John Martyn: One World (Island)

JOHN MARTYN'S music is a blur of blues and jazz and rock: Bessie Smith's emotiveness, Hoagy Carmichael's mellowness, Skip James' growl and bellow, and Martyn's own extraordinary guitar and voice. One World, Martyn's first album since 1975, is as blotto and as blessed with sometimes hazy, sometimes crystalline music, as anything he's ever done.