I rocked then I got rocked

Playing right now: Eric Dolphy - Last Date (Fontana)

For some reason I thought Nathan Davis played on this session, but I think there was some stretching of the truth with this album, that it's not actually Dolphy's last recording date (it's a live performance) and that maybe there was a studio date after this. It's odd to hear Han Bennink sounding so grounded and boppish. Knowing how wild he can be these days, this performance almost holds the group back. Bennink is solid but almost stiff or nervous.

Wednesday night, the Love Letters returned to Rock 'n Bowl. We played there almost a year ago to the date, give or take about eight days. Snowmageddon hadn't completely subsided at that time. Aimee couldn't dig her car out so I had to pick her up. There was a light sheet of ice all over the sidewalks near Arsenal Lanes. To top things off, I hadn't had a chance to make myself some coffee so I was going through a bad caffeine withdrawal and felt miserable all night. Until we got paid, and we made what I consider some good money. Then I reconsidered everything.

This week it was a beautiful, balmy 40 degrees, no snow, slush or ice in sight. We decided that rather than writing up a set list, we'd put all the songs we wanted to play into a hat. We encouraged people to help us out by fishing them out, and a few people obliged, which was a pleasant surprise. A lot of times at Rock 'n Bowl, people just bowl without any regard for the rock. A couple gals were actually dancing to us. And we didn't end up playing all the slow songs or all the songs in G in a row, so the set held together pretty well. Another key: pick two titles at once, so there isn't a lull between each song.

Arsenal closes at midnight, so we were out the door and packed up by that time. That allowed me the chance to catch half a set by Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds up the street at Howler's. During one song, I reminded myself, oh yeah he was in the Cramps - no wonder he can make one chord sound so good. There was a lot of primitive stomping going on and it worked really well. I regret that I walked in right as the band was wrapping up their take on the Gun Club's "For the Love of Ivy." Wish I could've heard all of that. They encored with "Sex Beat" in which Kid sounded a little more like Jello Biafra than Jeffrey Lee Pierce, but it still got everyone up and screaming.

Driving home I had to open the car window because the residual smoke was so strong that it felt like being in a car with someone who had a lit cigarette. My hat and beret spent the night on the porch, airing out.

You're hearing George Shearing... no more

I forget what night I saw it over the last weekend, but we were watching the news or the Grammys and they streamed info at the bottom of the screen saying that pianist George Shearing had passed away at age 91. I always, as this blog shows, feel affected by the death of a jazz musician but this one had a bit of personal connection.

My parents dug Shearing and his name was always synonymous in our house with the folks' idea of good jazz (more melodic stuff than harmonic complexity, and much of which came from the West Coast). I still recall the Christmas that my mum got Pop a copy of The Swingin's Mutual, the album Nancy Wilson made with the Shearing group.

During his years on Capitol, Shearing made a lot of easy listening albums that involved mellow brass or strings, with some comely lass posing on the album cover. (In the opening of the hotel room scene in A Hard Day's Night, either Paul or his grandfather is holding one of them. Product placement for Mums and Dads in the audience at the matinees?) These albums are now pretty much a dime a dozen, right next to the Herb Alperts in the thrift stores, and they don't paint a definitive portrait of the British pianist.

The best way to find out what put Shearing on the map is to find his MGM sides with the first quintets, which included guitar and vibes. There, you hear his remarkable melodic skills as well as a sharp, incisive ear for arrangements that broadened the spectrum of how groups like that played. The approach was known as "locked hands," where the left hand of the piano carried the melody, which the guitar and the vibes doubled and harmonized. The beauty of the whole thing is how subtle it is. It tugs at your ear, making you think that something is going on here. It's hard to tell what it is unless you're a musician, and in the end it doesn't matter.

Also, Shearing told me in an interview that he told all his vibes players not to play with the vibrato on, so as to avoid the "yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy" sound that comes from sustained, vibratoed notes. He might've liked it mellow, but not that mellow.

That was around 2000 that I spoke with him, to preview a performance at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild. I remember it was a Saturday afternoon, not too long after I started working full time at InPgh that it happened. Other than a Sonny Rollins interview during an internship several years earlier, this was my first time talking to a bigtime jazz legend. Since I wasn't exactly up on the Shearing catalog at that point, I was a bit apprehensive. But we got into a great conversation, where he congenially explained locked hands and myriad other subjects. He was a great guy.

There's a passage in On the Road that also made me think, as a teenager, that maybe Shearing was edgier than I had initially thought. The two main characters are up on speed and they check Shearing out in a club and get completely blown away by the fire he's creating onstage. In fact the scene practically sets the standard for that of any '50s movie that takes place in a jazz club: where some character is getting way to into the music, and keeps yelling stuff like, "Go, daddy, go! Yeah, baby!" with coiffed hair getting disheveled the more he gets into the music. I haven't read On the Road in over 20 years but I think that scene is followed by the realization by Sal Paradise that it wasn't all music that was making him feel that way, but the drugs. And the bringdown has a reflective moment to it.

Still, he could've talked about seeing the Jazz Messengers or Clifford Brown, or even Gerry Mulligan, but no - it was Shearing.

And then there are all those duo albums he did with Mel Torme, which brought together two skilled craftsmens who created something that was really top-shelf. (These are another big item in the family history. We heard them a lot in the '80s before the console broke.) Most memorable to me is their version of "I'm Hip," where Torme pokes fun at goofball jazz fans of his era. Beautiful. I hope they're playing together again somewhere.

Thanks for everything, George. Literally, without you, I don't know where I'd be.

Grammy predictions?

