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|
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Music:
- Lester Bowie: American Gumbo (1974-75, 32 Jazz, 2CD). The
most accessible avant-garde plays on well-worn standards, which give you
a stable background against which all the mischief plays. A good example
of this is "St. Louis Blues (Chicago Style)" here. These two albums
were originally called Fast Last! and Rope-a-Dope, but
American Gumbo sums them up nicely: something downhome but spicy.
Bowie built his career out of such jokes, which got even better as the
background got riper, in Serious Fun and My Way and
(especially) The Fire This Time. B+
- Jaki Byard: Freedom Together (1968, Prestige). Amateur hour:
bassist Richard Davis plays cello, drummer Alan Dawson tries out vibes
and tympani, pianist Byard toys with celeste and blows a little tenor sax,
Junior Parker sings. B-
- Charles Lloyd: Just Before Surprise (1966-67, 32 Jazz, 2CD).
Two mid-'60s albums, with then-unknowns Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette.
Lloyd's sax is precise and pungent, pretty good; Lloyd's flute is flute.
B
- The Giuseppi Logan Quartet (1964, ESP). Logan is attributed
a wide range of reeds, ranging from tenor sax to "Pakistani oboe," but
this mostly sounds like alto. It's a rather listenable slice of '60s
avant-garde-cum-exotica, where the most valuable player is no doubt
percussionist Milford Graves. (Don Pullen is also on board, but very
young and hardly recognizable.) B+
- Dizzy Reece: Comin' On! (1960, Blue Note). Very nice hard
bop date, with Stanley Turrentine in exceptionally lithe form. The drum
solo on "Achmet" sounds uncommonly good, which has been known to happen
when the drummer's Art Blakey. A-
- The Velvet Underground: Bootleg Series, Vol. 1: The Quine Tapes
(1969, Polydor, 3CD). The sound starts thin and doesn't get much better.
The songs you've heard before, mostly more clearly. Yet my only complaint
is that the three versions of "Sister Ray" last a mere 24:03, 38:00,
28:43. A-
Monday, July 29, 2002
Music:
- Rashied Ali/Frank Lowe: Duo Exchange (1972, Knitting Factory).
Short (28:39), which is a plus in music this intense. I developed quite a
distaste for Ali during Coltrane's furthest-out phase, but he is rarely
short of brilliant here -- so good that it makes sense to concentrate on
the drums and just let Lowe's saxophone cacophony float by as background.
Which the bare duo format lets you do. Not that Lowe can or should be
ignored -- he more than carries his end of the deal. A-
- Bobby Battle Quartet with David Murray: The Offering (1990,
Mapleshade). The "with" clause is the one that matters. Battle is a
drummer who has catalogued nothing else under his name, no doubt
because he also wrote nothing here. Six long, relaxed performances,
the two classics (Waller and Monk) being the ones you most notice,
but solid work all around. B+
- Roy Book Binder: Polk City Ramble (1998, Rounder). A
likable folk singer who learned his craft by being tutored and critiqued
by Pink Anderson and Gary Davis, which makes him a blues singer with some
guitar tricks up his sleeve. Which was all the more evident on Live
Book, where he gets to talk about it. Here he just sings and picks,
not as much fun. B
- Andrew Cyrille: The Navigator (1982, Soul Note). One of
the great drummers, but like most drummer records the front line sets
the sound. This one has trumpet/piano/bass, which makes it nice and
bright, almost classic. B+
- Andrew Cyrille: X-Man (1993, Soul Note). And this one
has flute/guitar/bass, which makes it soft and supple, not nearly so
classic. B
- Andy Hamilton: Jamaica by Night (1994, World Circuit).
I suppose you could call him the Doc Cheatham of Jamaica: he cut his
first album at age 72, but he's played his jazz-informed-by-calypso
forever. (This is the follow-up.) But the opening calypso both recalls
Sonny Rollins and suggests that Hamilton is to Rollins as Norris Turney
was to Johnny Hodges: hopelessly outclassed. Then Hamilton takes a
vocal on "Every Day I Have the Blues," and he's no Joe Williams (let
along Jimmy Rushing) either. But he sings and plays at least as well
as Doc Cheatham (who was no Red Allen, let alone Louis Armstrong) did
when he stepped forth in his 70s, and the closing calypso leaves you
wishing for more. B
- Alannis Morissette: Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie
(1998, Maverick). This has been gathering dust quite a while, mostly
a good record with some spots that don't quite go down as easy as I'd
like. If I listened to lyrics I might learn something. Or not. B
- Alannis Morissette: Under Rug Swept (2002, Maverick).
