Jeff McCord on the month’s new releases

Steve Earle

Just an American Boy: The Audio Documentary

Artemis

It's a sad commentary on the state of rock music when an angry young man gets treated as something of a novelty. Steve Earle is one of the few artists willing and—more important—able to translate his passion into great music. Just an American Boy: The Audio Documentary (Artemis), a live two-CD set, is a blistering soundtrack to an upcoming film about him. There's a lot of material from his last album, Jerusalem, but there's also a bluegrass interlude and a monologue about a Christmas Eve return to his boyhood home of Schertz, where the "only people that remembered me were the cops."

Jason Moran

The Bandwagon

Blue Note

Being labeled a pioneer in modern jazz is the musical equivalent of making the cover of Sports Illustrated; you almost never live up to anyone's expectations. Yet after his third stunning album in a row (and fifth overall), Jason Moran is looking more and more like he's beaten the curse. On The Bandwagon (Blue Note), the young Houston-born pianist finds a center to his playing and composing that's off the main axis; he draws from pop culture as much as jazz tradition. Although his improvisations are not tied down to scales or modes, his wild energy never obliterates his melodic sense. Hip in the best sense, Moran's trio tackles this live Village Vanguard set with electricity and wit.

ZZ Top

Chrome, Smoke & BBQ

Rhino

Long before The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, there was "La Grange," a blues shuffle that rolled onto radio in brazen celebration of the state's unofficial rest stop. ZZ Top already boasted a string of minor successes, but "La Grange" recruited an armada of beer drinkers and hell-raisers and launched the little old band from Texas into the realm of million-sellers. After another decade of chart-topping, the Top added prodigious facial hair and burbling electronics to their hunkered-down, skintight sound and made MTV cheesecake history. All of it wears well on Chrome, Smoke & BBQ (Rhino), a hit-laden four-CD set chronicling the Houston-based trio's thirty-plus years together.