Record Rack: Susanne Abbuehl, bree

Oceans Apart

 By Brian Arsenault

The following albums and their artists couldn’t be more different.  That’s part of the fun.  It’s a wide musical world with all kinds of room or, in the broad thinker Jesus’ terms, “there are many rooms in my Father’s house.”  In this case I think it would have to be Mother’s house, though.  This will become clear below. Or maybe not.

 Susanne Abbuehl

 The Gift (ECM Records)

The great strength of this album of sung poetry, mostly from Emily Dickenson, is that gifted Swiss-Dutch singer Susanne Abbuehl lets the rhythm, the music if you will, of the words set the songs.  It may also be the album’s great weakness, if it has one, because in its own terms it is beautiful  throughout.

The whole feel of The Gift is gentle like Dickinson and the two other featured poets, Emily Bronte and Sara Teasdale, three giants of poetry a century and a half ago.  Gentle but not soft or saccharine, also like Dickinson, and like Abbuehl’s wondrous voice.

Sometimes Abbuehl’s voice is more spoken than sung but then she finds a melody and the poetry becomes so seductive (in a nonsalacious way, of course, it’s Dickinson remember).

Dickinson saw infinity in a clover. She wasn’t wrong. Abbuehl and her understated band are true to that minimalism.

Matthieu Michael’s flugelhorn is the other star of the album, even taking the lead at times and always with the right tonality for Abbuehl’s voice.  Wolfert Bederode provides marvelous accompaniment on piano and Olavi Louhivuori’s percussion is a match for the musicianship of the others.

Matching poetry and music is as old as the individual forms. In the earliest days, there probably wasn’t any difference.  It is said that the Odyssey was sung by blind Homer as he journeyed from royal house to royal house.

Still, it is here that I think Abbuehl and crew could have pushed the form a bit harder.

On “By Day, By Night,” a Teasdale poem, I grew excited as the music almost takes off.  Let it go, Sue (may I call you Sue?) I muttered.  But they didn’t. Not quite. Not here or anywhere on the album. She is always the cultured Susanne.

With a bit more jazz, the combo might have shaped the words in new and different forms with the music.  But here it was always the other way round, perhaps out of respect for the poetry.  But I can’t help but wonder if they would have found/created new meaning.

That may yet remain to be done. Yet we are left with something fine in an increasingly crude world.

 bree

bree  (Werewolf Tunes)

To paraphrase, Pete Townshend is reported to have once said that Keith Moon wasn’t a rock drummer, he was rock in the flesh.  While I certainly hope she lasts a lot longer than Moony, there is something of that in bree on her self titled album.  The Nashville rocker doesn’t seem so much to play the music form as to explode out of it.

She says she isn’t retro and I’ll take her at her word.  But this is rock as it should be; stripped down — “watch me rip my clothes off” — rolling, bouncing, roadhouse, r&b rooted, Joplin polished, stay up all night stuff.

A little power trio led by bree’s singing and Gibson Flying V guitar. Stand up bass and pounding drums complete the picture.

As always when the music is special, Boones the Cat came in the room and stared at me.  Who’s this? She wanted to know.  Someone who could become a legend, I replied.  Boones stayed until the album was over and then went into the next room and napped. Nothing more to hear.

But while the music played, they could probably hear it all the way to the religious commune where she was abused property until being kicked out at 17 for having a boyfriend.  Probably another one of those communes where the old guys want all the young stuff for themselves.  When are we gonna castrate those creeps or at least close them down?

Somehow bree kept self and soul alive to rock n roll and “not have time to be saved.”

There’s another Who connection, the guys who “don’t need to be forgiven.”  She’s clearly been to the streets.  “When you don’t drink whisky, you’re cold . . . You can’t resist me when you drink . . .” Those are hard rock lyrics; out there, real, raw.

She gives new maybe truer meaning to “All American Girl” who wants to “Dance All Nite (With my finger in the air). She’s tough but not mean, she’s seen enough of that.  You just have to “love me the way I am.” I do.

She’s a real rocker in another overproduced era of pop music. This is who Jagger should jam with while on tour, not the manufactured pre-packaged Katy Perry.

* * *

Interestingly, both these albums have a piece entitled “Forbidden Fruit.”  bree’s is very different from Abbuehl’s/Dickinson’s — but maybe not . . .

* * * * * * * *

To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Record Rack: Steven Casper & Cowboy Angst; Noah Preminger and Terri Lyne Carrington

Of Americana Rock, American Tenor Sax and American Genius Reprised

 By Brian Arsenault

The range of great American music never ceases to amaze me.  When they’re writing about our civilization, such as it is, a number of centuries hence I am quite sure it will be our music that is most treasured and remembered.  Unless the whole grid collapses, of course.