More consistently interesting, I think, or at least more consistently
listenable. B+
- David Murray Big Band: Live at Sweet Basil, Vol. 2 (1984,
Black Saint). These Butch Morris records always seem to slip by me,
but now I realize that a big part of the reason is that they're so
underrecorded: it takes some volume to get any detail at all. But
here, at least when you can hear it, Murray is his usual brilliant
self, and Craig Harris stands out among the background. I've always
preferred Murray's quartets to his octet, and his octet to the big
band; I may even prefer Murray's duos to his quartets. Good as this
one is, there's another thirty, maybe forty, Murray albums I'd put
on first. B
- Mississippi String Bands: Volume Two (1927-35, County).
Not many vocals, mostly simple fiddle tunes, none by anyone I recognize.
Not what you'd call dance music, either, the occasional hoedown rhythm
is rarely sustained even for a full song. But even the slow ones have
stately beauty, and there's enough variety to break the background now
and then. New age for my country soul. B+
- Salsa Clasica: A Taste of Classic Latin Flavors (1962-95,
Music Club). One of the first things I noticed when I arrived in New York
in 1977 was salsa, on the radio and blaring from lower east side boom
boxes. It sounded great, but when I went to sample LPs I rarely came up
with anything I liked. Later I worked my way through the classic back
catalogues of jazz, blues, country, and made significant inroads in
reggae and African pop, in all cases following in the well-worn tracks
of expert guides. Yet Latin remains terra incognita to me -- if you
count Brazil (and why not?) the largest and no doubt richest body of
unheard music in the world. [Sanity check: as I write I have 93 Latin
albums rated, vs. 178 reggae/calypso/soca, 225 African/Arab, 473 blues,
564 country/bluegrass, 2875 rock, 2968 jazz; even Anglo-American folk,
which I don't have much use for, comes in at 176. How small a percentage
of what's really out there my 93 Latin albums are is hard to say, but
it's gotta be tiny.] I have yet to find a guide that does anything more
than scratch the surface here. Sometimes I think it might be a swell
project to write my own (I'd call it The Gringo's Guide to Latin
Music), but I've yet to develop any way of describing this music
that I know so poorly. I've played this set ten times or more, and
while I can't describe it, I'm sure that it's quite good, maybe
even great. A-
- Turntable Tastemakers Issue No. 1: The Sound of Cleveland City
Recordings (1994, Moonshine). Basically good techno album, long
sitting on my shelf for lack of a discerning opinion. B+
Sunday, July 28, 2002
Music:
- Björk: Vespertine (2001, Elektra). I don't doubt that she's
an interesting weirdo, and I'm somewhat intrigued that she's managed to
assert herself as a significant pop icon. But whatever it is that people
find appealing in her music doesn't work on me. This one is thickly layered,
gaudily overdecorated, and wretchedly slow. Silence never sounds better
than when this record ends. C-
- Wyclef Jean: The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book (2000, Columbia).
Eclectic, that would be. I couldn't stand the Fugees, but I suspect that
what made them so broadly appealing was not just the gospelized warmth of
Lauryn Hill but the naivete of their cultural appropriations -- which
could be charming, unlike the naivete of their politics. Wyclef appears
to be fount of that naivete, which here works in his favor: almost
everything here is interesting, whether it works or not. B+
- Benny Moré: La Colección Cubana (1953-59, Music Club).
Don't know how well this fits or samples Moré's work, but this rises
above the usual Cuban big band din. By reputation he's a giant of
the genre. This sounds like a good way to make his acquaintance.
A-
- Me'shell Ndegéocello: Cookie: The Anthropological Mix Tape
(2002, Maverick). The voiceover near the start promises a political
critique that she doesn't fully deliver on, although it never quite
disappears either. What we get instead are beats, subdued beats at that,
shit you have to crane your ears to try to pick up. Interesting shit.
Smart shit. A-
Thursday, July 25, 2002
Over two evenings, we managed to catch up with the Austin Powers legacy.
