| Go! | | Posted Sunday, September 10, 2006 6:11:43 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Just before heading off to a 15-year stay in Europe, the stately Dexter Gordon waxed a pair of records for Blue Note in August 1962: this classic and, two days later, A Swingin' Affair. It's been widely reported that Gordon himself considered Go! his greatest achievement, and (if so) it's easy to hear why. Brimming with conviction and poise, Gordon's gentle-giant sax carries itself with a sort of graceful edge that is difficult to emulate. He's always quick with a humorous quote, yet it always seems to fit just right. He's always languishing behind the beat, yet he never seems late. He possesses an enormous tone, yet he never overwhelms the songs or the listener. He sounds unhurried at any speed. His song selection is typically creative, holding little-known ballads close to his brawny chest like a big, cuddly bear. A stellar rhythm section of the elegantly funky pianist Sonny Clark plus Butch Warren and Billy Higgins doesn't hurt either. --Marc Greilsamer ... | |
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| | | Piano Bar (Dig) | | Posted Friday, September 08, 2006 4:12:10 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | While not a soundtrack per se, this suite of songs was inspired by Claude Lelouche's And Now...Ladies and Gentlemen (2001). In the film, French singing star Patricia Kaas portrays a nightclub chanteuse suffering from a brain tumor who falls for a similarly afflicted thief (played by Jeremy Irons.) Given the plotline, it¹s not surprising that the tunes are drawn primarily from the classic chanson tradition. But strangely, Kaas interprets most of them in the maudlin English translations once favored by the Rat Pack, Rod McKuen, and Bobby Darin. Even so, and despite her consistently over-cautious phrasing, the vocals are attractively languid and husky, inflected with a dead-pan world-weariness that Marlene Dietrich would have recognized. However, it would be pleasant to hear Kaas essay this repertoire in a more intimate, warm-toned setting. As it is, her voice is periodically overwhelmed by echo plus poorly calibrated electric bass and keyboard lines. --Christina Roden... | |
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| | | Samba Bossa Nova | | Posted Tuesday, August 29, 2006 8:11:47 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | This eclectic compilation shows the syncopated and seductive evolution of the African-derived Brazilian samba and its offspring, the bossa nova. The CD features a new-wave series of moods and grooves tailor-made for the 21st century. There's angel-voiced Rosa Passos and her silky version of the Ary Barroso/Luiz Peixoto song "E Luxo So." Guitarist-vocalist Márcio Faraco's remake of Noel Rosa's samba-canção "Feitiço da Vila" is just as tasteful. The elegant, classically tinged Quarteto Jobim-Morelenbaum, led by cellist Jacques Morelenbaum, skillfully mixes Ravel-like harmonies with Afro-Brazilian beats on "Eu e o Meu Amor/Lamento No Morro" from the film Black Orpheus. The London-based group Da Lata swings the sacred syncopations of "Cores" in a club-friendly, secular rendition. And the talented Moreno Veloso, son of the great Caetano Veloso, turns in an intimate and atmospheric version of Olodum's "Deusa do Amor" (Goddess of Love). These tracks show that the bossa nova and the samba can still give us new musical surprises. --Eugene Holley Jr.... | |
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| | | Soul Station | | Posted Wednesday, August 16, 2006 6:11:58 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | This 1960 session broke the usual Blue Note quintet mold, with Mobley's tenor saxophone featured with just a rhythm section, one that happened to be the best of the era. Pianist Wynton Kelly and bassist Paul Chambers were working regularly with Mobley in Miles Davis's band, while the explosive drummer Art Blakey had worked with him in the original, cooperative form of the Jazz Messengers, and the familiarity shows. Blue Note had a reputation for producing "meat 'n' potatoes" jazz, and no musician would better fit the description than Mobley, who went about the task of making music with a workmanlike focus and a consistency that didn't attract nearly the attention it deserved. Mobley was one of the most talented saxophonists of his generation, a superbly lyrical artist who blended an inventive tunefulness with taut rhythmic attentiveness. The flowing blues of the title track is a particularly fine example of his art. And to say this session is exemplary would be an understatement. --Stuart Broomer... | |
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| | | African Playground | | Posted Monday, August 14, 2006 6:12:09 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | An entertaining and educational musical expedition to Africa for children and families! Putumayo's award- winning World Playground series of world music CDs for children travels to Africa, a continent that is exuberantly rich in music and culture. African Playground is filled with great songs by artists from Senegal to South Africa, including a previously unreleased track by world music superstar Angelique Kidjo. Children and their families will love the upbeat rhythms and appealing melodies on this musical tour. Parents and educators will appreciate the accessibly presented cultural information and musical fun facts. African Playground includes entertaining and informative multi- lingual liner notes, song lyrics, cultural information, a music glossary and colorful illustrations.... | |