 Steven Casper & Cowboy Angst

Trouble (Silent City Records)

There is just no disputing the good time of bad times this EP (not LP) provides the listener.  Five tunes, one done twice, to take you deep into the heart of American music done road house bounce — blues, r&b, zydeco, Tex-Mex, Looziana all tied up in a just dazzling display.  In other words, rock and roll to delight the soul.

What Casper and his new Cowboy Angst lineup understand is that it’s all connected.  From the hills of West Virginia to the Delta. From Nashville to New York. At its best, it’s all American music. The Band knew that and so does Casper.

“Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” opens the proceedings and rightly so; a nasty tasty blues/gospel tune you won’t hear in church, with two McCrary sisters singing backup to Casper’s lead vocal.  In this version, it’s the guy who’s the cat.

Then here comes “Soul Deep”. Real nice lap steel guitar by John Groover McDuffie. Tom Petty would probably have a hit with this.

“I know where you end is the start of me.”

The title song is pure Louisiana  barroom rock.  How can trouble make you feel so good.

“I don’t go looking for trouble. Trouble comes looking for me.”

But the absolute gem of the album is “How Can I Miss You When You’re Not Gone?” Keeps the Cajun going and the irony can’t be missed.. The song is repeated as a “front porch” instrumental with banjo and fiddle to finish out the album.  But the first version will make you dance alone if there’s no one to dance with.

“Hey Marie” reaches way back to the 1950s to what Don and Phil Everly might have cut with Chuck Berry if songs could have been so damn bad back then without being censored or masqueraded. Chuck knew how to do that.

Marie writes on the wall: “Had a real good time. Don’t bother to call.”  Years later he sees their history “while standing in the grocery line.”

This little album is so good we might not deserve it. But it’s here this summer.

Noah Preminger

Haymaker (Palmetto Records)

Something special your way comes on May 14.

Noah Preminger, like Hemingway, boxes.  And like Hemingway he’s clear and concise.  He wants you to get it without the merely decorative and overly descriptive.  Here, here it is. Hear it.

On Haymaker, his tenor sax is moody and reflective at times — think Hawkins — as on the opening tune “Morgantown.”  Lovely and cool at other times — as on “Tomorrow,” whether you liked the musical Annie or not.

All saxophones played well are great to me, but tenor is the most satisfying; expressive and deeply touching. It’s why Kerouac called players of the instrument “tenorman.” They were special. Still are.

There are good songs all over the place. Preminger can’t remember what girl he wrote “My Blues for You” for, so it’s for all the girls you’ve loved.  Ben Mondor’s guitar solo picks up Preminger’s mood but it almost hurts when his horn breaks off.

Monder steps out front in the intro to his composition “Animal Planet.” Real smooth. Then Preminger comes in with such melodic lines.  A real favorite of mine.

On “Stir My Soul” and elsewhere, drummer Colin Stranahan sometimes annoys with his insistent pounding.  Oh, he’s good but he doesn’t need to fill every available space.  More Charlie Watts, less Keith Moon, please. Or listen to the next album (see below).

Still, he’s fine on the Dave Matthews song “Don’t Drink the Water.” The band makes you feel so good here as they start real smooth, go off into space and then return to the song’s melody.

“Motif Attractif” is a sweet little sendoff to close the album.

Preminger’s playing — ascending, descending, roaming, retuning — is just so sensitive to tonality, melody, timing and the other musicians that he is special to hear.

A haymaker in boxing can produce a knockout all on its own.

 Terri Lyne Carrington

Money Jungle Provocative in Blue (Concord Blue)

Shoot for the top.  Can’t hurt and it might work.

Drummer supreme Terri Lyne Carrington does just that with a reworking of Duke Ellington’s remarkable trio recording Money Jungle with Charles Mingus and Max Roach.  She gathers up the superb piano of Gerald Clayton and bassist Christian McBride with a few others and nails it.

I’m kinda late reviewing this album that came out during the winter but it got buried in the stack and just has to be paid homage to the way she pays homage to Ellington.

Even when she throws in a few of her own songs she seems true to the Duke.  I think he would have liked them. A lot.  And Clayton gets his own cut, “Cut Off,” which also resonates as a true Ellington descendant.

But the Ellington tunes, oh yeah.  A money hating downer narrative leading us into the album is overridden by the joyousness of the music that follows.  Clayton’s piano complemented just perfectly by Carrington’s drumming. She understands that the spaces are as important as the hits.

The only jarring note in the tune “Money Jungle” is the music being interspersed with speech clips from various politicians.  Doesn’t do much for me.  Money may be the enemy of art, but try paying the rent without the coin from gigs and recordings.  Politicians don’t do anything for art or anyone.  They don’t make things better for anybody but themselves.

