title: Joyously incoherent

text: When considering this entry by Rock In Opposition group, Etron Fou Leloublan, recorded one year before the formal festival itself, some references may help.  It requires no great stretch of the imagination to conjure the image of the following.  Picture a more traditional rock fan hearing Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica for the first time, back when it was released.  What is this, the hypothetical listener may ask, jazz?  No.  Just Don Van Vliet.  The chaos and disorder would be difficult to distinguish from jazz for one who does not listen to the form, though.  One step further, or closer, depending on one’s frame of mind, is Rock In Opposition.  There is variation in what the various bands did, but Etron Fou Leloublan could get pretty out-there.  Abstract, and while one may hear some aesthetic similarities between Etron Fou Leloublan and some of those challenging earlier rock references, like Don, or Zappa, there really is more jazz in the form here.  Abstract to be sure, hints of free jazz, yet still tethered to rock in strange ways, and one listening to the instrumental work familiar with jazz as it was developing in the 1970s can hear the group building on some of the more adventurous sounds, along with spoken word, hints of Zappa’s hero, Edgard Varese (less well known than his appreciation for Stravinsky, but still important), and all of it showing why the 1978 festival needed to exist.  Les 3 Fous… is one strange album, and even what Zappa was doing around this time wasn’t as out-there.  Univers Zero, for example, put out 1313 the same year, which was still connected to Zappa, Crimson, a bit of Magma, and a few more grounded sounds, although still very adventurous.  They were honing their sound by increments.  Les 3 Fous… is bonkers in the best way.  The old line was, “it has a good beat, you can dance to it,” and if that’s what you want, you probably aren’t reading reviews of Rock In Opposition albums, but Etron Fou Leloublan moves in and out of coherent structures, threatening to decohere, if we can make that a word, at every moment.  Crunching one moment, joyous the next, noisily incomprehensible another.  Yet were that not the case, the tension that gives the music its fascination wouldn’t be there.  France gave a home to ex-pat jazz musicians throughout the 20th Century, when the US did not pay much attention to jazz, or the many geniuses it had produced.  For whatever reason, France saw value, and rightly so.  French jazz does not, and never has merely meant Django Reinhardt, and Etron Fou Leloublan embraced the range of what their country came to hold in trust for the world.  And the full bonkers-ness of trying to combine all of that, in a carnival-esque, madcap mindframe is what one can hear, one year before the actual Rock In Opposition festival, right here.  Don’t expect full coherence.  Find the coherence where it is, and find the tension where the music moves in and out of it.  Joyous, and joyously weird.


title: Subtle and elegant, it's all in the details

text:
The world of “Japanese math rock” is surprisingly crowded, or at least, surprisingly if one has not delved into it.  There can, unfortunately, be some homogeneity, as in any scene, along with wild divergence among the style’s most creative and rebellious proponents.  From Korekyojinn to mouse on the keys, and that’s all somehow linked together?  Sure, if we can call Louis Armstrong and Mahavishnu Orchestra part of the same genre.  Why not?  Finding a place that is somehow an accessible middle ground while still interesting, unique and different?  Quite a challenge.  On this all-too-brief (half hour) EP, JYOCHO manages the task.  On Days In The Bluish House, JYOCHO charts a kind of middle course, mostly sonically within the realm of groups like How to count one to ten, Mirror, and similar groups in that LITE/toe space (when those groups aren’t getting too experimental), yet they add just the right flourishes and details to stand apart.

Instrumentation and subtle arrangements.  They make the difference.  The template sound is as follows:  instrumentals, or possibly clean-plaintive vocals, with ultra-clean, linear electric guitars, backed by bass and drums.  The guitars should involve a lot of tapping.  Do that, and there’s your math rock template.  Garnish to preference.

So JYOCHO needs to break from that.  Vocals?  OK, the vocals do the plaintive, perhaps cloying thing, depending on one’s aesthetics, but that’s not the center of Days In The Bluish House.  This is a math rock album.  You have your electric guitars, which don’t lean heavily on tapping, but where it gets interesting is where the group shifts it up to acoustic, or overlays flute, and so forth.  Acoustic guitars are, perhaps, underused but not entirely unheard of in the genre, but they add a nice touch.  You’ll hear toe do this once in a while, and it really does bring out something beautiful.  And of course, when Yvette Young plays acoustic, that’s truly special.  JYOCHO mixes it up with some very intersting jazzy acoustic work, and then plays the electric off of… a flute.  Flutes, of course, have a history in rock, and while one need not revisit the great Jethro Tull award controversy, its incorporation into Japanese math rock is perfect.  In many ways, it is a more elegant choice than the violin, which some of Natsuki Kido’s projects have incorporated, and really incorporated brilliantly, but the combination isn’t quite as stark.  Jean-Luc Ponty, and all.  Violin has a place in fusion.  Rather, the flute brings out something more subtle to play against the tension in the musical structure.  That’s why flute-based jazz is frequently so oddly cool (see Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef, Nicole Mitchell, and others).