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| | | Weeds: Music from the Original Series | | Posted Friday, August 11, 2006 6:11:46 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Weeds is a funny title for a show about a funny plant, so you can expect the soundtrack to have a good sense of humor too. It does. "Little Boxes" takes aim at suburban life, while, per usual, Nellie McKay uses her slightly precious sound to typical, sarcastic effect. Michael Franti & Spearhead's "Ganja Babe" and NRBQ's "Wacky Tobacky" capture the subject matter so well that listening could lead to a contact high. And tracks from the New Pornographers and Sufjan Stevens are there to remind us that Showtime knows What's Hot Now. Don't worry if you've never seen the show--you don't need to enjoy Weeds to appreciate this excellent compilation. Of course, there's no conclusive, scientific evidence of harm to those who do. --Leah Weathersby... | |
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| | | Ballads of the Green Berets | | Posted Wednesday, August 09, 2006 4:11:53 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Barry Sadler drove a sharp spike into the already polarized American psyche with his unabashedly patriotic and pro-Vietnam War chant "Ballad of the Green Berets," which rocketed to the top of the charts in 1966. Supporters of the war in Southeast Asia embraced "Ballad of the Green Berets" as an anthem; antiwar activists derided it as jingoistic, machismo garbage. In retrospect, they were both right. Sadler, a wounded and decorated Vietnam veteran, possessed a thin, stilted baritone better suited to recitations than actual singing (which there is actually very little of herein). As a songwriter, he was little more than one-dimensional. And, sadly, like so many veterans, Sadler's life seemed to slowly unravel after the war, and after the fleeting taste of fame that "Green Berets" afforded him. Though he continued to record and write soldier-of-fortune-style pulp war novels, he never had another hit. He died in 1989 after being shot in the head near his home in Guatemala, under mysterious and somewhat seedy circumstances. Oddly, though, when heard today, far removed from its emotion-charged original context, this scant, musically inconsequential collection of guts-and-glory odes and reminiscences takes on new meaning as a slender but vivid historical document from one of America's most divided and tumultuous epochs. --Bob Allen ... | |
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| | | Doin' the Do | | Posted Sunday, August 06, 2006 4:11:38 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | This terrific new album from David Berger and the Sultans of Swing not only provides great music for dancing, but arrangements which make subtle, cleaver and profound reference to the great big band jazz tradition. Berger's hand picked band constantly amazes and amuses with their ensemble work and great solos. This is happy music!... | |
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| | | Moanin' | | Posted Friday, August 04, 2006 2:11:41 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | This is truly one of the great classics of hard bop, with drummer Art Blakey leading arguably his greatest Jazz Messengers lineup through a driving program that never lets up. Tenor saxophonist Benny Golson (whose composition "Along Came Betty" is heard here, subsequently becoming a jazz classic), brilliant trumpeter Lee Morgan, and funky pianist Bobby Timmons (who wrote the hit title cut) each take some of the best solos of their great careers, and Blakey was never greater. No jazz record collection should be without this disc. It remains one of the premier items in Blue Note's catalog, and rightfully so. As part of Blue Note's 1999 60th anniversary celebration, original session producer Rudy Van Gelder's done a smash job remixing Moanin', adding warmth in the low end and far greater color across the spectrum. And the booklet opens like a gatefold LP with vintage black-and-white photos of the original session. --Skip Heller... | |
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| | | In The Mood For Love (2000 Film) | | Posted Tuesday, August 01, 2006 2:11:59 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Soundtracks are a mixed bag at best. Some are little more than an assortment of pieces, but others hang together effectively on their own, like this one. The idea of Chinese music--both popular and operatic--juxtaposed with the sounds of Nat King Cole performing Latin music might seem bizarre, but it works beautifully, sustaining a lush, romantic mood created both by the strings and the '40s Chinese music, itself a tinkling Hollywood pastiche. But as atmospheric as all this is, one track stands out above the others: "Blue," actually a version of the classic "St. James' Infirmary," takes on another dimension in Chinese hands. While familiar but completely alien at the same time, the slithering Asian sonorities mesh perfectly with the African-American form to create something evocative but with a sadness that goes beyond blues. The movie is of a time and place; the soundtrack is of a mood and yearning. Listen at night, with someone you love close by. --Chris Nickson... | |
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