Our PC at home stopped letting us get online about two weeks ago. It looked like a browser problem. Then mid-week last week, it started acting really wonky, warning us that it needed to be defragmented. If this ever happens to you, don't follow the steps because as you might have guessed it's a virus.
My laptop has managed to escape unscathed so far, but it wouldn't let me download a program that's supposed to help to fix it. This all means that I haven't had a chance to do much of anything at home except writing assignments that are for deadlines. Pittsburgh City Paper ran a quickie preview that I did for Kid Congo Powers. He's playing at Howler's on this coming Wednesday. The Love Letters are playing Rock 'n' Bowl that same night, but I'm hoping that I can still make it over to catch the show after we're done since we finish around 11:30.
Soooooooooo, the Grammys are on tonight. I'm shocked that they're letting the Arcade Fire play. Sure, they're nominated for Album of the Year, but that's pretty bizarre too. There are probably a lot of people out there who are going to see watch the band and say, "Who are those people? Does anyone really like them? People only like bands like that because no one's ever heard of them."
I'll probably stick with my usual Sunday night tv: reruns of Mike Hammer with Darren McGavin in the title role (although by now I've seen all of them several times) and Everybody Hates Chris.
Or maybe I'll turn the damn tv off and review albums.
That's my prediction.

CD Review - Bizingas

Bizingas

(NCM East) http://www.ncmeast.com/

As far as instrumentation is concerned, anything goes with jazz groups these days. No bass? No problem. Cecil Taylor proved that the bottom end wasn't mandatory in free music almost half a century ago. Groups like the Chicago Underground Duo - who make it work with just a trumpet and drum kit, plus some electronics - are fairly standard, or at least not unexpected. The music of groups like this doesn't lack anything in its simplicity, it opens things up to new opportunities.

Having said that, it feels like something is missing in "Tagger," which opens the self-titled album by the Brooklyn-based quartet Bizingas. Guitarist Jonathan Goldberger and drummer Ches Smith lay down a 5/8 groove, which sounds as much like a rock riff as a jazz vamp. Brian Drye and Kirk Knuffke join in on trombone and cornet, respectively. It's a catchy three-minute tune, no doubt with room for a little blowing in the middle. But it feels like it could use something on the bottom end to fill out the sound and drive it home.

This is not to say that the guys in Bizingas need help. In fact they all come with some strong credentials. Drye, who leads the group and wrote all 10 tracks, has worked with everyone from the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and bassist Mark Helias. He also doubles on piano. Smith's name showed up on this blog a few months ago with his excellent release with These Arches; he also has played metal and post-rock. Knuffke, also a man about town, is a member of Ideal Bread, a band devoted to Steve Lacy's compositions, to name but one project. Goldberger also has rock roots, as well as experience with drummer Jim Black and guitarist James "Blood" Ulmer.

So really, the issue here is getting used to the open spot in the arrangements, really. My notes for "Guilty" - where the horns play some fast lines over the drums, before Goldberger starts comping - reads, "Needs something."

The same can be said for a few other songs, yet at the same time, Drye has come up with some thought provoking compositions that expand the shape of the group with nearly every tune. They hadn't intended to record the subdued "TMT," but it gives the album its first thoughtful digression, three songs in; the piano and Knuffke's horn engage in a good conversation. "Sifting," a ballad dedicated to Duke Ellington, has multiple sections and the quartet's minimalism works to a good advantage. "Stretched Thin" begins rubato with a repeated figure played by the trombone, that is later played more rapidly by a programmed keyboard. Smith steps away from the kit to play glockenspiel too. The minor, somewhat pensive "Farmer" is a composition with no improvisation that recalls Andrew Hill's early work.

Closing the album, "Untitled Moog Anthem" is deceptive in that it's not exactly anthemic, nor is it especially moog-like. The titular keyboard does however pump out a pedal point bassline that keeps a groove going with Smith, and it kisses off the album with an idea of what else might be possible down the line with them.

New records, last night's gig

It's been a John Vanderslice kind of night. There is illness in the household, except for me, knock on wood. So everyone is asleep (I hope) except me. It seemed like the ideal time to pull out JV's Romanian Names album. I've been thinking I need to revisit it ever since I received my platinum package version of his new album last week, White Wilderness.

What's the platinum package you ask? Welllll - lemme tell ya: It contains both the vinyl and CD editions of the new album, plus a one-sided six-song EP, Green Grow the Rushes (limited edition of 1000, mine being around #241), along with two 7"s of songs from Romanian Names with non-LP b-sides (and beautiful covers), plus a printed poster for the album and a photo by John himself, sealed in an envelope with sticker bearing his initials. The picture supposedly has never been printed before and never will again.

The whole thing costs $45, which is a bit of change but was almost covered by money that I got from a recent Love Letters show. Besides, it's a helluva a lot less than the Decemberists' deluxe package for their new album, which costs $165. Of course it does have a 72-page booklet, but oh well.

Speaking of the Love Letters, we played last night at Club Cafe with three other local bands. It was a pretty good time. There were folks there who were whooping for us and egging us on, so that was good. It was interesting because a few of my friends that came to see us were all from very different social circles. I always hope something like that will happen, but it doesn't very often.

We played with City Steps (which includes Bill & Kate of the Hi-Frequencies), Paul Labrise & the Trees (who organized the show) and Meeka in Jail (who were flying off the rails). Our next show is at Rock 'n Bowl on Feb. 16, which I just discovered tonight is the same night Congo Powers is coming to town.

CD Review: Jason Stein's Locksmith Isidore - Three Kinds of Happiness

Jason Stein's Locksmith Isidore

Three Kinds of Happiness

(Not Two)

Jason Stein named his trio Locksmith Isidore after his grandfather's first name and occupation. Two pieces on this album also have titles that pay tribute to his siblings: "Little Bird" to his sister; and "Sammy's Crayons" to a half-brother who liked to draw as a kid. It's clear from these indications that Stein's music gets some fuel from his personal history, and the way he utilizes these elements never comes close to maudlin nostalgia.