If you aren’t paying attention to how JYOCHO incorporates details like the flute, or using the acoustic when another band would just go straight electric-tapping, Days In The Bluish House could just sound like plenty of down-the-middle math rock bands of the Eastern variety.  Not wild, like Korekyojinn, not playing with modern concepts like toe, just accessibly elegant.  Yet it’s all in the details, and the details are right.


title: The future of jazz?  Sure, why not?

text: It’s Time is a truly refreshing album by Kahil El’Zabar.  While there is range and variation in his discography, to some degree, it can be a matter of degrees.  He has two primary projects.  There is the Ritual Trio, although there are usually guests who turn it into a functional quartet, changing the sound, and there is the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, and the overlap in sound is not insignificant.  He crosses between post-bop and his more signature African-influenced trance groove.  Small groups are the order of the day, most days, and he will sometimes even work in duets, as with David Murray, the late, great Billy Bang, or others.  Yet even there, he often plays within his comfort zone(s).  This one is well outside El’Zabar’s comfort zone.  Take a look.  It is credited to Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnics featuring Nona Hendryx.  Whether or not one knows that name, Nona Hendryx may condition the reaction.  She gained a measure of fame in the 70s for a certain pop hit, and those most enamored of that song are likely not in El’Zabar’s core fanbase.  Yet, Hendryx has also worked with some more unusual figures, like Gary Lucas.  She can sing.  And the band is not the usual acoustic, stripped-down arrangement for El’Zabar.  This is electrified, funkified and quite a different sound for Kahil.  Beneath it all, Kahil keeps time, and propels everything forward, and one may be comforted by a title like Giant Steps, yet that too is forward-looking, and not at all reminiscent of Kahil’s previous tributes to his heroes.  El’Zabar describes this as “Avant House.”  Whatever it is, however he conceives of it, it grooves, and the title, intended to evoke Charlie Parker, does so not through chord structure or direct concept, but through spirit and movement.  This is Kahil in full experimental mode.  If a fan comes here looking for the typical Kahil groove, and doesn’t want anything that sounds too modern, doesn’t like the kind of thing coming out of the London jazz scene in the 2020s, and so forth, this will not appeal.  To the modern purist who looks at Nubya Garcia, the various projects on the Wide Hive Label, and so forth and says no, not for this listener, then It’s Time will be a misnomer.  Yet it is time.  Kahil has been playing within similar concepts for a long time.  Change is good.  Movement is good.  Experimentation is good.  The jazz world needed the Ritual Trio and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, and truly, it still needs such groups.  Yet it needs to push further still.  This is why Kahil El’Zabar is the man.  Whether playing his African/World trance groove jazz thing, post-bop perfection, or futuristic experimentation under the moniker of “Avant House,” he doesn’t let the jazz world get too comfortable.  But that spiritual groove is at the core of everything.


title: Two masters bring out the best in each other

text:
Gypsy jazz is a style that can sound anachronistic if not handled with care.  The other risk is showboating.  In the hands of two masters like Angelo Debarre and Tchavolo Schmitt, the past comes alive, and rather than showiness, blazing virtuosity.

These tunes will be familiar.  Let’s just be blunt about that.  And for the typical fan of this style of music, anyone looking at the album might ask, do I really need yet another recording of Nuages?  Didn’t Django pretty much get it right?  That is, after all, the philosophy of Tchavolo Schmitt, which would beg the question of why this album exists.  It exists because someone needs to keep the music alive, and the challenge of keeping it alive without it just sounding like museum re-creations is difficult.  Debarre can be, if we are honest, quite showy.  Fun, no doubt, but what do you do when you can play?  You play.  Schmitt is a little different.  Highly reverent toward Django, his approach to music is just do it right.  Do it tastefully, and do it right.  A virtuoso, of course, but he worries less about how fast he plays, and more about getting the right note in the right place.  The fan who wants to hear showboating may go for the young hotshots, and there are plenty, but Schmitt is there to remind them about the importance of good taste.

