Musical offerings from Miguel and Scott DuBois

MIGUEL War & Leisure (Bystorm/

Soul singer and songwriter Miguel always sounds like he’s just discovered the joy in possessing his talents. On “Pineapple Skies,” the second song on his latest record, he launches into the verses like an airplane kissing the runway goodbye, putting the full weight of his vocal capabilities behind the refrain of “Pineapple purple skies/Promise everything gon’ be all right.” That line serves two functions: It slyly lets us know that he’s aiming to honor the tradition that Prince left behind, and that he’s here to lift our spirits in what has been a difficult political year, particularly for many people with names like “Miguel.” While there are no songs here that replicate the perfect pop confection of his 2012 hit “Adorn” — although the sensual lilt of “Banana Clip” comes close — he paints in Prince-like splashes of psychedelic guitar and off beat creative decisions. He utilizes evocative nonsense words like “splish” as punctuation marks in “Sky Walker,” and lets sputtering electronic beats guide him in “Told You So.” Lyrically, he’s got a forward-looking, positive lens, serving up love and sex as a main course, with politics as a side dish. In the album’s closing song, “Now,” he pauses to reflects on the black- and brown-skinned victims of state violence before transforming his racial identity into a source of strength, pointing out that “We are the look of freedom/We are the sound of freedom.” — Robert Ker

SCOTT DUBOIS Autumn Wind (ACT) On his seventh album, guitarist Scott DuBois employs a particular creative stratagem to carry out a specific program about the seasons: The first song is solo guitar and each new tune adds another musician until there are 12 participating on the 12th song. Three are the members of his quartet (bassist Thomas Morgan, reedman Gebhard Ullmann, and drummer Kresten Osgood) and the other eight make up a string quartet and a woodwind quartet — conducted by DuBois and recorded later as a superimposition onto the jazz mix. The guitarist demonstrates his abilities and range at the very top, “Mid-September Changing Light” opening the disc with a sense of rising suspense and becoming colorful and passionate, the moods ranging from bucolic to near-frenzy. The music that follows is often impressionistic, but on “Mid-October Migration,” the full quartet jazzes up the proceedings. Glorious sawing strings (violin and cello) open “Early November Bird Formations.” The birds are flying, and perhaps colliding, as the playing gets rather feral. The title track is lovely, soft, and atmospheric, contrasting with the exhilarating, multilayered “Early December Blue Sky And Chimney Smoke.” Osgood’s slow march beat and Ullmann’s bass clarinet give “Late November Farm Fields” an epic blues feeling. A gathering of long, sustained tones opens “Autumn Aurora Borealis,” then the music morphs into a fury of drums, warped guitar arpeggios, and tenor-sax searchings. Lovely! — Paul Weideman