Marcia Ball

Continuing a tradition begun in 1991 when Portland musician Lloyd Jones and his band, the Struggle, released a CD that was recorded in the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.’s pub, the brewery’s roster of talent recorded on-site includes Roy Rogers (with and without Norton Buffalo), Floyd Dixon and Deborah Coleman. Texas pianist Marcia Ball’s new CD is the latest in that line and was recorded in the brewery’s Big Room last September on the occasion of her second appearance there. Accompanied by three horns, Hammond B-3, guitar and rhythm, Ball knocks herself out on the 14 songs, half of them originals. You can’t be born within spitting distance of Louisiana and not succumb to the lilting musical charms of New Orleans (“the city that care forgot,” she reminds us), and she and the band serve up a full platter of rhythmic goods on such lively numbers as the rollicking opener, “Big Shot,” “That’s Enough of Stuff” and “Crawfishin’.” Those lucky souls in attendance will want this for a souvenir; the rest of us will have to be content with having this document of a marvelous dance party that we missed.