Debarre pushes him a little.  He pushes Tchavolo to show off a bit, and to be honest, that’s kind of fun.  They’re both showing off, and having fun.  Schmitt keeps things meticulous with his eternal reverence for Reinhardt, shared of course by Debarre.  Why does this album exist, then?  It exists because it’s just fun.  Two masters push each other.  They get a little showy, and that’s fine!  That’s fun!  Moreover, they keep each other on track.  In some ways, it’s a balancing act where they push each other and check each other in the best of ways.  However it comes about, though, it just sounds meticulous, masterful, and fun.

Are there more experimental, modern takes on the form?  Sure.  Can you find showier players?  Yes.  But there is something special going on here, with two players who can bring out the best in each other.


title: El'Zabar and Murray striving for unique sounds in jazz in their early collaboration

text:
In 1989, Kahil El’Zabar recorded his first duet-collaboration with saxophonist, David Murray.  This is the kind of pairing that shouldn’t work.  El’Zabar goes back and forth between a mid-60s or so post-bop groove and an African-influenced, deep spirit trance thing that is just totally mesmerizing.  Murray, while rooted in blues, often goes off into avant-garde.  Can this work?  Actually, yes.  They are both flexible and exploratory musicians, and about a decade later, the two recorded a live album (We Is) which is just astonishing.  Yet here, in 1989, it is worth noting that El’Zabar was relatively early in his career.  He had put out just a couple of Ethnic Heritage Ensemble albums, starting to establish a sound, but as an intense perfectionist, he was still in the process of honing his art.  Golden Sea, then, is an interesting window into El’Zabar as he was still developing, before he really nailed down exactly what he wanted to do.  It sounds like him, to be sure, and Murray is a wonderful foil for him, but the primary value of Golden Sea is the window into the minds of these two artists.

Golden Sea is a very good album, yet it must be noted that El’Zabar would come back to this material, including covering All Blues.  These 1989 recordings, then, are something like early sketches from a master as he figures out how to paint his masterpieces.  Are they the best recordings of the title track, or Song For A New South Africa, or so on?  Perhaps not.  El’Zabar’s skill in establishing that entrancing groove would be honed to a finer point not only with the passage of time and dedication, but as he found context.  In the years since, he has established group dynamics that allow him to get that groove, while frequently challenging himself with duets and alternate arrangements to keep himself artistically fresh.  Hence, albums like We Is.  Yet here, the recording with Murray shows El’Zabar in a more inchoate state.  Murray’s style is pretty much there, although he adheres more to the blues than some of his more avant-garde recordings.  That will likely suit the El’Zabar fans just fine, but it is worth noting.  The point, though, is that if we compare Kahil’s work on this 1989 date to his 2000 work with Murray, it’s the difference between the genius striving toward a goal that is within his grasp, and the master in absolute control.

Golden Sea is an interesting listen.  More meditative and contemplative than some of Kahil’s more intense work, and appropriately so with material like All Blues.  As a matter of taste, that will be precisely what some listeners want.  Kahil and David work together with a sort of free-flowing, experimental mindset, and consequently the results aren’t quite as tight as on We Is.  So what is it that the listener wants?  Again, that’s a matter of taste, but the differences are worth noting.  Golden Sea is a very good album, and a fascinating window into Kahil El’Zabar’s development during the earlier years of his recordings.  He wasn’t quite as set in his ways, but at the same time, that’s because he was still looking for those ways.  To be sure, there’s no such thing as one El’Zabar way.  Decades later, there remains significant variation in the sounds of his albums, but the single-minded intensity is more uniform in his later work.  Golden Sea shows him working toward the perfect groove.