In a similar fashion, Stein's music frequently heads into a rather straightforward direction, swinging like crazy with walking basslines and jumpy bass clarinet solos, acknowledging the music that came before him. In some ways, a lot of the tracks on this album could be considered very accessible to a more mainstream audience, and not what one might expect from someone who has played with the Exploding Star Orchestra. Yet he does this through more original means.

The obvious starter is this equation is Locksmith Isidore itself, a trio led by Stein's bass clarinet together with Jason Roebke's bass and Michael Pride's drums. Bass clarinets have become a tad more commonplace in jazz, but rarely does one see it as the sole voice on the frontline. Stein doesn't draw on some of the more standard trappings of the instrument - its guttural, throat clearing rasp, percussive slap-tonguing or high range wails. Three Kinds of Happiness leans more towards composition, and Stein shows off his more melodic tendencies, leaving room with the wild stuff as he sees fit.

Sometimes, a tune starts off with the trio moving loosely or freely before jumping into a more structured setting ("Cash, Couch and Camper," "Ground Floor South"). "Arch and Shipp" - which could be an homage to Archie Shepp and possibly Matthew Shipp - stays outside for the first half of its nine minutes, so when the group hits the theme, the bounce in the melody sounds all the more infectious. At one point during his solo, Stein rapidly shapes and reshapes the initial theme somewhat like Coltrane and it makes you realize that being the only horn soloist is a challenging job and that he handles it was ease and skill.

If "More Gone Door Gone" were scored for a larger ensemble, it could easily turn into a stomping blues. Here the trio hints at its wild potential but Roebke and Pride hold back while Stein employs some circular breathing for a double-time chattering, which is just as exciting as a wild blues and whole lot more original. A couple of live, bonus tracks profile the more wild side of the group (Stein has also recorded a solo bass clarinet album for Leo), where they take an simple idea and build up around it. Coming at the end of the disc, they serve as a good contrast to the earlier pieces like "Little Bird," a strong ballad that has some passing references to the classics.

Grandpa Isidore might be perplexed at times by the trio but ultimately he'd dig them.

Back to work; Dean & Britta recap

Last week I took a stay-cation from work, with high hopes of cleaning up the home office, organizing everything in here, including the pile of CDs and getting stuff ready to auction, as well as cleaning up the rest of the house. And I expected to keep up that good run of blog entries I had in the final days of 2010 and the beginning of this month.
So here it is, four days into the week after the stay-cation, and only now am I getting around to an entry to follow the Burt entry below. Eh, what are you gonna do? The weather outside is awful (which cancelled Love Letters practice tonight) and the kid is fast asleep in the next room, so it's time to get back on track.


Last week Dean & Britta played at the Carnegie Lecture Hall in Oakland, drawing on Dean Wareham's Galaxie 500 catalog. They played a similar set in town last fall at a benefit for Hopital Albert Schweitzer, but last week's show was more publicized and is part of a tour.
The incredible thing about the set was the manner in which the group really recreated the Galaxie 500 sound in all its subtleties. Obviously Wareham is going to be able to recreate the way he played those songs (and he sang in the falsetto perfectly), but Jason Lawrence replicated Damon Krukowski's drum style in both the accents and the way he hit his kit. Britta Phillips stuck closely to the upper register of her bass, much like Naomi Yang did, and when she slid down to the lower frets during the climax of "Flowers," it felt like pure sonic bliss. I also scribbled the words "BLISS OUT" on my note pad during a later song, which I think was "Summertime," based on an equally scribbled, half-remembered song lyric. I know the song was in A.
That last statement is significant because after awhile, it felt like every song was in D, or built around D and one other chord. Of course, the initial appeal of Galaxie 500 came from the fact that all their songs were pretty similar and it didn't matter. Without the Kramer's sea-of-echo production, maybe some of that appeal was lost on me, 20 years down the road. Not that it ruined the night, though. Far from it. The only thing that detracted from the evening was the way I nodded off several times during the set, despite having had my usual p.m. cups of coffee and not having worked that day. Maybe the band was just lulling me to sleep.
For Ralph Carney's tenor sax line in "Decomposing Trees," guitarist Matt Sumrow pulled out a melodica and blew the line, giving it a reggae dub atmosphere that made up for the fact that the song seemed a little too uptempo, compared to the original. (And the purist in me missed the bells that are heard at the beginning and end of the song.) Sumrow's presence was great because it kept the rhythm guitar sound chiming when Wareham took a solo. He is a really understated soloist, with the way he uses space, melody and effects pedals, and during "When Will You Come Home," he manipulated his amp by the way he stood in front of it. It was fun.
For encores, they dug into their 13 Most Beautiful set and Britta sang Dylan's "I'll Keep it with Mine." True to my prediction, they followed that with New Order's "Ceremony," which always has some extra life in it.
Meeting of Important People, a fine local trio, opened the show although it took some adjustment time for me to get into the band. For some reason, they played stripped down, with their drummer only playing tambourine and harmonizing, with bass and acoustic guitar as the only other instruments in the songs. They had me by the end of the set, making me realize I've got to hear more of them. (They were giving away free CDs and I snagged one.)

Bloggin' about Burt

When I was about five or six years old, my dad bought a cassette version of Burt Bacharach's Make It Easy on Yourself. I played it all the time, most likely because it was there but also because I did think it was pretty catchy to my youthful ears. Pop had a bunch of pre-recorded tapes that factor heavily into my musical outlook. As I might have said before, some of my earlier musical memories involved the tapes of the 5th Dimension's Greatest Hits, Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66's Equinox and a Herbie Mann sampler with "Comin' Home Baby" and "Philly Dog."