Given that it was commercial TV, bleeped, hacked up, and (especially for
the second episode) larded with promos, it would be unfair to attempt to
grade these, but C+ is probably the right ballpark. The first has the
advantage of an almost intelligible story-line. The latter has Heather
Graham. Both have funny moments, and make clever use of music (although
whatever Burt Bacharach had to do with the "swinging sixties" escapes
me). And both have sub-sophomoric humor, much more often in the second.
And both (again, especially the second) have much too much Mike Myers --
where tolerable quantities are asymptotically approaching zero. All of
which suggests that the new movie will be even worse. (The interviews
and trailer scenes with Beyonce Knowles certainly suggest that, and
reports of a fourth Mike Myers character sound like an arms race with
Eddie Murphy.) Maybe we'll catch it on a year or two.
One interesting line from the second movie sticks in my mind: how
Starbucks sells coffee for "reasonable prices." Why not "outrageous
prices"? I mean, it's (a) true, (b) funny in context, and (c) they've
already paid to associate themselves with Dr. Evil's empire.
Wednesday, July 24, 2002
Music:
- The Byrds: Fifth Dimension (1966, Columbia). Their big
move from folk-rock to psychedelia, which mostly means that the guitar
work is both spacier and denser. Two hits, much filler (to which the
bonus cuts add). B+
- The Byrds: The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968, Columbia).
Further into their folky, easy-listening psychedelia. And for once, the
bonus cuts add someting. A-
- John Jackson: Front Porch Blues (1999, Alligator). Son
of Country Blues and Ditties. B+
- Elton John: Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
(1975, MCA). When he was big, John could be counted on to hit paydirt
with his plastic rock two or three times an album. Which he does here,
but also typically he finds himself buried in deep Taupin much of the
time, too, and the Beatles cover doesn't help. B
- Elton John: Blue Moves (1976, MCA). No, I didn't relisten
to this -- how masochistic do you think I am? But I noticed that it was
missing from my list, and think I remember it well enough to assign a
foreboding grade. John's last good album evidently was Rock of the
Westies -- with this one John's plastic rock melted into goo. If
he's done anything worthwhile since I haven't noticed. C-
- Me'shell Ndegéocello: Bitter (1999, Warner Bros.). Not
just cool, this is cold, more impressive for the precision of its
flow than for its content or conviction. B+
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Music:
- Papa Noel and Papi Oviedo: Bana Congo (2002, Tumi).
I was surprised at first how Cuban this sounds, not merely explained
by Oviedo's presence. The Cuban-Zaďrean connection goes deep, and
resonates nicely here. A-
Sunday, July 21, 2002
Music:
- The Blasters: American Music (1980, Hightone). Not
juvenilia, just the prototypes for their great early '80s albums,
the ones that put American music back on the map. B+
- Peter Brötzmann/Hamid Drake Duo: The Dried Rat-Dog
(1994, Okkadisk). I've never been much impressed with Drake, but
here his drum solos are not only welcome relief from Brötzmann,
they're downright enjoyable. Brötzmann, of course, can peel paint.
B
- The Capricorns: In the Zone (2002, Paroxsym). This one
is fun: two young women, two cheesy Casio keyboards. Sounds a bit
like Chicks on Speed, but on something else (I won't speculate as
to what). A-
- Dave Douglas/Tiny Bell Trio: Songs for Wandering Souls
(1998, Winter & Winter). Only toward the end does the guitarist
get in gear, which is what makes this configuration run. But working
with just guitar and bass gives Douglas a lot of room for exploring,
and he's not a great trumpet player for nothing. B+
- Dave Douglas: Soul on Soul (1999, RCA). For his major
label debut, Douglas threw out all the stops: picked up a pair of
reed players, a trombone, a first rate rhythm section with Uri Caine
on piano, and ransacked the Mary Lou Williams catalog for some tunes.
It's a bit busy, but full of excitement and joy, an impressive
outing. A-
- Dekoboko Hajime/Yamantaka Eye: Nani Nani (1995, Tzadik).