Well worth tracking down, even if it may not be the best El’Zabar album.


title: Visionary, yet only the start of a journey

text:
Some groups have unfortunate band names, and when an album is eponymously titled, what is to do?  What is to do is to review the music, which is glorious here.  The first album, self-titled by this experimental, progressive Japanese rock group is a sound that could, upon cursory listen, sound like taking random elements, throwing them in a blender, and just seeing what happens.  There is far more thought, and it is remarkable how well everything fits together.  The band is centrally the brainchild of guitarist-extraordinaire, Natsuki Kido, who would later join eye-of-the-whirlwind drummer, Tatsuya Yoshida in one of the great experimental bands, Korekyojinn, and some of what was to come can be heard here.  Experimental elements of rock ranging from classic, 70’s rock to acoustic folk rock to Japanese folk, blending crunching electric guitars with violin in ways that no one bound in any way by tradition would ever think to do.  As the group continued, their compositions would become longer and more elaborate, but even on this debut album, the bizarre range and structure is mind-warping.  The hardest of hard rock bumping up against violin-based Japanese folk, blistering guitar, sometimes dissonant jazz-based, sometimes bluesy, and all leading up to a noisy, weird as anything “T-Rex,” which sounds like funhouse mirror New York experimentalism that would make Bill Laswell say, wow, that’s weird.  Groovy, man.  Groovy.

To describe the music here as such is to make the listener ask, doesn’t that mean there is little of coherence?  How can any of this fit together?  Hence the analogy of the blender.  These elements should not fit together.  It sounds like a kid throwing everything in the kitchen onto a sandwich, making something gross.  But there is a difference between that and some hipster burger place that manages to combine weird ingredients that shouldn’t work together but that actually make a delicious concoction.  The present album is the latter.

Natsuki Kido was really just getting started here.  The band itself, and the guitarist would go further.  In particular, Korekyojinn makes the present music sound downright traditional by comparison, which is jarring to realize, because compared to even the music that the popular critics would consider wild and visionary, this still sounds so far out-there that it is amazing anyone thought to make it.  Yet it constitutes an entry point into a new world of music.  Take it.  Then, step into Yoshida’s world of Korekyojinn, Ruins, Sax Ruins, and everything else.


title: Unfortunately brief, perhaps cluttered, but unparalleled guitar skill

text:
One of the sillier conversations among casual music fans is the kind of thing that music magazines would occasionally poll:  who is the greatest guitarist ever?  The winner in every poll that isn’t specifically targeted to a niche audience like jazz will be…  Doc Watson!  Just kidding.  We all know that Hendrix comes in first every time.  He’s the most famously skilled guitarist.  Yet, anyone who would rank him “first” has probably never heard of Lenny Breau, Scotty Anderson, Debashish Bhattacharya, Vlatko Stefanovski or generally speaking, guitarists from other genres or other countries.  And what about someone like Ichika Nito?  Is he the greatest guitarist ever?  How does one compare a bluegrass flatpicker to a jazz guitarist to a country speedster to a slide virtuoso to… whomever?  Ichika?  Where does a progressive math rock whatever like Ichika Nito fit in?  How would one ever compare him to a dobro master like Jerry Douglas?  Silly debates, but at least one would be on relatively solid footing putting Ichika Nito at the top of the mountain.  Ichika is the kind of guitarist who evokes an Art Tatum reaction.  Art Tatum was such an astonishing piano virtuoso that he made people give up piano because they couldn’t do that.  Charlie Parker supposedly saw Tatum and said nope.  I can’t do that.  So he took up alto sax, and the rest is jazz history.  That’s the level of brain boggle that Ichika causes when guitarists watch him and listen to him.  So far past Hendrix that Hendrix would have given up guitar, taken up alto saxophone and who knows what would have happened?  Yes, there is a standing on the shoulders of giants thing, but still, Ichika is on another level completely.  It’s the Art Tatum thing.

Those familiar with Ichika are likely familiar with quick video clips of the young gentleman playing solo guitar.  I is not that.  Alas, it is a frustratingly brief set of band pieces, with vocals in styles that may range from skippable to offputting depending on one’s taste.  Some of it has a kind of breathy, emo quality that some listeners really won’t like.  Yet, the compositions themselves have a cool, math rock thing that is actually quite different from most of the Japanese math rock, and Ichika’s guitar work is, well, if not the best ever, close enough as makes no difference.  This 17 minute set contains some breathy and otherwise vocals with which many fans could do without, but it also contains Nito doing what no other human on earth can do with a guitar.  And no, this probably isn’t studio trickery.  He is the real deal.  Probably.  Would it matter, though?  It just sounds so cool.

