haunted Tank, a New Orleans funeral marching band playing jubilee music on the way home from the graveyard only to find the dead man's ghost is prancing alongside them pressing fingers onto strings and horns. Maybe it's all the minor keys and jazzy changes or the ever-present resonance production that snuffs the applause and creates the ambiance of a not-quite-full-enough football stadium. But when you hear the mystery and sadness of life summed up in six notes under the six syllables "Gir-r-rl Scout / Coo-kies," it's a sure sign spiritual concerns are present. Recover your soul for real this time.--Andrew Hamlin