File under Zorn, John; shit you can get away with when you own your
own record label. Just when you get sick of the exploding "toys"
along comes 18:13 of one-note drone called "Bad Hawkwind." D
- Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks: Last Train to Hicksville
(1973, MCA). It seems like I used to have one or two of his albums,
but they never made an impression on me, and this may be why: it
seems near impossible to concentrate on something as evanescent as
this. C+
- Idlewild: Hope Is Important (1999, Odeon). Not as fast
as punk, but much the same crunch. Consistent. Important? B+
- Alan Jackson: Drive (2002, Arista). He's got an easy
swing that reeks of overconfidence, but he keeps it simple enough
to get by as an everyday Nashville superstar. A couple of good
songs, and "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" ain't
half bad (or at least could've been a lot worse). I suspect that
he actually can tell you the difference between Iraq and Iran,
he just doesn't want to set your expectations too high. B+
- Patti Loveless: Mountain Soul (2001, Epic). Yet another
coal miner's daughter. Yet unlike Loretta and Dolly, that seems less
like a point of departure than something to get back to. So this comes
off a little bit forced, not quite real -- a problem I have with the
cover art more than with the music itself. But she's been pursuing the
neotraditionalist muse long enough that she may even believe in it;
in any case she can fake it anytime she wants to. B+
- Ken Peplowski: A Good Reed (1997, Concord). A mixed
bag: a small group for Peplowski's increasingly classical swing and
Loren Schoenberg's big band for elaborately orchestral overkill.
The small group version of Ellington's "Purple Gazelle" stands
out. B
- Hank Williams III: Lovesick, Broke & Driftin'
(2002, Curb). His first record seemed to combine his grandfather's
voice with his father's brains. This one shows a bit of progress:
he's starting to become his own man, although he still leans heavy
on the vocal chords to make it work. B+
- Warren Zevon: My Ride's Here (2002, Artemis). Much
hyped, and I don't doubt that this is his best album since 1987's
Sentimental Hygiene, maybe even 1982's The Envoy,
but there's only one song here (the title cut) that would butt
its way onto 1986's A Quiet Normal Life best-of. B+
Note: Four of these records (Jackson, Loveless, Williams, Zevon) have been
sitting on the B+/A- fence for a while now. That all four slipped under
the line may just be crankiness (Loveless and especially Zevon), but
Jackson and Williams always sounded B+ until today when they seemed to
gain something, not least in contrast.
Saturday, July 20, 2002
Movie: Monsoon Wedding. As slice-of-life this is certainly
eye-opening, even though I have no way of ascertaining how typical it is.
(Even though I do know people who've been through things like this.) There's
a lot going on here, and nothing much is overstated or blown out of
proportion, not the comeuppance of the rich guy nor the triumph of the
not-so-rich one. A-
Music:
- Peter Brötzman: Die Like a Dog (1993, FMP). A founding
figure in the European avant-garde, in my own limited experience I've
rarely found him to be coherent. But this isn't bad: a meditation on
Albert Ayler, which brings out the primitive in Brötzman. Still, only
the last cut raises the temperature. B
- The McGuire Sisters: The Anthology (1952-65, MCA, 2CD).
Back catalog work, a name I remember as before my time even when I was
a child -- even though half of these cuts date from late enough that
I could've heard them new. Part of this is because nearly everything
they did was retreaded -- in the '50s they specialized in '30s songs,
plus the occasional cover like their #1 "Sincerely" (written by Harvey
Fuqua of the Moonglows, co-credited to Alan Freed of payola fame).
Still, the surprise is not just that this this flirts with gorgeous,
it's jazzier than I would've imagined. Some of it, anyway. B
- Jackie McLean: McLean's Scene (1956-57, Prestige).
McLean's Prestige records are generally disparaged. At the time,
Prestige specialized in cheapie jam sessions, which worked fine
for players like Gene Ammons and Eddie Davis, and magnificently
for Coleman Hawkins, but evidently wasn't enough of a challenge
for younger players like John Coltrane and McLean -- both of whom
exploded as soon as they went elsewhere. Nonetheless, this one is
a rich tableau of blues and be-bop, with McLean's distinctive
pinched sound in place, and a stellar sideman crew having fun.
A-
- Jackie McLean: Right Now! (1965, Blue Note). McLean's
Blue Note recordings from 1959-67 are an extraordinary series,
whether he be pushing the avant-garde envelope (New Soil,
Freedom Now, Destination . . . Out!) or just enjoying
the groove (Swing Swang Swingin'). This one sits midway: by
1965 McLean had incorporated Ornette as thoroughly as he had Parker,
and was making easy music from both. Maybe too easy, but quite
an accomplishment. A-
- The Phil Woods Quintet: + One: Flash (1989, Concord).