Japanese math rock has some variety to it, ranging from wacky and wild zeuhl (Ruins, Korekyojinn, and others) to clean and technical (LITE, toe) to jazzy and strange keyboard stuff (mouse on the keys) and further afield.  Yet Ichika goes where no one else does.  Because no one else can.  It isn’t that he writes structures that are deep into bebop, or something.  It’s just that his fingers move like no one else’s can.  It’s the Art Tatum thing.  And yes, that means the enjoyment here is, to some degree, just to be astounded by guitar.  Really, though, if you are looking for recordings by Ichika Nito, isn’t that the point?  You aren’t looking for Coltrane and deciding between early-period or late-period, or something like that.  You’re looking for something by the guitar phenom.

The guitar work here is mind boggling.  Yes, there is some stuff one might classify as clutter, including vocals that will potentially alienate some, but my-oh-my, that guitar.

Andres Segovia.  Django Reinhardt.  Doc Watson.  Yeah, Hendrix.  Joe Pass.  Lenny Breau.  Tony Rice.  Danny Gatton.  Keep going, as long as you like, at that level.  How great is Ichika?  Technically speaking, he is peerless.  Where is he going?  Wherever he wants.  This is mind boggling guitar.  To everyone’s taste?  Perhaps not, but WOW can this kid play.


title: A fine example of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble sound

text:
Papa’s Bounce is a slightly difficult album to assess, but as a general rule, one probably is not looking for information about it in the absence of background information about Kahil El’Zabar generally, and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble specifically, so perhaps a reviewer can dispense with the general and generally obligatory biographical information and praise for the principals and the band/project.  What is Papa’s Bounce?  It is a 1998 album of the trio then incarnated, with the addition of a bonus percussionist, Atu Harold Murray.  That, though, says very little.  Is it good?  That should go without saying.  How good?  Very good.  Where does it fit in the catalog?  That’s the real question.  The best answer may come, as is often the case, with reference.  Consider the four-album sequence that Miles recorded for Riverside with his original quintet, Cookin’, Workin’, Steamin’ and Relaxin’.  To some extent, Miles, Coltrane and the band were going through a contract, while Miles got ready to transition to Columbia.  He just had an obligation.  Yet, they didn’t phone it in.  Instead, while those albums aren’t Kind of Blue, or the genre-redefining albums that Miles recorded, they are at the least, paragons of the form.  When you reach for career-defining Miles albums, you’ll reach first for albums like Kind of Blue, or In A Silent Way, perhaps Sketches of Spain, but there is precisely nothing wrong with Cookin’.

That’s kind of where Papa’s Bounce fits into Kahil’s/the EHE’s discography.  By 1998, Kahil essentially had a direction, and so too did the Ensemble.  He still had refinements to develop, and ideas to find, but the core was there, and the band here pretty much put in the work.  The presence of Murray as a second percussionist is a unique element.  The Ensemble doesn’t always work as a trio, and a fourth player can bring a different flavor, but Murray’s presence does not fundamentally alter the sound.  He adds something subtle, creating an opportunity for Kahil to interact with a fellow percussionist, which is a rare and interesting thing, but structurally, and tonally, it isn’t all that far removed from how the Ensemble sounds as a trio with Kahil and two horns, which is its distinctive thing.

To the degree that there is something to set Papa’s Bounce apart, it is the mellower-than-ordinary mood, but this too is a matter of degrees.  It means that a collector will appreciate having this in the collection, as something a bit different, but not completely out there from Kahil.  Mostly, it’s kind of like those Riverside albums.  The band puts in the work, doing their thing.  They don’t reimagine the form, or push the boundaries the way that Kahil does on some of his most unique recordings.  Yet just as no real jazz fan would complain if someone puts on Steamin’, it is difficult to imagine a fan of Kahil finding much to fault here.

Rating?  Hard to say.  Somewhere in that nebulous region between four and five stars.  Given Kahil’s consistently high standards, Papa’s Bounce may fall a tad short, but by anyone else’s standards, this is a masterpiece.  This is the debate often had about those Riverside albums.  There are better Ethnic Heritage Ensemble albums, where they find that perfect, entrancing groove, but really, this is a very fine album.


title: Out of place, out of time

text:
No Bread is a strange and wonderful album, difficult to evaluate.  Even classifying it is a challenge.  There is a long tradition of so-called roots-oriented musicians trying to find a sweet spot that dips back into long gone traditions, sounding at once like they could have played generations ago without being clearly a part of one tradition.  Sounding like home without one clear sense of place.  Consider Jim Kweskin, or the Cheap Suit Serenaders, or many others in this tradition.  The modern tradition of older sounds got a revival with O Brother Where Art Thou, but the quest for the philosopher’s stone, as it were, has been ongoing decades prior and since.  Yet how?