Make it Easy on Yourself found Burt leading a studio orchestra through several of his hit songs. This was one of a few albums he did for A&M, and this particular one leaned heavily on tunes from his then-recent Broadway hit Promises Promises. In some ways, this album is a textbook version of Easy Listening, with strings and warm brass and anonymous female singers cooing the words to "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," "Wanting Things," and a few stray lines in a couple other songs. In Rolling Stone's first edition of their Record Guide around 1979, they gave all of these albums a bullet rating, which meant they were worse than one-star albums, truly awful.

I'm here to tell you they were wrong, wrong, wrong.

Now that I have a new needle for our good turntable, I whipped out Make It Easy On Yourself, craving the instrumental version of "Do You Know The Way to San Jose." One of the beautiful things about this album is the way Burt (sorry, I can't simply refer to him as Bacharach) regularly scores the melody so each phrase moves to a different instrument while still sounding consonant. Marimba bangs out the intro here, leading to a pregnant pause before a rather Herb Alpert-like trumpet takes the first phrase. A guitar - I think - picks up the "L.A. is a great big freeway" line, leading to some other percussively stringy instrument. It's not complex, it's irresistably catchy and it helped me to think of music in visual or human terms as a kid, which kept my synapses firing.

"Promises Promises" is a tour de force, one that kicks off the album at that. It's already a complex song time-wise, but there is a lot of tension and release. It begins gently and builds to what sounds like a climax, with a piano banging the chords beneath a surging brass section. Then it pulls back, brings those vocalists in for a whopping three lines, then it surges even higher into the real "bring it home" finale. It's so raucous that the drummer seems to lose the beat on the turnaround, and struggles to keep up. Maybe that's not true since the composer is such a perfectionist, but it doesn't take anything away from the song.

My other favorite song on the album is "Knowing When to Leave." Yet again, the melody moves around the room, from oboe to saxophone to trumpet. But the song's strongpoint comes with the way Burt gets the orchestra to roar like a rock band, punching out the lead-in beats to the next phrase and building tension around a dangling chord alteration at the end of a line.

This is sounding a little too academic. Let me put it another way - very few things, outside of Mama Cass or "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" fill me with such musical joy. The quiet coda of this song (also used in Dionne Warwick's version) always puzzled me, making me think of someone alone and sad after a big party is over. I prefer Sue Ramey's version, released on Imperial, where she goes back into the roaring part before the song fades out. I found a copy of it in a Goodwill once, with the flip-side being a cabaret-style cover of the Monkees' "Early Morning Blues and Greens," which isn't nearly as successful.

I didn't listen to Make it Easy On Yourself at all from about age 12 until the time is about 24. That summer, something in my mind told me to find a used copy of it. My roommate thought I was nuts. He had a Burt album on our mantelpiece that he used to roll joints on. He saw no other value for the schlub on the cover.

Within a year, he changed his tune.

CD Review: Scott Amendola Trio - Lift

Scott Amendola Trio

Lift

(Sazi) http://www.scottamendola.com/

Scott Amendola starts his new album with a bit of red herring. The first 63 seconds of "Tudo De Bom" capture the drummer crashing all over his kit, from skins to pitched percussion, implying that a freewheeling tune is about to catch fire. But when Jeff Parker (guitar) and John Shifflett (bass) join him, the mood gets noticeably subdued. Parker doesn't even use any distortion (that comes later), preferring a warm, clean tremolo sound.

Not that the quasi-funky, Brazilian-influenced tune lacks a strong feeling. The trio locks into a different kind of groove right away with some crisp, lean lines from Parker. But like most of the album, the trio takes a turn that isn't exactly expected.

Amendola has been all over the place, musically speaking. (As I wrote here a few days ago, he's on trumpeter Sarah Wilson's Trapeze Project.) Recently, he's become known for his work in the Nels Cline Singers, but he also played with the funk group T.J. Kirk and the Thelonious Monk tribute project Plays Monk with Singers bassist Devin Hoff and clarinetist Ben Goldberg.

In a certain way, Lift brings his various styles together without employing a self-conscious, obvious manner. It shows that Amendola isn't afraid to keep all his options open, and knows how to make them all work successfully. "Cascade" begins with some electronic noise that sounds like a distorted sample of a dripping faucet. It becomes a constant in an aggresive 5/4 vamp, and it duels with Parker's effects-heavy axe, before things break down into an unaccompanied Shifflett solo.

After "Death By Flower" dives into distorted punk free jazz - with the drummer beautifully building the momentum of the piece - the title track comes off like a Paul Motian tune, if that drummer enlisted Jim Hall to join him. Here, Amendola uses his instrument more like an additional voice than a time keeper. For the closing "Lullaby for Sascha," dedicated to his son, the drummer brings back the electronics and subtly creates the setting of Parker playing the gentle melody on a ship drifting on the water and creaking. It might be a little unnerving for its namesake to enjoy as he's trying to drift off at night, but everyone else should admire the combination of atmospherics and simple, catchy melody.

A number of drummers have been popping up lately as leaders and composers. Amendola stands out among, because he's no stranger to the format (he released Believe in 2005 with a quintet) and he also is a master composer.

Wait! Here's number 10!

10. Sweet Apple - Love and Desperation (Tee Pee)
I forgot to go through all the albums I bought this year too, and wouldn't you know it, I overlooked one that was particularly solid. Cobra Verde's John Petkovic (another one of the most gifted songwriters around, for his ability to combine really sharp lyrical wit with hard rock that manages to be visceral without succumbing to lunkheadedness) and Tim Parnin joined forces with Dinosaur Jr.'s J. Mascis and Witch's Dave Sweetapple on this beauty. The cover art either spoofed Roxy Music's Country Life or paid heavy homage, it's hard to tell which. (The two scantily clad ladies both looked kind of homely, just like the original models.) And the music is much this same way: it's hard rock but with more brains behind it, than most people half Petkovic's age. I like music that makes you check your biases at the door, and this one does.

So there are 10 albums for ya.