The first thing you hear is some fancy trumpet playing, which happens
with astonishing regularity on albums featuring Tom Harrell. Still,
most of this seems to be in some sort of orchestral limbo -- not bop
nor swing, a sort of slick gloss that's neither here nor there. B
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
OK, let's do this differently. Instead of piling all of the music
entries up under an old date, let's do them day-by-day. Like this:
Music:
- Atmosphere: God Loves Ugly (2002, Fat Beats). The one
cut where it looks like Slug's gonna get the girl ends, well, abruptly.
It's also the one cut that's out of character, like it's meant to be a
fantasy. He's angrier this time, angry as in jilted. His paean to ugly
reminds me of the time my soon-to-be-ex-employer told me that I had a
"bad attitude" -- gave me a concept to identify with, which hatched
into a plan to not just leave, but liberate my colleagues from that
same yoke. Nice corrective to Nelly, who seems to get more than he
knows what to do with. A-
- The Bottle Rockets: Songs of Sahm (2002, Bloodshot).
My biggest reservation is not having a good Doug Sahm record to
benchmark this against, but this is a good band with a simple
concept -- Doug Sahm's Greatest Hits -- which amounts to a nicely
functional album. Not country, not even alt . . . just sorta
classic. A-
- John Lee Hooker: The Complete '50s Chess Recordings
(1950-54, Chess, 2CD). Hooker sounded old and surly when he was
young and spry. As blues go, these sound timeless, but they also
sound static -- the "endless boogie" rhythm that trademarked his
next few decades still mysteriously in the future. B+
- Moby: 18 (2002, V2). The "Oh Lawdy" sample makes
this sound like a replay of the last one, but the last one was
good enough that it can excuse some reiteration. None of the
other pieces show much progress either, but one of those sublime
little synthesizer bits perfectly reprises Another Green
World, which Eno might've been better advised to reiterate
a little more. A-
Sunday, July 07, 2002
Movie: Minority Report. Miserable futurism, appalling
movie. If there's a theme to it, it's that the world would be a better
place if Steven Spielberg was flat broke. D
Thursday, July 04, 2002
Movie. The Importance of Being Earnest. The famous story
is contrived, but the legendary wit still cuts, especially when deployed
against the idle upper class. B+
Tuesday, July 02, 2002
Time for another record list. At start the unrated album list numbers
745, which is +3 from a month ago; the rated list is at 7593, with 33
records added in last month's list. I knocked out a
script which picks out 20 random unrated
albums. Maybe this'll suggest something to play, whereas the
long list just causes the eyes to
glaze over.
- Air: 80 Degrees Below '82 (1982, Antilles). Carries on
smartly from Air Lore, which was the avant-garde's sturdiest
meditation on jazz's deep roots. This one adds another Jelly Roll
Morton tune, plus three Henry Threadgill originals. Smart and precise.
A-
- Dave Alvin: Public Domain: Songs From the Wild Land (2000,
Hightone). Music this archival usually comes with the appropriate
scholarly exegesis. I'm dumbfounded by this one. B-
- Chet Baker and Art Pepper: Playboys (1956, Pacific Jazz).
I played this one three times today, and never got any traction. Part
of the problem may be too much Baker, too little Pepper; part may be
the mostly Jimmy Heath programme (without the benefit of Heath's sax).
I dunno. This sounds like a lot of mid-'50s west coast cool, except
too busy to really be cool. Not bad, just little traction. B
- Chet Baker/Wolfgang Lackerschmid (1979, Inak). A lot
more lively than you'd expect from the famously somnambulent trumpet
player and an otherwise unknown German vibraphonist. Credit the rhythm
section: guitarist Larry Coryell and a couple of Williamses (Buster
and Tony). B+
- Bob Belden: Black Dahlia (2000, Blue Note). Call it a
jazz symphony -- long on texture, short on beat. The recording, of
course, is impeccable, and there is some gorgeous music here -- one
standout from a cast of sixty-four is Joe Lovano. YMMV, especially
if you can stand classical music. I can't. B
- Blu Cantrell: So Blu (2001, Arista). Another overproduced,
overorchestrated diva job. Not bad, as divas go. B
- John Coltrane: The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions (1961,
Impulse, 2CD). Not much more than the single CD that consolidated the
original two LPs. Despite Eric Dolphy and the extra horns, this is
firmly anchored in the quartet, with McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones
distinctive and Coltrane himself utterly dominant. A
- Fred Eaglesmith: Ralph's Last Show (2001, Signature Sounds,
2CD). Filed under Folk for no discernible reason, by this evidence he's
a singer-songwriter steeped in rockabilly. The live performance gives
immediacy, and let's him pick through his song catalog, which no doubt
helps. A-
- Corey Harris: Downhome Sophisticate (2002, Rounder).