The Northside Southpaws alas have only two albums, as a strange group.  John Hasbrouck has recorded several solo albums that are quite different.  Somewhere between blues and John Fahey-style guitar music, Hasbrouck is his own kind of master, yet with Matt Gandurski, something else entirely happens.  Both are left-handed, hence the “southpaw” element, and they play on the North side of Chicago.  The duo, though, is odd beyond words, while somehow comforting and coming as close as possible to that philosphic mercury.

What kind of music do they play?  On resonator guitar and resonator mandolin (weird already), they combine elements of old time country, tin pan alley, blues and jazz, old world folk tunes.  There is such joy in the music, such appreciation of the traditions as to be encaptivating.  Yet it somehow feels out of place.  It is not modern.  To think of the music on No Bread being played as the soundtrack in a scene in a modern movie would create strange dissonance because it would feel anachronistic.  Yet to play this same music in a scene set in the 1920s or 1930s would feel somehow off.  Not bad, just off.  Like someone made an intentionally strange substitution.

Out of place, and out of time, yet fully aware of tradition, and full of just fun and joy.

No Bread is actually the second of the two albums available from the Northside Southpaws, and the stronger album compared to Stomp Glide Wobble.  As an alchemical trick, and thus a nonexistent, mythical process (or at least nothing more than a con), getting the mix right is difficult to say the least.  There is nothing wrong with Stomp Glide Wobble, but there is more of a relaxed feel to No Bread, and that makes the album feel as though Hasbrouck and Gandurski are where and when they should be.  Since they are “no-when,” if that is such a thing, that’s hard.  Even though, to quote Buckaroo Banzai, wherever you go, there you are.

This is a neat trick.


title: Heart, or at least spleen, carry a very traditional performance

text:
Gypsy jazz is one of the more tradition-bound styles of music, and while there are those who push the style forward within the form, the variations are sometimes minor.  Sometimes it is simply about the details, the nuances, and just playing with such gusto that virtuosity, creativity in soloing, and sheer feeling carry the music.  Tchavolo Schmitt may not be as well known as Bireli Lagrene or some of the other modern stars of Gypsy jazz, and he may not seek to reinvent a form that clings to tradition.  Yet he is a master guitarist, and his group runs through a set on Seven Gypsy Nights that will satisfy a jaded fan of the genre.

Are there twists?  Yes.  Giani Lincan’s occasional cymbalum breaks up the sound of the Hot Club arrangements that could otherwise sound tradition-bound, even if expertly played.  Yet that’s not the point.  There are others who play with arrangements, instrumental or even structural.  Seven Gypsy Nights is about Tchavolo’s straight-forward guitar chops.  There is a great deal to be said for an expert just playing his heart— or spleen— out, to reference the final track on this enjoyable album.

It is somewhat difficult to think about this type of album outside the context of history.  Django Reinhardt casts such a long shadow that one can only think of similarly influential figures like Bill Monroe, who created a tradition-bound genre.  There is nothing wrong with playing in the tradition, as long as it is done out of true feeling, and done well.  As it is here.

And again, there are twists, like the cymbalum.  Seven Gypsy Nights is not mere re-creation, yet the fact that the band is not pushing the genre forward in the manner of Bireli Lagrene is fine.  Played this expertly, it’s fine.  Just listen and enjoy.  You really can hear another version of Summertime and enjoy it.

Performance with heart can carry the day.  Or the nights.


title: Where the New Jungle Orchestra comes together.  So get it on The Olufsen Years.

text:
The late 1980s and early 1990s were a vital period for Pierre Dorge and the development of the sound of his band, the New Jungle Orchestra.  Several albums, many difficult to find, came out during that period, and they are best found on The Olufsen Years.  Karawane is among the best, and fans of Dorge will be thoroughly satisfied by the music on the album.  However, fans should also know that the best way to get Karawane is on The Olufsen Years, along with several other albums, some of which are impossible to get otherwise.  That said, Karawane is a true turning point for Dorge.

