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Bobby
Charles
Secrets
Stony Plain
1240
Charles
waxed several hits in the New Orleans style in the early sixties,
brought the style to Chess Records to little notice, made a terrific
and long unavailable date for Bearsville in 1969 and then disappeared.
A sunny and earthy singer, his downhome music reappears almost three
decades later right where he left off. This is a beguiling record:
heartfelt and informal. It's unselfconsciously rootsy and informed
by an experienced sensibility never world weary, and often irrespressible.
L.S. Ellis
Children in
Peril Suite
Music and Arts
1016
Jazz
has come alive now that 'modern jazz' has quietly died, having not
delivered a new prophet. (Meanwhile, never has its cutting edge
been sharper.) The verities of instant creation are honed to a fine
edge on this superb date by bassist L.S. Ellis: he's assembled daring
players around his darkly melodic, sober themes and architectural
structures and tuned the interplay to maximize the dramatic interleaving
of solo and ensemble texture; music Rembrandt-like in its richness.
Gilberto
Gil
O Sol De Oslo
Blue Jackel
5031
Unceasing
wonders of the musical world: Gil, one of the greatest of Brazilian
musicians, here is captured live with a multi-national trio creating
razor sharp realizations of new music as well as radical refigurat
ions of a few of his older compositions. Kinetic and daring, and
a rhythmic feast, this counts as one of Gil's best records; this
simply means it is indispensable, glorious...literally scintillating.
Allan Toussaint
Connected
NYNO 9601
Toussaint's
warming strengths now seem ageless: sophisticated melodies swung
to a slowed down second line. Effortlessly sunny, the legendary
pianist and tunesmith makes children's music for uninhibted adults.
This is deep New Orleans soul music way too wise to appeal to new
jackers. Toussaint's fearless sensuality is too bright to urge bedroom
thoughts, this is music for those who can express affection in the
great outdoors.
Barbara
Gogan with Hector Zazou
Made On Earth
Crammed 91
Let's
make a pop record by formulating our attack from the opposite of
whatever is fashionable. In fact, let's pretend the Bristol sound
is dub, not drum and bass. We'll put a silver bullet through the
ghost of Brian Wilson by chilling all the fancy modulations. It'll
be an orchestral record but to hell with the orchestra. As soon
as the unsuspecting listener is done auditioning our singularly
anti-ironic masterpiece he or she will be compelled to play it again
to try to figure out what happened...and how. Basically, Portishead
for grown-ups.
Vienna Art
Orchestra
Twenty-fifth
Anniversery
Verve-Amadeo
537095
What
a brilliant record! Three totally different discs encapsulating
the huge range the VOA's inside-outside music encompasses. Probably
inside-outside means to you the continuum of mainstream-to-free
improv, but for the VOA it represents how this big band travels
several other fruitful continuums, from inside jazz to outside it,
and from inside the avant-garde to a somewhere else distinctly "VOA-ish".
Call the VOA's music and the sensibility of leader Mathias Ruegg
'circumferential' and then revel in a wonderful series of transcriptions
of Eric Dolphy solos on his own compositions, and then onto the
disc highlighting ambitious realizations of original material before
settling in with the piece de resistance, a record joining the orchestra
with ten of the greatest singers in the world, highlighted by appearance
from the late Betty Carter, the marvelous Helen Merrill, and the
neglected and underrecorded Linda Sharrock. Obviously, a sublime
date well worth any hunting you'll have to do to find it.
(The only downside to this record is how hard it is to obtain in
the US. Kudos to Cheap Thrills in Montreal for tracking it down
for me; perhaps they can do the same for you. )
D.J. Q Bert
Wave Twisters
Galactic
Butt Hairs 7
This,
amidst stiff scratch and paste competition, is the finest full length
turntablistic outing I've yet heard. Above the jaw dropping virtuosity
of the foremost skratch pickle, there is a unity of concept and
an abundance of humor here. It's over the top in the best way: Q
Bert has proved turntable antics don't have to be either so abstract
or so hard as to negate the zappaesque sensibility part and parcel
of the dada fundamental of two turntables and shards of other people's
music.
Orchestre
de National Barbes
En Concert
Tinder 285319
North
African funk rules. This tears the house down while domestic funksters
continue to try to pop the trunk lid. Driven by circular and melodic
vamps, its not only effectively a bull chasing mortal men, but is
evidence that the African high life made it across the desert. Without
any doubt, the most danceable rocking of the Casbah in recent memory.
The go go sound meets Fela in an after hours rai club...in Paris.
Forest Fang
The Blind Messenger
Rune 98
Ethnic
ambience is attractive: exotic, mellow, and richly detailed, at
its best, it is painterly music that holds up to repeat listening.
Fang's take is quixotic, however, and he holds down the experiemental
end of the continuum with a restless and jazzy questioning that
subverts his music's overt moodiness just when it obtains the familiar.
Because he's in the drift, unlike peers who nail down their moods
regionally, Fang is adept at drawing strands between farflung places.
His grooves rarely become languid. The strand he favors between
Bali and Egypt for instance evokes stuff nobody else is depicting
and it sounds like secret histories being unveiled.
Anne-Sophie
Mutter
Modern Works
Fopr Violin and Orchestra
DGG 485487
The
highlight on this two disc set of 20th century music for violin
and orchestra is Bartok's Second Concerto. Isthtak Perlman has always
been the standard bearer for this tremendous masterpiece, yet Sophie
Mutter's virtuosity serves a sensibility every bit as warm and engaged
with the earthy delights of the score as the great veteran's was
in his youthful recording with Andre Previn. Her exuberance is so
directly conveyed, much of this record's fire brought me out of
the seat. The other three sides are nothing short of masterful and
include exquisite readings of both the Stravinsky and Berg violin
concertos, as well as contemporary pieces from Lutoslawski and Wolfgang
Rihm.