But back to Ellington’s music.  “Fleurette Africain” demonstrates beautifully Mingus’ quote in the liner notes about simplicity.

“Anybody can play weird; that’s easy (and) making the simple complicated is commonplace.  What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach.  Making the simple, awesomely simple… That’s creativity.”

You’ll get it when you hear it.  Simple. Note to note. Chord to chord. Builds, weaves but always simple.  You hear every bit of it.

Same with “Backward Country Boy Blues,” with “Switch Blade,” with all of the Ellington compositions so lovingly handled here.

The wrap comes with “Rem Blues/Music” and the recitation of an Ellington poem within.

“Music is a woman . ..

When you think what you think,

She already knows”

Terri Lyne knows.

* * * * * * * *

To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Record Rack: Spin Doctors, Bracher Brown and Quattro

            Sometimes a Reviewer’s Just Lucky

            Three Very Different Albums Connected Only by Their Excellence

 By Brian Arsenault

 Spin Doctors

If the River Was Whiskey (Rufus Records)

If you’re a ‘90’s kid, chances are you can still remember the words to Spin Doctors’ “Pocket Full of Kryptonite” and that favorite guy anthem to the hated former girl friend/bitch, “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong.”  I mean was there ever a nastier tune on hit radio and was a band bigger than Spin Doctors in the era?

So 25 years down the road, what is a listener to expect? Maybe not expected, but one sizzling blues album is what you get.

Hey, you can’t be a teen band forever, but these guys can do this till they’ve been around a half century.

“If the River Was Whiskey, (you’d) have no trouble drowning me.”  Hell of a lyric, hell of a song.

Chris Barron’s voice is deeper than in the early days. Whiskey? Cigs? Or just the passage of time. It works.

And Eric Schenkman’s guitar can flash it like he’s playing for Billy Boy Arnold, or do the slow hand. The rhythm section of Aaron Comess on drums and Mark White on bass are tight as can be.

The whole band is.

There’s some Howlin’ Wolf (title song) here and some Allman Brothers feel (“Scotch and Water Blues”)  as well.  Yet the Spin Doctors are their own self.

On tunes like “What My Love?” it’s real hard to sit still. “Scotch and Water Blues” just builds and builds and “About a Train” has a nice Delta flavor suitable for roadhouses.

The album makes you ache a bit for smoky bars smelling of beer and less savory stuff.  But the playing is real clean.

Bracher Brown

Broken Glass and Railroad Tracks (Rock Ridge Music, digital only)

A tough old businessman of Irish heritage that I knew and valued until his death said that one of the worst prejudices was that a young person couldn’t do a good job, maybe better.

So here comes Bracher Brown who makes you think that if the Beatles had been born in America under 20 years ago, this is what they might have sounded like.  Intelligent lyrics about the start of love, the end of love, the desire for love. Rhythms that we used to call infectious.  Seductive guitar licks.

“Singing songs about what life was supposed to be.”

Young but not untested in the furnace of life.

 “Haven’t slept in days but I’m all right.”

Even acquainted with absence that may be death –

“living with your ghost.”

And a love song — “Loving You” — that rings true; a song about what he knows about life at 18 that’s not to be patronized.  After all, we may never know more, we may just shut down and call it experience.

He’s not shut down at all. Thank goodness.

Quattro

Poppzzical  (Quattro Sound)

Ok, so you know there are four of them on Poppzzical. Mixed gender (two of each), mixed ethnicity, mixed musical backgrounds.  So, of course, all American in all our splendid, confusing mishmash of cultures that often produces remarkable music.

There’s a violin, often gypsy-like (Lisa Dondlinger). She can play for Pavarotti or Dancing with the Stars.

There’s a cello, also an amazing Latin influenced voice (Giovanna Moraga Clayton). Uh, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, New West Symphony).

Are you starting to get the picture?  They can match the exuberance of their own crafted “Good Day” — “try to bring me down will be time wasted” — with some Vivaldi done as classical sound with jazz shifts.

There’s a guitar which can lead and support, strum and sing (Kay-Ta Matsuno) who can play for Baby Face or Natalie Cole and a whole bunch of other folks too numerous to name here.

Finally there’s percussion work born in Tijuana, Mexico (Jorge Villanueva) who’s played on movie scores, in Latino bands and co-owns a film and TV scoring company.

So, as you can imagine, there’s a lot going on in this album they’ve made.

“Silky” is happy and melancholy at the same time.  There’s a guitar solo that resembles a violin piece.  Or is that a violin with cello as bass. Or both.  Ha, I don’t care. It’s music that’s unique.  I can’t think of any assemblage that sounds like Quattro.

Their Spanish language soul and Latino dance music.  If I could samba I would have on “Mi Conguero.“  That may even be the wrong dance but it’s the right feeling.