Sometimes this works: the one called "f'shiza (santoro remix)" is
a slight rap over what sounds like one of those skewed Latin Playboys
melodies. More often it doesn't work, which makes it just sound
weird. B-
- Tubby Hayes: New York Sessions (1961, Columbia). He's
a legend in the UK, but in the US he is only known (if at all) as a
legend in the UK. This is his only release I've seen on a US label,
and it's long-out-of-print. But on this evidence he's an exceptionally
fluent saxophonist -- long, eloquent postbop lines. Clark Terry's
prominent billing is mostly packaging, but where he pops up he is
his usual self, and Horace Parlan's piano is a treat. A-
- Howlin' Wolf: The Real Folk Blues/More Real Folk Blues
(1953-65, MCA/Chess). As I recall, the folk blues fad in the early
'60s was occasioned by the discovery that ancient lonesome bluesmen
like Son House, John Hurt, Skip James, and Furry Lewis were still
alive and could be hired cheap. Chess opportunistically issued a
series of "Real Folk Blues" anthologies, but I've never thought of
the Chess artists as folk blues: these guys were protean rockers,
a little too mature for the white teen market. Chess has reissued
Howlin' Wolf dozens of ways, and the 3CD Chess Box never
lets up, so it's hard to quibble with a 24-cut subset on a single
CD. A
- Illinois Jacquet: Jumpin' at Apollo (1945-47, Delmark).
Jacquet was a giant who straddled the jazz mainstream and the r&b
honkers who prefigured rock and roll: in effect, he was the missing
link between '30s swing and '50s rock, a master of an increasingly
unpopular instrument in a relentlessly popular medium. His '40s
recordings have been inconsistently packaged and hard-to-find, but
these three sessions are superb. A-
A-
- The Lilly Brothers and Don Stover: Early Recordings
(1956-57, Rebel). Relatively prime bluegrass, vintage enough that
it doesn't feel received. B+
- Jack McVea: McVoutie's Central Avenue Blues (1945,
Delmark). McVea's saxophone just the unifying concept for this
collection of vintage r&b obscurities. Most cuts have singers
(mostly the serviceable Rabon Tarrant, two cuts with Wynonie Harris).
B+
- The Meat Purveyors: All Relationships Are Doomed to Fail
(2002, Bloodshot). As alt-country goes, this has real twang and real
bite. The ABBA cover is a fish-out-of-water novelty, but the one
called "I've Got the Devil in Me" really gets down and dirty. A-
- Roscoe Mitchell: Nine to Get Ready (1999, ECM). I've
never liked Mitchell's avant-noise, so the thought of turning him
loose with a big band didn't appeal to me. But someone (easy listening
producer Manfred Eicher?) managed to keep Mitchell's music textural,
and this group (which matches James Carter's rhythm section with a
second set of piano-bass-drums, and augments the front line with
Hugh Ragin and the redoubtable George Lewis) plays small and plays
it smart. And when they do crank it up, you feel it like you're
supposed to. A-
- Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra: Basie Beginnings
(1929-32, RCA). Now mostly a footnote to Count Basie's career, at
the time they were the hottest shit in Kansas City, and the latter
sessions here, with Hot Lips Page and Ben Webster and Walter Page,
swung as hard as the legendary band that Basie brought to NY. Plus
five Jimmy Rushing vocals. Not archival. A-
- Gerry Mulligan: Lonesome Boulevard (1989, A&M).