Best albums of 2010... sort of

So I decided to check out what my, uh, peers at Blurt included in their year-end lists, if only to make sure I didn't forget some great album that wowed me back in May that I completely forgot about. Turns out, I'm really out of touch when it comes to rock albums this year. I mean really out of touch. I own about two of the albums that made their Top 50 list. The rest of them I either didn't know about or only read about. Or in the case of Joanna Newsom, I just ran the other way. With all that time I spent keeping abreast of jazz albums, I became clueless re: the big releases of 2010. Except of course for the Arcade Fire. Duh.

But, um, didn't the New Pornographers release a new album this year? Sure, any shanleyonmusic reader knows that I'll love it BUT DIDN'T ANYONE ELSE?

So here's my list.....

1. Pernice Brothers - Goodbye Killer (Ashmont). To put it effusively, Joe Pernice is one of the best lyricists around. He knows how to tell a story, which sounds like a writer's cliche, but when you listen to him, you realize why people say that line in all sincerity.

2. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (Merge). This is probably the first and last time a #1 Billboard album will ever make my year-end list (well, maybe Double Fantasy would've counted), but everything everyone says about this album is true. And though I didn't grow up in the suburbs, I do relate to the feeling of your past slipping away as you cling heavily to it. And the trick with that online video? Brilliant.

3. New Pornographers - Together (Matador). Surprise, surprise. After 2007's Challengers, which dipped a little too much into the mid-tempo department, this album came back and found the group sounding pretty solid and upbeat.

4. Nels Cline - Dirty Baby (Cryptogramophone). It's not really a rock album. But it's not really a jazz album either, though both downbeat and JazzTimes gave it a glowing review. It's a work of art in itself AND it sounds good. Refer to my review on this site for more details.

5. Kathryn Calder - Are You My Mother? (File Under: Music) In which the keyboardist of the New Pornographers shows that she has some great songwriting ideas up her sleeve that everyone would be fools to ignore her (yeah, that's a hint to you). This album is beautiful and at times poignant.

6. Nellie McKay - Home Sweet Mobile Home (Verve). A lot of times I get really really into an artist's album while writing about it, only to cool off after the deadline is met. Though the faux-reggae and salsa almost gets too clever for its own good, McKay's new album holds it together, with lyrical depth (with claws out, in some cases) and hooks that I wish I wrote.

7. Susan Cowsill - Lighthouse (Threadhead) OK, this actually made the Blurt list at #50. Much of its weight rests on "River of Love" the genuinely moving tribute to both Susan's brother Barry (who wrote the song) and the power of love in general, but you can't argue with a power like this. For awhile I thought I was reading too much personal stuff into it - my bandmate's father's death, the eventual death of a close friend - but not so. This song is heavy. And the album proves that when life deals you a shitty hand, there's only one thing to do - Get up the next day and work your way back.

8. Moby Grape - Live (Sundazed). It's more a historical album than one that should be in a "new" list, but it makes you realize that as good as the Grape was on its first album, they were even better live. And when I say "better," I mean "with few peers."

9. Richard Barone - Glow (Bar/None). The one-time singer of the Bongos returns with an album of pure pop, in all its splendour.

Ok, let's leave it at that. I'll be honest, I wanted to include Azure Ray's Drawing Down the Moon on the list because I remember really enjoying it when I reviewed it for Blurt. But the band's label couldn't be bothered to send me anything more than a stream of the album, so I haven't heard it since I wrote the review in July. Hey guys, I'm not going to sell your CDs. If you really want to make sure of that, just watermark them. Hell, don't even do it. Just say you did and slap a sticker on it saying that I'll be in big trouble if I do anything with the CD. If I like the music, I'll hold onto it. If I don't I'LL THROW IT AWAY. There are already plenty of good CDs that I don't listen to cluttering up my house. I might as well just pitch the lousy ones. Or maybe I should mail them back to you.

Anyhow, that's my warped view of 2010 releases.

End of the Year Lists

With the end of the year comes Best Albums of the Year lists. For the second year in a row, I had the honor of being tapped for the Village Voice's tally of best jazz albums of the year, in addition to my annual contribution to JazzTimes.

Funny thing - this year, I felt like I was fairly on top of things, hearing a lot of the "big deal" releases, as well as some really great ones that were flying under the radar. Still, I was hard-pressed to think, "Yeah, that one ought to be on my list" as I considered a number of them. Then there were some albums that I didn't get ahold of until after the deadline had passed, that would have definitely been on the list. (Jason Adasiewicz's Sun Rooms, most recently. When we got back into town after Christmas, that and the latest Exploding Star Orchestra album were waiting for me!)

Don't listen to the naysayers who keep saying that the music industry is dying. My friend Will made the astute observation several months ago that despite all those alarmist articles, you keep seeing deluxe 180-gram vinyl reissues by labels like Four Men With Beards, while I keep trying to keep abreast of things like the latest amazing ECM release, as well as the latest hijinks from folks like Mr. Adasiewicz and his Chicago peers. There's still plenty of music coming out. Maybe there just aren't as many people who care passionately about music as there was 20 years ago.

Anyhow, I'm digressing. Here's a link to the Voice, with a couple interesting overviews of the year and its music.

STOP THE PRESSES...............................................
I just went to the JazzTimes website to look for some year-end stuff, and came upon this obituary for Dr. Billy Taylor, who died on Tuesday. There is a huge void in the world now without him. The world lost too many musicians this year. Goddam.

Okay, back on topic....... here's the critic's list from JazzTimes. Scroll down and see my list, some of which might be familiar to anyone who reads this blog.

Finally, here's a review of a song-by-song reworking of the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat by a group that includes most of Mostly Other People Do the Killing. It came out last summer, but I didn't get around to reviewing it until recently.

On the rock side of things, I didn't get my End of the Year list into Blurt, so I'm going to fashion one here and put that up tonight. Maybe after a drink or two.