The album closes with “Hana Bi” and the guitar and violin take flight together.  The cello soars after them.

And maybe that’s it: flying, soaring, breaking free of forms while paying homage to them. In a musical world of too much sameness, the individuality and creativity of this young group is not to be missed.

* * * * * * * *

To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Record Rack: The Rolling Stones and the Animals (Reissues)

Not Fade Away After Half a Century

 By Brian Arsenault

Vinylphiles rejoice.  If you still have a vinyl player that turns at 45 revolutions per minute, ABKCO has a very special treat indeed for you in honor of Record Store Day this Saturday (April 20).  Remarkably, there are 700 independent record stores still around in the USA and most still sell vinyl as well as CDs. On Saturday, you can pick up some Rolling Stones and Animals recordings previously issued only in the UK in 1964 and ‘65.

I wonder how many people alive today have never even seen a 45 let alone listened to one. I’m betting most under 50 – 55.  And an extended play (EP) mono 45? Extraordinary.

But even if the recording arcana bores ya, the music won’t, especially the Stones early work.

 The Rolling Stones

Five by Five (Reissue by ABKCO Music and Records)

How genuine these kids played, working to stay true to the rhythm and blues of their idols.  This was before the Stones became “the world’s greatest rock n roll band,” before Brian Jones died after alienating just about everybody else in the group, long ahead of Bill Wyman getting bored with the whole thing and retiring.

Five songs by the five guys (plus one abused “member”) recorded at the famed Chess Records in Chicago during their first American tour.  Richards recently said that bands should record in the midst of tours when they’re “hot.”

There’s heat here from the jumping version of Chuck Berry’s “Around and Around” to the bouncing instrumental “2120 South Michigan Avenue” led by the fine organ work of Ian Stewart who was bounced out of the band for the wrong look and “six was too many.”

Until his death in 1985, Stewart is all over Stones’ recordings and concerts but was never accorded band member status.  Pete Best wasn’t the only casualty of the marketing of these early “British Invasion Bands” and Oldham was as big a jerk and control freak as Epstein.

But back to the music.

Jagger drags and drawls his way distinctively through “If You Need Me,” written by the truly wonderful and under appreciated Wilson Pickett. “Confessin the Blues” can now be played along black blues classics without a bit of hesitation.  It’s that good.

The album makes you ache for stuff this true to the form.  Maybe on their new world tour they could tuck Five by Five into the middle of the set somewhere and do all five.  Of course, they’re only four now because the bass player doesn’t get to be a real member. Ah, show biz.

 The Animals

 the animals is here

the animals are back (both reissues by ABKCO Music and Records)

In the same 1964-65 period that the Stones did “Five by Five,” the Animals issued two mono EPs in the UK and were sprung from some of the same roots, black blues and r&b with maybe a bit more attention to folk.

At least one major folk song so old its exact roots are unknown and argued about:

The magnificent “House of the Rising Sun” propelled the Animals to a status approaching the Beatles and the Stones.  Really, this one hit — transferring a fallen life from a poor young girl to a downtrodden guy — provided Eric Burdon with a format that would remain unequalled in his career. Alan Price on organ was the perfect complement to Burdon’s vocal and the song sent the band’s popularity through the roof.

The band wasn’t as good musically as the Stones; their instrumental breaks were very ordinary and closer to pop.  They seem at times a bit cheesy now except on “I’m Crying” where Price’s organ is again strong. But boy that Eric could sing.

On the animals are back he does a great cover of the immortal Sam Cooke’s “Bring it on Home to Me.”  No one could do it as well as Sam, but Burdon came close and brought his own deep soulful style to it.

The Animals achieved a second surge of popularity in the USA (and Viet Nam) with “We’ve Gotta Get Out of this Place,” which inexplicably became an anthem at the dances of privileged college kids, and very understandably among grunts hoping not to die in Nam. Again, Burdon’s deep resonant voice is just perfect to express the longing of British working class kids.

He’s also strong on “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” when it seemed he might be a great blues singer in the making.  But thematically, this fine song seems now to have been a preview of Burdon’s self absorption with being the coolest guy in the world.  Didn’t happen, but boy could he sing.  And he still can.

(BTW, never could find out why they fixed the plural subject-verb agreement in the second album. Of course, if you view “The Animals” as a singular noun, then it’s the second album that’s ungrammatical. Oh well.)

* * * * * * * *

To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

CD Review: Charles “CD” Davis and Friends

Charles “CD” Davis

24 Hour Blues (Blues House Records)

By Brian Arsenault

If I told you Eddy Arnold’s torch song “You Don’t Know Me,” done as a big band blues  number on Charles Davis’ 24 Hour Blues is but one of this album’s delights, would you buy it?  You should.