Jose Serrano
/ Antonio "El Agujetas"
Two Cries of
Freedom
Roir 8246
Flamenco
starts at a fevered pitch and amplifies. This record of two convicts
who won a flamenco contest gets turned up a notch just because the
idea of unfettered soul behind bars is combustable. As long as were
dialing up the intensity, check out the last track in which they
engage in a flamenco cutting contest, you'll find the knob has no
where further it can go.
Idris Muhammad
Right Now
Cannonball 27105
One
of the main currents of jazz drumming is the organic 'small kit'
approach to making rhythm and swinging the band. Obviously, this
is where all jazz drumming started way back when, but it's increasingly
become a lost art as both forebearers like Jo Jones and Kenny Clarke
have faded from memory and some of the greatest modern proponents
of more-with-less like Ed Blackwell and Dennis Charles have passed
away. (Besides, big kits look cool.) Blackwell was from New Orleans
as is Idris Muhammad, and both drummers harken back to the snare
players in the second line with their limber, syncopated swing and
organic, naturalistic, conversational playing. Muhammad's new record
provides a rich snapshot of his mastery in solos interspersed with
duos featuring equally masterful reed players George Coleman, Joe
Lovano and Gary Bartz. These pared down formats are ideal for providing
an intimate taste of Muhammad's dancing touch and attractively austere,
yet deceptively complex style; a master at play, frosted with lots
of inspired horn revelry.
Lyle
Lovett
Step Inside
This House
MCA 11831
Thankfully,
Lyle can do what he wants even if it's a commercial sidestep back
toward his Texas roots. Here the mood is affectionate and intimate,
mellow really, and forthright as the Texas sky is blue. The pleasure
granted in its making conveys pleasurable listening. It's tempting
to assert this is the talented Lovett's finest record so far, and,
of course, he's made some great ones over the years.
Baaba Maal
featuring Mansour Seck
Djem Leelil
Palm Pictures
001
Absolutely
a classic recording reissued here with four new songs and buffed
up by a respectful remastering job. Maal's keening praisesong has
been recently embedded in extravagant pop peregrinations, but these
are austere settings that highlight the exceptional guitarwork and
vibrant swing of the principles. A cornerstone date that exemplifies
the traditional roots of Maal's Wolof music before the griot's muse
went international.
PAUL HASLINGER
Score
RGB 506
Well,
this is good! This music fights the cliches of both agendas antagonistic
to it, experimentalist and hip hop, by being finely wrought instead
of underwrought, richly textured instead of defiantly monochromatic,
and secretive instead of in-your-face. What you get is a somewhat
trip hoppy ambience abstracted by way of collage techniques and
Haslinger's mastery of synthesis in uncommon extraordinary fidelity.
Lots to gnaw on sonically...although maybe only the unjaded will
be able to enjoy!
Gerald Wilson
Orchestra
Theme for Monterrey
Mama Foudnation
1021
The
mainstream big band can never be killed off, dinosaur that it may
seem to be, as long as veteran arrangers and bandleaders such as
the estimable Wilson can gather the forces to swing and sweeten
his graceful, ambitious compositions. This is so far beyond the
insipid swing of the trend or the second hand slickness of the horrid
big band equivalent of the cover band, that the people who should
get hip to this, won't even know big scale swing is a mountain few
ever scale. Wilson has been there, looking down for years> Along
with only Bill Holman, Ross McConnell, and Toshiko Akiyoshi, he
makes definitive records every few years. This is one of those records,
and it is magnificent.
Djeli Moussal
Flamenkora
Melodie 66999
The
exodus of the Moors from Andalusia is echoed in this wonderful outing
that finds one terminus of that migration in West Africa. Gathering
up flamenco passion and formulating it within the griot's narrative
stance arrives at both a delicate and stirring music evocative of
the deep routes of those fused traditions. Obviously, the storylines
I'm not able to comprehend, so the pleasures of this record concern
its beautiful atmosphere and the refined virtuosity of Djeli Moussal
on acoustic guitar and kora, as well as his fine and reverential
voice.
Randy Weston
African Cookbook
Koch Jazz 8517
Khepera
Verve 557821
African
Cookbook, released originally as a limited edition in 1964 and
then later rereleased for a brief moment by Atlantic, back in that
label's jazz heyday, finally is back in circulation for all time,
hopefully. It folds together, wonderfully, a working ensemble with
Ray Copeland's arrangements of prime Weston compositions. What makes
the record very special and among Weston's finest (In a recording
output that is never less than excellent), is its being much more
than the sum of its marvelous parts, so that, for example, the stirring
tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin's volcanic eruptions fuse with the
percussion driven African-centric music to arrive at music that exceeds
even Ervin's high standard of spontaneity and creativity. Need I add:
essential music and one of the finest jazz records of the "Coltrane"
era.
Thirty-four years later, Weston loses a perfect record. Perfect in
the sense a bolt of lightning is perfect: spontaneous, awesomely powerful,
and directly channeling shocking energy from above. Weston's music,
similar to the few other syncretists who mix improvisation with ritual
traditions, has transcended the narrow catagory of Jazz. He's harnassed
fully the the sound science of Africa and wed its spiritual drum trance
with the fused glories of the spontaneously composing ensemble. Even
though the kingly Weston is among the most esteemed of creative music's
royalty, and despite the likelihood any new recording of his will
play favorably to my ears, his newest record definitely exceeds the
highest of such expectations. This is as good as recorded music gets.
(more to follow)
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