Why Is There Air

Cosby sounds fired up on this live one. "Kindergarten" kicks off the disc in fine fashion with the soon-to-be TV star's spot-on and kid-centered description of early grammar school. Cosby accurately captures the strangeness of a time when a lot of things don't quite make sense and you are constantly being told what to do. "Personal Hygiene" and "Shop" take us through junior high before we arrive at the comedian's tales of young adulthood on the disc's last five tracks. "Hofstra" closes the CD with an eight-minute depiction of a very bad college football team before and during another humiliating game. Cosby manages to turn the awful team's terror and suffering into an occasion for laughs. Like other Cosby albums from the '60s, Why Is There Air? is full of the comic's highly effective sound effects. --Fred Cisterna