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A Consumer Guide to the Trailing Edge: June, 2006

Recycled Goods (#32)

by Tom Hull

At one point in writing this month's column, I dashed a letter off to a publicist, mentioning my "pet peeve" about compilations that don't provide recording or release dates. Thinking further about it, I think the problem is worse than that. New music is new, of the moment, even though it was actually, definitively, created a few days or more likely months ago. But the idea that old music can be timeless is just rhetorical fancy. Old music is necessarily bound up in his history, and if it's worth reissuing, it's just plain disrespectful not to provide details on where it came from and what its history is. There are many examples, both good and bad, this month. The most obvious is the contrast between Good for What Ails You and The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of since they cover similar ground and in a blindfold would rate much closer than I graded them below. I don't have any sort of stock policy for factoring documentation or packaging into the grades, but I'm more likely to knock an offender down than to provide extra credit for admirable work above the music. The King Crimson boxes, for instance, are exceptionally well done, but the music is inessential. On the other hand, Hyena's Gospel Music took a big hit: with decent documentation it might have come in at A. Other cases are less clear. The Rough Guides always annoy me. They lack any sort of useful discography, and they frequently cover records that are nearly impossible to research. On the other hand, what documentation they do have is useful. Given that they publish record guides as their main business, I expect more from them -- hence the disappointment.

Ardecore (2005, Il Manifesto): Italian sources classify this as folk or folk-blues, although I suspect that this revisits old Rome much like the Mekons rework country and western or the Pogues recast Dublin. One clue is that the title translates as "Hardcore"; another is that the core of the band comes from Zu, a group that straddles the politics of the Mekons and the Ex but usually ventures further into avant-jazz territory. But here Luca Mai's bari sax burnishes the luxurious sway of classic Italian melodies, while Giampaolo Felici sings with the coarse authority of a griot or cantor. A-

Chieftains: The Essential Chieftains (1977-2002 [2006], RCA/Legacy, 2CD): The average Irish folk ensemble, but after recording and touring relentlessly for more than a quarter century, going everywhere and playing with everyone, their averageness may just be the norm they established. They couldn't be better served by a compilation. First is their baseline, the "roots" disc: standard fare, expertly done. Second is their "friends" disc, where their good-natured folkie syncretism extends beyond the usual suspects (Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, Alison Kraus, Ricky Skaggs) to Mexico (Linda Ronstadt and Los Lobos) and Quebec (the McGarrigles) and a choice cut with Marianne Faithfull. B+

Downbeat the Ruler: Killer Instrumentals From Studio One (1967-75 [2006], Heartbeat): Clement S. "Coxsone" Dodd ran one of Jamaica's Big Three sound systems in the early '60s -- Duke Reid and Prince Buster were the other two. Together they were responsible for almost all of the ska that launched Jamaican music as we know it, and they continued to be major creative forces for decades, as ska evolved into rocksteady, reggae, roots, dub, and dancehall. Dodd's legacy comes to forty CDs on Heartbeat -- Reid's Trojan Records may have had more and bigger hits, but in a music that has been slammed as too samey, Dodd distinguished himself as its most steady norm. The base of Dodd's operation was his studio band, which comes through most clearly in the instrumentals. Killer may be an overstatement -- they're more like the meat and potatoes or the rice and beans of reggae, a fine meal in themselves. A-

Kenny G: The Essential Kenny G (1986-2004 [2006], Arista/Legacy, 2CD): It always seemed appropriate that Kenny Gorelick's degree was in business, not music. He has sold more than 30 million records -- he would be a major commercial venture in any style, but in jazz he's off the scale. He's also beyond the pale -- no other musician elicits such intense hatred. Part sour grapes, in that real jazz went underground so long ago that all the masses ever hear these days are the smooth poseurs of "contemporary jazz" radio. Part gut reaction to his unnaturally pretty soprano sax and his knack for profitable exploitation, such as his "duet" with Louis Armstrong. I've never had either reaction: I'm not so insecure about real jazz that I worry about what the likes of G might do to it, and I enjoy conventional beauty when I find it, but I do find that it doesn't take him long to get awfully tedious. At least, a compilation like this tries to mix things up a bit, but ultimately it just shows you how many ways he can annoy. C

Good for What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows (1926-37 [2005], Old Hat, 2CD): They were called medicine shows because the entertainment was just meant to attract crowds to hear sales pitches for patent medicines. Their heyday came in the late 19th century, but persisted into the era we have records for -- indeed, Porter Wagoner was still hawking for the Chattanooga Medicine Company on his '60s TV show. Picking from the early records of medicine show veterans, this compilation covers the gamut of rural Americana -- music that eventually got sorted out into country and blues but at the time was as complexly mixed as still-present minstrelsy. The music favors songsters, jug bands, and mountain fiddlers, with most of the songs dating well back -- old music that itself was old-fashioned. But delightful as the music is, the package sets a new standard in how such distant history should be presented. The 72-page booklet details every song and every artist, put in context by two expert essays and pictures that show more than can be said. A