A lovely, low-key album. B+
- Nelly: Nellyville (2002, Universal). Like hometown hero
Chuck Berry, Nelly soaks up America with bug-eyed fascination; like
Berry, he is a bellweather for an America that is better than real;
unlike Berry, he seems to be getting away with it, which I take as
proof of progress. This isn't as broad as Country Grammar,
but it's got hooks, a few tricks up the sleeve, and the signature
singsong raps over choppy beats. STL-style, makes me proud. A-
- Pet Shop Boys: Release (2002, Sanctuary, 2CD). They're
getting older. Also getting softer. The bonus CD is a wash: it
signifies less, but has a little more edge. B+
- Prince: The Rainbow Children (2001, NPG). 75% of this
is the usual funky shit he's been cranking out for 22+ years now,
maybe even a little better than the norm for the latter half of
that era. 25% is something else, which doesn't quite spoil the
record, but makes it a little sour. B
- Don Pullen: Milano Strut (1979, Black Saint). Not so
much a duet as just two percussionists who can fill a room: Famoudou
Don Moye on his usual array of devices, and Pullen pounding the piano
or pushing the organ. B+
- Rawkus Presents Soundbombing (1997, Rawkus). By this
evidence, a first approximation of underground is that the beats are
understated and the raps are monotonically syncopated. Fair enough,
as long as it flows as consistently and hits as sharply as it does
here. The most recognizable (i.e., least underground) are Mos Def
and Talib Kweli, who fit in by a second approximation, which is
that underground stands on principle. A-
- Will Rigby: Paradoxaholic (2002, Diesel Only). The songs
that don't flat-out crack you up will at least bring a smile to your
face. A-
- Sam Rivers: Inspiration (1999, RCA). I've never liked
Rivers' avant-noise, so the thought of turning him loose with a big band
didn't appeal to me. But this shows some composition cleverness and has
brief snatches of stellar performance, and its excesses have more to do
with big band overkill than with Rivers' well-aged avant-noise. B+
- Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd: Live in New York (2001,
Verve). Ten or so years ago, Roswell Rudd was working in a Catskills
hotel when Francis Davis tracked him down to write a "whatever happened
to?" article about him. Since then he's come back big enough to share top
billing in this reunion of Archie Shepp's '60s quintet, soon after
sharing top billing with Steve Lacy on 2000's Monk's Dream.
This is the better album, partly for the obvious reason that Shepp's
run-of-the-mill blues vocals are infintely preferable to Aëbi's stilted
operatics. But top-of-the-line billing is not just newfound recognition
for the doyen of avant-garde trombonists, this record rides on Rudd's
compositions, and resounds with trombone (abetted by second trombonist
Grachan Moncur). A-
- Sonic Youth: Murray Street (2002, Geffen). No longer the
same "youth" they were twenty years ago, and good for that. Short of
more careful attention than they usually command or warrant, this is
rather indistinct: easy-listening guitar tunings, moderately propulsive
rhythm, occasional words, the obligatory noise break reduced to a single
annoying note. As usual, I only perk up when Kim sings, which only
happens once here. A-
- Sonny Boy Williamson: The Real Folk Blues/More Real Folk
Blues (1957-64, MCA/Chess). Cf. Howlin' Wolf. The greatest
fraud in music history: Rice Miller assumed the Sonny Boy mantle
after his younger namesake passed away, and proceeded to bury
John Lee Williamson. A perfectly good single-CD sampler from an
artist whose 2CD The Essential Sonny Boy Williamson is
truly essential. A
- Totally Hits (1999, Arista). A useful record for me --
gives me a chance to hear things that everyone else hears, but which
I would never notice on my own. (I have more than one album by only
one artist here: Madonna.) Good songs from unlikely sources: Sugar
Ray, Santana, Cher. (Also from Madonna, of course.) Dreck too. B
- Djelimady Tounkara: Sigui (2002, Indigo). This is one
of those African albums that's almost too subtle, not to mention too
sublime. It takes a while, first to realize that that's all there is,
then to realize that that's enough. A-
- Stevie Ray Vaughan: The Real Deal: Greatest Hits Vol. 2
(1983-91, Epic/Legacy). For such a consistent artist, it's surprising
to find a best-of this lackluster. B
- The Ritchie Valens Story (1958-59, Del-Fi). Manager Bob
Keane's long spoken intro is not without interest, but 19 cuts is
quite a stretch for a teenager with three legit hits and a handful
of pretty crude demos. B
- Bennie Wallace: Someone to Watch Over Me (1999, Enja).
Tenor sax is the sexiest of all instruments, and Wallace has the
quietstorm shtick covered. With each new album he sounds more like
Barney Wilen, which is serious praise. A-
- Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002, Nonesuch). Looking
past the hype and antihype, this is a slight and lovely slice of
pop, less improbable than Pavement's finest, but more winning than
ordinary Yo La Tengo. A-
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Jun 2002 |
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