CD Review - Sarah Wilson - Trapeze Project

Sarah Wilson

Trapeze Project

(Brass Tonic) www.sarahwilsonmusic.com

Singer-instrumentalists usually need to beware. When push comes to shove, the voice always seems to get prominence over the instrument. Just ask Diana Krall or, for that matter, Karen Carpenter (who apparently swung pretty hard when she didn't have a mike in front of her, according to a CD that surfaced a few years ago). And of course, more people remember Nat "King" Cole's velvet voice and overlook how he tore the house down at the first few Jazz at the Philharmonic shows with his piano work.

Trumpeter Sarah Wilson takes a few vocal turns on her second album, Trapeze Project, which dropped back in September. What's interesting about her double-duty is how she approaches both of them in a similar manner. Her trumpet tone is strong and crisp, and she plays her themes without much extra dressing. The same can be said about her singing style. When Wilson's voice appears, doing a wordless support vocal in "She Stands in a Room," it adds extra depth to a simple, pretty melody. (As someone who usually abhors the dreaded wordless vocals, I found this one really captivating; similar in a way to what Hank Roberts did with Tim Berne in the '80s.)

Wilson puts down the trumpet and sings lyrics in "Melancholy for Peace" and "From the River." Despite some simplistic imagery, she delivers the lyrics in a direct and honest way that elevates them and maintains attention. In the early part of the former song, she phrases a little like Suzanne Vega, but her voice takes on more grit. A cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" casts the moody post-punk classic as a slow, lounge tune with just bass and some clarinet flourishes. It was bound to end up being done jazz style sometime and although there isn't any nudge-nudge irony that might come from a Bad Plus interpretation, the jury is still out on this one

.

Along with the similarity between her horn and voice, Wilson's greatest skills seem to be arranging and composing. She assembled a top-flight band of Myra Melford (piano), Ben Goldberg (clarinet), Jerome Harris (bass) and Scott Amendola (drums). Wilson's trumpet (occasionally muted) and Goldberg's clarinet blend into some amazing sounds, sometimes like an oboe or soprano sax. The melodies reside in fairly simple melodic territory, like the bright folky melody of "Blessing." Then Goldberg steals the show as he nearly derails the consonance of it, with Amendola providing the appropriate kick. In "Possibility," it's Melford's turn to run wild, tearing up another upbeat melody.

All the above moments work well, but Wilson the soloist frequently takes a backseat to her bandmates. In the final quarter of the album she barely stands out at all. When she does solo in other tracks, her tone is strong but she plays it melodically safe. There's nothing wrong with that, especially with all that Wilson coaxes out of the group, but it feels like she's holding back when she has more to say.

CD review: Dynamaxion Quartet - Sympathetic Vibrations

(I started writing this review early last week, but fell asleep at the laptop. The next day, I had a fever of 100, then Christmas came. Hope everyone reading this had a good holiday. I'm much better know. I think.)

The Dynamaxion Quartet

Sympathetic Vibrations

(Self-released) www.dynamaxion4.com

Some musician - Frank Zappa or Elvis Costello, depending on who you ask - once said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. " It's a clever statement, but like "Jazz is dead," it really has no value other than to rile people up unnecessarily.

The Dynamaxion Quartet has come together in an effort not to dance about architecture but to actually play it, in a matter of speaking. The group takes its big inspiration from architect/inventor/"practical philosopher" R. Buckminster Fuller. Their name in fact comes from a word Fuller invented after discovering that he used the words "dynamic," "maximum" and "tension" frequently. Drummer Gabriel Gloege, the composer and guiding force in the quartet, has attempted to harness Fuller's confluence of ideas by having the band create a sound that goes beyond the limits of a standard chordless quartet. The pieces don't strictly follow a head-solos-head structure. Tenor saxophonist Mark Small and trumpeter Michael Shobe wind up playing over each other in several of the tracks. In "At One," they start out trading eights, then fours, then ones until they're right on top of one another. This never comes across as busy or overly analytical, and although it doesn't sound unprecedented by other pianoless quartets, the music is always moving and never spare.

Rhythmic displacement keeps "Night Market" shifting. Small begins played a seven-note riff in 5/4, which he regularly tosses to Shobe when the tenor takes a solo. Underneath Gloege plays time signatures that keep changing where the downbeat falls in the riff. Repetitive pieces like this can grate after a few minutes, but this one leaves the listener so interested in where things will land that there's no time for it to wear out its welcome.

In his quest to give all his bandmates equal footing, Gloege frequently gives bassist Dan Fabricatore an equal voice in the melody. "Spring Equinox" begins with his bass leading the way before the horns come in. Later, as he does in a few other tracks, Fabricatore plucks his solos with a lot of authority in his tone. "Summer's End" also has an interesting beginning and end, with a slow hymn-like melody sandwiching Gloege's off-kilter groove that feels like 8/8.

For further thematic influence with Sympathetic Vibrations, Gloege drew on the work of photographer Asca S. R. Auli. He spent in year in Hong Kong, Paris and Manhattan, taking pictures of all sorts of scenes, which illustrated each city while still leaving some details unclear, a quality that appealed to the drummer. The nine tracks on the album are broken up into three sections, each named for the city.

While aesthetic concept seems to factor heavily into this album, it isn't mandatory to know the backstory of the work, nor does it really elevate it any further. The Dynamaxion Quartet is creating their own niche for a two-horns-and-rhythm quartet, one that doesn't need to probe into the Ornette approach, but who knows how the tear it up with a fresh take on bop (closer "Fulton Fish Market," which cleverly sandwiches a line from "Criss Cross" into its theme) when they feel like it.