In this dickless era of the Justins and the emasculating Taylor Twitt, there is still music with balls. There is still the blues.  And Davis — former guitarist for the late Calvin Owens — has assembled a remarkable ensemble.  An ensemble, including two great chick singers, to show that the blues and real Eros are not dead yet.

If you missed this album, as I did when it first appeared in late 2011, be grateful that it’s being “reserviced” as Davis gains recognition.  Ironically, he’s been nominated for a “best new blues artist” award. I mean he played with Owens’ band for a decade, but recognition is merited.

This album has a big band blues core, but it also echoes with road house small blues combos, classic acoustic blues, even big jazz bands. On the aforementioned “You Don’t Know Me,” the horn section does some backing of the vocal like it was an Ellington piece.

Charles “CD” Davis

Davis plays in several styles, all clean as Tide washed.  A personal favorite is his acoustic blues guitar work on “Lonely Man” while Jabo (the Prince of Texas Zydeco) sings an echo of Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee and Muddy.  And is that a twelve string Davis is playing?

He saves his truly electric blues masterpiece for last on “Blues for My Father” where he starts with a true slow hand.  Restraint, holding back, building tension, Anthony Sapp’s magic bass underneath. Building, building. Neal Cassidy would have lost his mind.

Then soaring, stratospheric speed but always, always so controlled.  Not many can do that.  I think the organ comes in near the end because the guitar burst into flames.  At least any more and it might have killed.

And the vocals. Oh Lord, we have winners throughout.

On “Minor Thing,” Roberta Donnay is as jazzy as she is with a trumpet underneath like a ‘50s noir film. Tasty guitar solo by Davis. Earlier she raises the album’s temperature on the classic “That’s How I Learned to Sing the Blues.”

Speaking of heat, Trudy Lynn’s “It’s Tight Like That” reminds us that not everything on a blues album is G Rated, or PG, or even R maybe.  The band sings choruses sort of like — but not exactly like — a ‘40s big band backing the lead singer. But this is no “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” here. She is intemperate, thank goodness. Or badness.

The guys are good too. Already mentioned Jabo, who also shines on “Help Me Baby,” a juke joint jump, and “Old Fashioned Woman,” which slides along like an otter down a chute. Rue Davis provides some smooth vocals to complement the deep, growly Jabo here and takes the lead on others. Rue’s the guy who redefines how you’ll ever think about “You Don’t Know Me” again.

And Charles Davis is all over this album.  He wrote or co-wrote several of the songs, arranged the album, even put it out on his own label.  His guitar playing alone would have been enough, as well as his clear affection for the big band blues of which Owens was perhaps the greatest. The Owens band is well represented here.

Even better, Davis doesn’t feel the need to always put himself out front. He complements, doesn’t dominate, the vocals.  He lets horns lead when they should, singly and in concert. There’s even a great violin lead or two.

There’s too often this tendency to talk of the blues in the past.  Too many “last of the great bluesmen” obituaries as we try to pay tribute to the originators.  “CD” on this CD shows us that the blues present is about as good as anything can be.

* * * * * * * *

To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Record Rack: Barry Altschul, Troy Roberts, Renee Yoxon and Mark Ferguson

The Old, the Young and the Silver Tongue

By Brian Arsenault

Barry Altschul

The 3Dom Factor   (TUM Records)

On the occasion of his 70^th birthday, Barry Altschul proves that the passing years haven’t slowed his drumming or dimmed his compositional skills. Economy of motion and precision of thought seemingly take the place of youthful exuberance and energy, though he doesn’t lack for those qualities either. I remember seeing Buddy Rich in a Holiday Inn lounge, of all places, late in his career with a group of younger musicians making a glorious sound with his drums while he appeared to hardly move.

Along with Charles Lloyd’s recent album, Hagar’s Song, in celebration of his 75^th birthday,  this album demonstrates that all of us aging past even extended adolescence can revel in the promise of extended creativity. Hopefully, anyway.

Two songs of many worth mentioning:

“Irina” opens with romantic, stylish sax playing by Jon Irabagon that turns in on itself, then is superseded by a bass solo by Joe Fonda that inverts yet again, then here comes a melodic sax once more. And drums, always drums underneath, filling silences, stepping forward then back.

“Oops” brings us Caribbean drum rhythms.  No, wait, the drumming moves further back, to Africa.  Altschul’s solo is mesmerizing. The sax comes in and you awaken. Where are we?  Lots of ideas floating around here. This sea is deep.

This album spans songs from Altschul’s career right up to the present. He hasn’t missed a beat. For technical insights beyond my range, there are Bill Shoemaker’s fine liner notes, like a short course in jazz evolution.