Andrew Hill: Smoke Stack (1963 [2006], Blue Note): Blue Note has a distinguished history, but it hasn't always been clear sailing. The label cracked up in the late '60s after Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff retired. It had been sold to Liberty Records, absorbed into United Artists, and wound up in EMI's portfolio, eventually to be relaunched. In 1999 they launched the RVG Edition reissue series, named for famed engineer Rudy Van Gelder, who oversees the 24-bit remasters. Early on, they picked obvious titles, then moved on to lesser releases. The latest batch is mostly hard bop filler, except for this one. Hill was an avant-gardist, but well mannered, rooted in the tradition, but moving into new terrain. Blue Note recorded him extensively in the '60s, but he endured a long stretch of obscurity until recently -- which makes him a belatedly obvious pick for this series. This album is unusual in that it's not quite a piano trio, in that he uses two bassists, frequently playing arco. But it's a good example of how far he could push his piano, especially as he surfs over such volatile time shifts. A-

King Crimson: The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson, Volume One: 1969-1974 ([2005], DGM, 4CD): The idea of progress was still alive and well in the late '60s -- the notion that the next big thing will be bolder, fancier, heavier, further out than anything that came before it. In English this led to Prog Rock: roughly speaking, proto-heavy metal cut with something or other to make it more pretentious -- classical mostly, but blues, folk, and jazz also appeared. King Crimson was one an exceptionally enigmatic Prog Rock group. The confusion came from singers Greg Lake and Jon Anderson and lyricist-graphic designer Peter Sinfield. In retrospect, those were just masks for guitarist Robert Fripp, the only constant in the group's convoluted history. Still, Fripp was no auteur -- even in this canonical retrospective, as expertly crafted and succinctly informative as any box set I've seen -- consistent threads are hard to find. But one trend is clear, which is that they drifted into jazz -- well, heavy metal fusion -- on two axes: over time, and from studio to live. Two of the four discs are live, and they have a definite edge. B+

King Crimson: The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson, Volume Two: 1981-2003 ([2005], DGM, 4CD): Robert Fripp's solo years between his old and new bands were spent on guitar instrumentals, augmented by his frippertronics. During those years prog-rock went the way of the dinosaurs, punk and new wave came in. In reviving King Crimson, the brand name brought him back to under the lights, but the new band made no effort to sound like the old. Unlike the old band, this lineup proved stable: having started with Fripp, Tony Levin, Adrian Belew and Bill Bruford, two decades later the only change was Pat Mastelotto replacing Bruford. But the music evolved, initially new wave with Talking Heads rips, eventually gravitating toward postmodern sonic pastiche. Like its predecessor, this offers two discs each of studio and live, with a timeline that would be useful if the group much mattered. B

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of (1926-32 [2006], Yazoo, 2CD): The cover offers two possible subtitles: the descriptive "Super Rarities & Unissued Gems of the 1920s & '30s" and the hyperbolic "The Dead Sea Scrolls of Record Collecting!" The latter suggests revelations -- new insights into ancient history -- but the booklet is so preoccupied with the anal obsessiveness of record collectors that it scarcely provides any history, much less insight. When were these supposedly rare records released? On what labels? Who were these people? Isn't the main point of excavation what it tells you about history? Despite the R. Crumb artwork, I hate the packaging: the form factor waste; the lazy, frustrating booklet; the trick CD trays that won't release their wares without a struggle -- mine's already broken. As for the music, these are country tunes, black and white almost equally. Picking songs for their obscurity is as arbitrary as slotting them by chart position, and this suffers soundwise, but this still winds up as a better than average period sampler with a few transcendent moments. B+

Ion Petre Stoican: Sounds From a Bygone Age, Vol. 1 (1966-77 [2005], Asphalt Tango): Bygone, but not a golden age in Romania, when smalltown musicians like Stoican had little chance to play except for weddings. Stoican got his shot at recording as a reward for catching a spy, and made the best of it, rounding up a 14-piece orchestra featuring cymbalom virtuoso Toni Iordache -- the only player with enough clout to get mentioned by name on an album attributed to the People's Orchestra. The record is dominated by Stoican's violin, which casts a dark, menacing shadow on music meant to be uplifting. In retrospect that shadow looms as sad, but also resilient, delivering an emotional wallop that gypsy music often skirts. A-

Briefly Noted

Lead-in:

In an infinite universe, all the music you'll ever need already exists somewhere. We find more each month: Depression-era miscegnation, sounds of old Europe (Italy, Ireland, Romania), slick jazz (George Benson, Kenny G), Blue Notes (Andrew Hill, Dexter Gordon, Lee Morgan), Studio One reggae, boxes of King Crimson; many more (42 records).

Copyright © 2006 Tom Hull.