Christmas songs and the war

I've been bombarded with Christmas music since the weekend after Thanksgiving. Yes, there are times when I've said that I will be glad when December 26 comes, so I won't have to hear it for another year. But that's largely due to the very limited scope that these piped-in stations have. Why do play four versions of "Baby It's Cold Outside" during an eight-hour period? Louie Prima's "What Will Santa Claus Say" is great - but the same question applies. I realize these stations are limited in their scope, but jeez oh pete.

On the other hand, we've heard a lot more Johnny Mathis this year than last year. Two of my co-workers and I used to regularly get on the store p.a. and dedicate any Johnny song to the other two whenever he came on. Now he comes on so much that the joke would be old and unfunny if we kept up. But hearing him is a good thing. It puts me in a good frame of mind to work and to think of the good things about the holidays.

Since the station that's usually played is limited to big band swing and recent stuff that fits that format, I've yet to hear the Royal Guardsmen's "Snoopy's Christmas." Stop me if I've blogged about this before, but I notice a detectable subtext in that song that elevates it from its status as a cornball bubblegum hit - and the third installment in a set of songs based on a cartoon character.

Observe - in 1914 as World War I was going on, British and German soldiers on the battleground held a ceasefire on Christmas day and celebrated the holiday together with a dinner. In the song by the Royal Guardsmen, the Red Baron has a chance to shoot Snoopy down, but instead he tells him to land and "Snoopy was certain that this was the end/when the Baron cried out, 'Merry Christmas, my friend.'" And they too have dinner together.

Released in 1967 as the Viet Nam war was raging, the song could be considered as a statement about the mood of that era, even though it's about as far from "Eve of Destruction" as you could get. And today as a useless war continues, there's something emotional about this song to me.

Also the pay-off line in "I'll Be Home for Christmas" - "If only in my dreams" - has a little more gravity when thinking about soldiers who can't make it back for the holiday, much like the World War II soldier that was probably meant to be the focus of that song. (The line in "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" that changes depending on the version - about "Come next year we all will be together... until then we'll have to muddle through somehow," - could be about the same thing. But I think it might come from the Judy Garland movie Meet Me in St. Louis, so it has a different meaning.)

Or maybe this steady stream of holiday tunes is just putting this in my head too much.

And another thing, how often does Bobby Vinton really spend "Christmas Eve in My Home Town," aka Canonsburg?

On my homefront, the needle on our turntable got bent and I didn't get to order a new one in time for the holidays. So we can't play any vinyl, which means I probably won't hear the Monterey Brass album (see my oft-spammed Sing a Kris Kringle Jingle entry from a few years ago) outside of my head this year.

But at least I had a chance to turn Donovan onto the Singing Dogs' "Jingle Bells," which also makes me remember my friend Pam fondly.

New York Times catches up with me

Playing right now: Puttin' On the Ritz - White Light/White Heat

(Check out the JazzTimes website in a day or two for an explanation)


I'll never admit that my reviews are extremely timely, appearing the same week as a disc is released, but I was quite surprised that I covered an album several weeks before the Sunday New York Times. This past weekend, Nate Chinen wrote a capsule review of Ches Smith & These Arches' debut album - which I reviewed on November 24! Imagine that: me, a few weeks ahead of the prestigous Times, beating a guy like Mr. Chinen to the punch.

What was even more surprising is that one week earlier, the Times ran a similar capsule-size review of the debut album by Bizingas, another New York weird/jazz/improv group, which also features Smith as drummer. Chances are that review came from another writer, because that spot has a different writer each week. I'm hoping to get to Bizingas here too.

New Anthony Braxton, with Ben Opie

Playing right now: Mike Reed's Loose Assembly - Empathetic Parts (482 Music)
(Just the thing to get you moving in the morning, especially with guest star Roscoe Mitchell on board. I ordered it and it came in the mail yesterday.)

Yesterday Ben Opie stopped by my workplace and handed me a copy of the eagerly-anticipated duets that he recorded with Anthony Braxton while he was here in 2008. It's a two-disc set of two Braxton compositions, with a few extra writings dropped in.

I probably should hold off on details and save that for a review, but I will say it's good. Ask Ben the next time you see him.

Nellie McKay hugged me.....twice

Sometimes talking to musicians inspires me to take on the persona of a starry-eyed fan. Or maybe that mindset is constantly below my mental surface at all times. Either way it explains the title of this entry, which exists with tongue firmly wedged in cheek, as Ms. McKay would hopefully expect.

Anytime I introduce myself to a musician after having interviewed them by phone and then writing about them, I always wonder about two things - will they remember me among a sea of recent interviewers, and will they object to what I wrote about them? So it was a nice surprise when Nellie McKay stood up from her spot at the merchandise table, leaned across and gave me an appreciative hug after her first show at the Warhol on Saturday. She was as charming offstage as she was on.

And her first show, where she played tunes from Normal As Blueberry Pie - A Tribute to Doris Day overflowed with charm. And clever arrangements. It was great to hear those songs done by a small group and not only bring out all the nuances of the writing, but do that while keeping the focus on the vocals. She had guitar, bass, drums, trumpet and tenor sax along with her piano, though the horns only played here and there (they had just joined the tour very recently). When they did "Sentimental Journey," it sounded nice and slinky, with mallets on the drums and Bill Frisell-ish guitar from Cary Park - yet all music pointed towards Nellie. She played one non-LP song that had something in the lyrics about "early autumn" which sounded amazing, both as a song and starkly beautiful performance.

The one time things veered towards the cute side occurring during "A-Tisket A-Tasket," which was built for that anyway. McKay got a little squeaky during the call-and-response section with the guys. Right before this song she also quipped that not only could she not find the museum (they were late getting back from their Green Tree hotel), she could find the piano as she stumbled away from the center stage mike to her keyboard. (See previous Nellie installment for reference.)