Troy Roberts

Nu-Jive 5  (XenDen Music)

While a veteran drummer leads a great trio, Australian-born saxophonist Troy Roberts heads up a combo that numbers the Nu-Jive 5 title with a cover that sort of looks like a dorm picture.  And I mean no disrespect.  This collection of young guys can play like crazy in support of Roberts.

Tim Jago on guitar makes a particularly strong impression, but they’re all good. Everyone gets a lead and every one holds his own.

Troy without question.  You’ll hear traces of Hawkins and Parker but you get the sense that the day will come when it’ll be said of a new tenor sax player that he reminds one of Roberts.

Roberts’ spaces between notes on a song like “One Day Wonder” makes you want more, like a fine glass of red wine after each sip. Ahhh. And he teases with surprise motion on “Mono Stereos.” Oh we’re going here, there.  Oh, ok, I‘ll try to keep up.

There are shifts of mood from the soft and melodious to brassy (as in bold) solos for all on “Night on the Town” where you’ll feel like you’re having one. You might even wish that Roberts was a bit more selfish on the solos because the band just lights up when he breaks in.

It’s all good.

Renée Yoxon and Mark Ferguson

Here We Go Again (Renée Yoxon)

I know, I know.  Regular readers of my reviews must be thinking “are there really so many fine female jazz singers on the scene right now?”  Well, there are and anyone who’s listened to the Ottawa silver bell named Renée Yoxon, who also writes great lyrics, knows it’s true again.

Add the plus that she and pianist, composer and arranger Mark Ferguson are just so  compatible that it seems they’re a permanent band rather than a single (hopefully not) collaboration.

And oh the lyrics: drinking morning after coffee with “the hope the hurt gets swallowed on the way.” Watching a lover “while you take off your disguise.” “But while the lights are low, Don’t go.”

Something here may enter the Great American Songbook, maybe more than one. No offense, Canadians, I know she’s yours but you don’t have to be from the States to craft such a song.

She sings. Ferguson plays. A great trumpet, Craig Pedersen, and a great sax, Frank Lozano, come and go just when they should. And she sings. Even when it’s just notes, no words, on the album’s bossa nova tribute, “Sao Paulo.”

She sings.

To read more reviews, posts and commentary by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Record Rack: Tine Bruhn & Johnny O’Neal, Jackie Ryan and Karen Souza

Three Queens, All Aces

By Brian Arsenault

This is a time of remarkable female jazz singers.  So many who are so good. Undoubtedly changes in social mores have increased the pool of women willing to run the risks of being a jazz singer and the industry‘s willingness to accept them. But I think there’s more than a sociology treatise here. I think there’s magic involved, as there was with the surge in bop jazz musicians in the late 40s and great rock in the second half of the sixties. Leave it to others to explain. We get to enjoy.

 Tine Bruhn & Johnny O’Neal:

 nearness (Burner Records)

Think of a time when a singer simply stood next to the piano.  She sings, he plays and, oh yeah, there’s a great tenor sax on some songs. Now’s the time and Tine Bruhn makes the most of it with the marvelous jazz pianist Johnny O’Neal and young sax player, Stacy Dillard. She’s deep into the American songbook of Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer and others and she has the remarkable ability to make each song hers by the end.  “The Nearness of You,” from which the album title is drawn, is simply seven and a half minutes of bliss.  If an album can glow with light, this one does.

Jackie Ryan with John Clayton & Friends:

 Listen Here (Open Art Productions)

Jackie Ryan, I think, could sing just about anything and on this album she just about does. Jazzy, bluesy, in English and in Spanish, old classics and new compositions. Her “I Loves You Porgy” is nearly overwhelming. Hell, it is overwhelmingly beautiful. So is band mate John Clayton’s “Before We Fall In Love,” lyrics by the great Bergmans to touch the soul. Sidemen? You want sidemen: Gerald Clayton on piano, Graham Dechter on guitar, Gilbert Castellanos on a trumpet born in Mexico and journeyed to American jazz. More. I’m not even sure this is a jazz album. Not completely.  Jackie kind of defies categories.  She’s music.

 Karen Souza:

Hotel Souza (Music Brokers)

We begin in a Paris hotel with an affair, “prisoners of desire” wondering “how did it get this far.” It goes on like that. For the whole album. Sexuality in song. Longing, desire, surrender. This hotel where “I’ve Got it Bad” for “Delectable You” even if you’ll “Break My Heart.” Her version of Marvin Gaye’s “Heard it Through the Grapevine” is 110 degrees in the shade. Phew, well Marvin was about heat after all.  Yet underneath all the physical attraction and consummation there is a sadness at the impermanence of affairs and attraction. In the end, you have to “Lie to Me.”

