The Bright Mississippi, Allen Toussaint's Nonesuch solo debut and his first solo record in a decade, hit stores yesterday. Time Out New York's Steve Dollar says that on the new album from the "New Orleans piano wizard," Toussaint's "natural balance between silken refinement and syncopated pizzazz is matched by the sass and subtlety of his sidemen," including clarinetist Don Byron, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, guitarist Marc Ribot, bassist David Piltch, and percussionist Jay Bellerose, with pianist Brad Mehldau and saxophonist Joshua Redman each joining Toussaint for a track.

For example, Dollar cites the album's closing track, "Solitude," featuring just Ribot and Toussaint, calling it "swoonworthy enough in its boudoir charms to spark a new baby boom." He lauds the "real band" assembled for the project and credits producer Joe Henry, "the thinking listener's Don Was," with keeping the album's "focus on its chemistry." Looking as proof to one tune that might have gone awry, "St. James Infirmary"—"corny only in the wrong hands"—Dollar insists, "here, Toussaint and his cohorts show why it never goes out of style."

Read the full review at newyork.timeout.com.

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Jazzwise, the UK's biggest-selling jazz magazine, gives the album four stars. "There have been many extraordinary responses to the tragedy of New Orleans under the cosh of Hurricane Katrina," asserts reviewer Andy Robson, "but The Bright Mississippi remains one of the most considered and satisfying releases born from that nightmare." Reflective though the album is on those tragic events, "through it all, Toussaint is restraint and cool personified but soused in that full, sumptuous verve and affection that is New Orleans at its good times rolling best." Visit jazzwisemagazine.com for more.

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In the Pop Dose review of the album, writer Mojo Flucke amusingly takes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to task for inducting Toussaint into its ranks for his albeit monumental output as a producer and songwriter rather than as a performer. Even so, he concedes, after listening to The Bright Missippi, "The Rock Hall guys weren't completely wrong; Toussaint's musical power resides not only in his Horowitz-great command of the piano, but also in his ability as impresario-arranging music and assembling the perfect cast to execute his compositions."

The reviewer also credits producer Joe Henry for creating this record "in crystal-clear digital beauty." And while it may be "a gorgeous record to listen to," the album offers something significant to say about the New Orleans music it features. Flucke writes:

[W]ordlessly, through the textures of the various instruments blending together and the perfect piano fills Toussaint elegantly drops in between phrases-and the bluesy solos cooked with dark roux and cayenne, the bedrock flavors of N'Awlins cuisine-we've been schooled. We understand on a deep, subconscious level, the difference between New Orleans music and that of other locales. We get why Allen Toussaint is a cultural treasure and a purely American phenomenon.

Read the full review at popdose.com.