For the second show McKay changed from the proper, Doris Day-inspired pink dress to a dark red get-up that fell off the shoulder and fit the mood but still would've looked okay on Ms. Day. She virtually played her new Home Sweet Mobile Home album from start to finish, which is fine because it's a really strong release. "Bruise on the Sky" makes an excellent, foreboding opener (with a line that rhymes "follow" with "Charo") and leads right into the uke-driven "Adios" with its biting chorus line, "May you lie yourself to sleep tonight." When she does reggae, it has serious weight to it, and even the light-hearted "Bodega!" (which has an inverted exclamation point at the beginning) has some serious moral underneath.

I was worried during the slick funky "No Equality" when the band took a right turn and launched into a scorching version of "Purple Haze," and McKay started doing hippie hand jive moves (not the first time during the set). If she starts trying to rock out, this could be bad, I thought. Turns out it was just a digression before hitting the last riff of the original song. That changed everything from a potential train wreck to a witty coda.

McKay has the between-song banter down pat. She talked about her dog Charo - the one referenced in "Bruise on the Sky" - describing her as being very much like Joan Crawford, going on to imitate the dog doing a classic bit from The Damned Don't Cry. Later she made bassist Alexi David do an imitation of William Shatner reciting "Till There Was You," which was spot-on. She also forgot the words to some of the non Mobile Home songs that worked their way into the set. Yes, she's prolific as all get-out but when I was her age, I never forgot lyrics. Those tunes included "David" from her first album, which drew applause as it started, and "The Dog Song."

I was the first person to the merch table and she started to tell me that if I'm ever in New York to look her up, or she'd buy me a drink if I wanted one.... I wanted both but there was a line forming, led by a guy who was already holding her hand, so I put her off.

Which blows because I could've used another drink.

Call me, Nellie. Your publicist has my number.

Nellie McKay outtakes

Nellie McKay is playing in Pittsburgh tomorrow at the Warhol Museum. I previewed the show for Pittsburgh City Paper and you can find it here.

Since it was a short article, a lot of good quotes were left on the cutting room floor, so to speak. My favorite is this one, when I asked her about "No Equality," a song from her new album that sounds like a mix of '70s soul and Schoolhouse Rock to these ears.

Me: "No Equality" - are you singing from the perspective of someone who dumping someone else rather than someone who got dumped?

Nellie: Oooooh no, it’s not that specific. I think it’s more general than that. It’s about hierarchy. It doesn’t have to be a personal relationship. It can be with any group of people. There always seems to be a pecking order.
I’m constantly thinking about society and the world and how to…somehow avoid that. The only way I can think of is if everybody has constant marijuana use. It’s a very peaceful drug. I think that eliminates hierarchy quite a bit, or at least makes you don’t care about it.

Me: So you’re going on record here as being pro-pot?

Nellie: Yeah, I don’t that’s much of a revelation. My mother got busted at Burbank airport earlier this year and I’ve never been prouder of her.

Dave's not here.

Then again, I'm not sure what to believe. When she mentioned that she came to Pittsburgh during high school with the All State Band - or something like that - I asked her what year, and she told me 1972 in a voice that implied, "I don't want to give my age away."

She wasn't born until 12 years later. In the back of my mind I knew something was up but didn't feel ready to call her on it.

CD Review: Henry Threadgill Zooid: This Brings Us To, Volume II

Henry Threadgill Zooid

This Brings Us To, Vol. II

(Pi Recordings) http://www.pirecordings.com/

On "Polymorph," the fourth of five tracks on the new Henry Threadgill album, the AACM veteran and his quintet hit upon a theme that has a slightly repetitive shape to it. The other tracks have sections that could be considered heads, because they feel different from the moments where several players are improvising over one another (around one another may be a more accurate description). Threadgill's entrances in each piece bring things together after everyone's multi-directional blowing, but his alto saxophone in "Polymorph" is the one place where he sticks with one concise idea and restates it a few times. After listening intently to Zooid, this moment almost feels like a reward.

Pi Recordings released Volume 1 of This Brings Us To last year, and the follow-up comes from the same sessions. This is not simple music, and clearly the touring the group did prior these sessions sharpened up their cohesive qualities. Drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee and bassist Stomu Takeishi are definitely into a groove on the opening 10-minute "Lying Eyes," but not the traditional in-the-pocket kind of way. Kavee accents and supports, and it's hard to feel a time signature in his playing, while Takeishi plays intense assymetrial lines in the title track with a strong intensity.

The perplexing thing about the album is that its leader doesn't come across as such. If given a blindfold test, most people might think this is a Liberty Ellman album. The guitarist (who also keeps popping up as a top notch studio engineer on numerous albums, by the way) always seems to be the one at the front of each piece leading the group. Threadgill on the other hand, lays back. He plays a brief flute line early on "Lying Eyes" and returning later for a solo with a lot of open space between phrases. He doesn't show up until the final few minutes of the title track to steer things towards Jose Davila's tuba coda.

This is only a criticism if one expects something clear cut and easy to digest, and Threadgill is not the type to do that anyway. It's better than to try and discern what course that this band is taking. It almost makes you want to hear each instrumentalist isolated to clearly hear what they play and how it relates to the quintet. Or how it contrasts and still works.

The last track on the album is titled "It Never Moved," ironically because it does move. Davila (who also doubles on trombone) gets into a groove with Kavee, and Threadgill and Ellman play parallel solos before the guitarist really takes off in a pithy statement. Most of the album up until this point sticks the same middle ground dynamic level, the only real problem with the set because that levels off some of the intensity and makes the ballad-like moments feel just as subdued as the more pointed ones.

But again, Threadgill is not here to make it easy. He's here to intrigue, which this album does with each deep investigation.

[Addendum: There some word or phrase in this review that has made it subject to numerous spams of all types. I'm dismantling the comment section because even though Blogger deletes them immediately, I'm getting tired on the endless barrage of emails which include the comments.]