To read more reviews, posts and columns from Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Record Rack: Gerald Clayton, Steve Kuhn and Roberta Piket

Pianos On The Loose

By Don Heckman

 Gerald Clayton: Life Forum (Concord Music)

I’ve been listening to and marveling at the playing of Gerald Clayton since he was displaying all the makings of a unique jazz artist while still a teen-ager.  Now 28, with three Grammy nominations, his credentials have been thoroughly established, and never more so than on this far-ranging set of performances.  Working with his regular associates – bassist  Joe Sanders and drummer Justin Brown – he moves confidently and inventively through a compelling collection of intriguing original works.  Clayton’s rich imagination reaches out to embrace the contributions of saxophonists Logan Richardson and Dayna Stephens, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, vocalists Gretchen Parlato and Sachal Vasandani and poet Carl Hancock.  That’s a diverse collection of musical sounds, styles and substance – a challenge fully met by a pianist well on his way toward the top of his field.

Steve Kuhn: The Vanguard Date (Sunnyside)

With a track record that reaches from John Coltrane in the ‘60s into the multi-hued present, Steve Kuhn has been a pianist whose creative accomplishments embrace the entire jazz spectrum, from bebop to avant-garde.  The Vanguard Date, first released in 1986 on the Owl label is a stunning display of Kuhn in his fully mature mode, moving with utter confidence from the grooving bop of Tadd Dameron’s “Superjet” to the soaring lyricism of his own “Lullaby.” At the heart of the program — his virtually symbiotic interaction with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Al Foster.

Roberta Piket: Solo (Thirteenth Note Records)

The rich thoughtfulness that characterizes Roberta Piket’s inventive improvising is immediately apparent on the first track of Solo, in which she plays a darkly moody version of “I See Your Face Before Me” in a style reminiscent of Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1.  Her previous three albums have ranged through strings and woodwinds, electric instruments and the classic piano trio.  But this time out she approaches the piano in the classic solo sense, as a virtual orchestra in itself.  In the process she brings new light to such familiar jazz lines as “Monk’s Dream” (in two variations), Chick Corea’s “Litha,” Wayne Shorter’s “Nefertiti” and Duke Ellington’s “Something To Live For.”  Add to that a lyrical rendering of “Estate” and a final, gently blues-driven piece by her father, Frederick Piket.  The result, in sum, is an intriguing overview of a jazz pianist who still hasn’t quite received the ovations that her unique talents deserve.

Brian Arsenault’s Short Takes: CD Reviews of Luis Munoz, The Sweet Remains and Chris Potter

Of the Allure of Light, Harmony and Sirens (the dangerously beautiful ones)

By Brian Arsenault

Luis Munoz

Luz  (Pelin Music)

If she won’t kiss you while this plays and the lights are down, things just aren’t going to work out.

Percussionist, composer and arranger Luis Munoz in Luz (Light) brings us beautiful instrumentation, often in unique combinations, and two Latin singers to run away with if the girl above just won’t warm.

Laura Hackstein‘s violin, that sometimes sounds like an accordion (honest) plays duet with the round notes of Jonathan Dane’s trumpet on “Amarilis,”  Teka Peterniche holds notes so long and perfectly on “Al Silencio” that her voice morphs into a muted cornet. (There’s one of those on the album as well.)

Strengths come in twos a couple times on this album.  Magos Herrera is the other fine vocalist featured. She brings so much warmth to “Testamento/Mass Alla,” Munoz’s tribute to wife Holly Ann. This is where you should get at least one kiss.

On Vals De La Luz, one pianist takes the first solo and a different pianist the second.  How often have you heard that on a jazz album?

I’m resisting the perhaps not inaccurate description Latin jazz, because while Munoz was born in Costa Rica and certainly brings a Latin sensibility to his work, I always feel that such terms put music in a box.  OK, that’s Latin jazz and that’s African pop, and so on, is so inadequate in an age when musicians are affected by so many cross currents. I mean there’s a pedal steel guitar on this album.

And tell me, do Hackstein, Friedenthal and Judge sound like Latin names to you? Methinks Munoz picks his musicians for their depth, not their point of national origin.

The Sweet Remains

North & Prospect (Sweet Remains Inc.)

Sweet is the right name for this sorta folky rocky trio and their three part harmonies on North & Prospect.  Think sunny summer afternoon in your favorite park and some band somewhere between C,S&N and America (or acoustic Eagles) just seems to go right.

You hear all kinds of familiar touches with these guys.  A bit of Jackson Browne, a dash of Dicky Betts, a sprinkle of Hall & Oates.  But part way through it struck me that you hear bits of so many others because there just isn’t anything that distinctive going down.

A little edginess would also be welcome.

There are some fine tunes here, though. “1000 Little Pieces” is the closest thing to a true rocker and more of such on the album would have been welcome. C,S&N could cover this one to great effect.

“Sweet Love” is not saccharine, it’s longing. And they push the harmonic combinations more than on most of the tunes.  More of that also, please.

There’s also something curiously out of time about Sweet Remains.  Early 70s, yeah that’s it. Maybe they were born later than planned.

But the biggest miss on the album is their rendition of the Beatles/Lennon tune “Come Together.” I’d have thought they’d have chosen something more like “Blackbird.” They funk up “Come Together” a little bit but I was disinterested by the end as they seem to miss its psychedelic derelict edge.

As they say, “Don’t look too close because the cracks appear.” Still, I can feel that summer day and breathe in the air and the fine harmonies together and be pleased.

Chris Potter

The Sirens (ECM Records)

Well, how brave is it to take on Homer and his Odyssey in a modern jazz interpretation?  Pretty damn courageous, I’d say.

Of course with Ulysses’ journey one has to start with the sea, in this case the “Wine Dark Sea” that appears only right before or right after a storm. Wayfinder Hermes points the way to other ports in and out of the storm.

It’s the females of the Odyssey who get the most attention here.  The Sirens call, as does Penelope.  But for different reasons.

Kalypso uses her wiles to keep Ulysses on her island, some say for a year. others say for several. But bigger gods intervene and she must let him go.

And the more demure and reflective Nausikka, daughter of a king, admires brave Ulysses but knows he has to journey home, finally, to butcher the suitors and be reunited to the faithful Penelope.

Potter’s saxophone, as ably supported as Ulysses by his crew, tells all these stories and more.

A very serious recording but a richly beautiful one as well. And are there more of the books of the Odyssey ahead?

To read more reviews, posts and columns from Brian Arsenault click HERE

CD Review: Charles Lloyd and Jason Moran — “Hagar’s Song”

Hagar’s Song (ECM Records)

By Brian Arsenault

For his 75^th birthday, Charles Lloyd has released a most beautiful album, Hagar’s Song, with pianist Jason Moran. Stated simply, if you listen to many albums over many months you will not find beauty of this recording’s equal.

Perhaps Lloyd has reached a point in his lengthy and luminous career that he knows when he picks up one of his saxophones or flutes that beauty is enough.  It is.

Charles Lloyd

Whether it’s Billy Strayhorn’s “Pretty Girl” or Brian Wilson’s “God Only Knows,” Duke Ellington’s  classic “Mood Indigo” or Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” (a different kind of classic), Lloyd pays homage to great songs and expands our sensibility every time.

His playing of “You’ve Changed” made me think of Billie Holiday, then just made me thoughtful, then just made me still for a few minutes.  That’s rare.

He dedicates “I Shall Be Released,” made famous by The Band, to Levon Helm and calls him a “very soulful man.”  To use the cliché accurately, it takes one to know one.

Lloyd is not one of those stand offish, only my music matters, kind of artists. He’s played with everyone from Howlin’ Wolf to Cannonball Adderley to the Beach Boys to Keith Jarrett to Robbie Robertson and he brings an appreciation of all he’s heard to this piece of work.  Yet it is all still him, a unique and distinguished musician.

And using Moran as his “band” only enhances the notes between spaces.  When the album arrived, I thought, no bass, no drummer.  How will this work?  It works, forgive the overuse, beautifully.

Jason Moran

.

Moran provides “percussion” and bass with his notes and chords and also terrific alternate leads between the silences and Lloyd‘s solos. No mean challenge when the horn player weaves magic at every turn, which can be three right turns in a row, Lloyd tells us.

The background release accompanying the advance of the album quotes Ornette Coleman as saying a few years ago that “Charles is playing really beautiful [there’s that word again].  He’s expressing the qualities of what we experience. Trying to make a contribution to the quality of life. . .”

That’s about right.

With all the respect addressed above, conscience requires me to say that I find the least satisfying and least accessible part of the album what Lloyd probably considers the centerpiece, “Hagar Suite.”  This is his five part tribute to his great-great grandmother who was snatched away from her parents at the tender age of 10 to be sold to a plantation owner in another state who eventually impregnatee her.

Lloyd knows that however horrible slavery itself, the most horrifying part is to remove a child from her parents at such a young age. The individual matters most to a true humanitarian.

Perhaps because it is such a personal vision, Lloyd moves at times into contemplations that are so much his own the listener must perforce stand outside.  Or perhaps more listens are required.

I can’t escape the notion, though, that the suite is perhaps the basis of an American symphony and should have been so treated in an album of its own. The great American songs on the album. drawn from so many sources, are what makes it so remarkable in my mind.

.

That’s for each listener to determine, of course.  Beauty is after all in the eye of the beholder, to quote one source, and beauty is what pleases, to quote another.

Wondrous and precious stuff here.

* * * * * * * *

 Jason Moran photo by Tony Gieske. 

To read more reviews, posts and columns from Brian Arsenault click HERE