By the mid 1990s, Dorge had developed a signature sound, combining modern jazz and sounds from around the world, most especially from Africa.  Yet as a band leader in addition to a distinctive guitarist, his fondness for big band leaders, Duke Ellington in particular, has always meant that his sound has evolved in a way that reaches across both space and time.  That makes his fondness for Sun Ra appropriate too.  Ellington, though, is the most important touchstone for Karawane.  As in, Caravan.  Picking a favorite Duke Ellington composition is one of those choices that no jazz fan wants to face, yet one could do worse than Caravan.  And, no Ellington piece is better suited to Dorge than Caravan, toward which the album builds in a Dorge-ified manner.  That, truly, is what Karawane is about.  This 1992 album is Dorge refining his sound from the raw but scintillating ideas that they had been in the preceding years into something with a precision and refinement that you get from a band led by Duke himself, with the joyfulness of Sun Ra or Juju music or any number of other styles on which Dorge draws.

Part of the joy of listening to Karawane in the context of The Olufsen Years, following as it does from albums like Peer Gynt, is that you can hear how Dorge and his band got better and better.  It isn't just that they learned the art of improvisation.  They were already outstanding musicians.  They learned what worked.  They were playing with the mixes, like chefs refining flavor profiles with the same basic ingredients.  The progression is important.  And Karawane is where it all reaches the totality of genius that one regularly came to associate with the New Jungle Orchestra in subsequent years.  That isn't to say the earlier recordings were bad.  They were good, and exciting, and fascinating, but like many experiments, it took a while for everything to be perfected.  Here is the perfection, as it all comes together in Dorge doing his own Caravan.

Dorge fans need this, partly to see how it all came together.  That said, The Olufsen Years allows Dorge fans to get Karawane, along with four other rare albums, and some bonus tracks.  That's the better deal.


title: A listening experience that is difficult to describe

text:
Listening to Abu Nawas Rhapsody is an experience that is difficult to describe.  This can be said of some truly remarkable artistic achievements, yet we often try to do so.  What is most important to say is that this album is something special.

Jazz may be America's art form, but it is also America's gift to the world, and many artists from around the world have taken it to unique places.  Dhafer Youssef is among them.  The Tunisian singer and oud player is rooted in jazz, but not exclusively so, and like Anouar Brahem, he combines his influences, through jazz, into something that is beyond words.  While perhaps not the most virtuosic oud master in history, he is quite skilled.  He is endlessly creative, though, and his voice is otherworldly, capable of such a range of tones that you must hear it to understand it.  What makes Abu Nawas Rhapsody so special is that his talents are combined with the best possible accompanists.  Most importantly here, that means pianist, Tigran Hamasyan, and percussionist Mark Giuliana.  Hamasyan is a shining beacon on the jazz scene for his mastery of time and rhythm, along with his ability to bounce between jazz and other styles, and Giuliana... well.  Dhafer Youssef is an extraordinarily talented musician, but to produce a work like this, he needs the best.  He has the best.  Everything needs to come together for something like Abu Nawas Rhapsody.

Little can prepare you for the first experience of hearing it.  The dynamic range, Hamasyan's concepts of time and rhythm, Giuliana's fills... and then there is Dhafer.  His oud work is interesting, but to repeat, there are more virtuosic players.  His voice, though.  His voice.  The average music fan is accustomed to singing as conveyor of lyrics.  This obscures the concept of voice as instrument.  Within jazz, there are a variety of singing techniques that emphasize voice as instrument, to say nothing of opera.  Youssef's voice moves from the entrancing whisper to a kind of power that sounds inhuman, as in, you have to do a double-take to remind yourself that, yes, that is a person, singing.  I love his voice.  I neither know nor care what he is singing.  It is irrelevant.  The experience of hearing is voice, as it plays against Hamasyan's piano, against an oud... this is otherworldy music.  And whatever world this is, is something special.

Jazz can reach this kind of power, rooted in gospel or blues, and most jazz fans understand the feeling of listening to Mingus channeling gospel-blues to a kind of ecstatic joy, but Youssef accomplishes the task from his own Tunisian musical traditions.  And it is somehow something deeper.  This is stunning music.  As in, you will be stunned, and unable to speak or act upon hearing it, until you have time to think and understand what you have heard.  This is genius.  That's it.  It's just genius.

Anouar Brahem is awesome.  I love listening to oud players touch on jazz.  Driss El Maloumi... hey, Sandy Bull was doing it in the '60s.  Dhafer Youssef, though, did something beyond words.  How much praise is required here before a reader just gets the album?


title: Dated but good

text:
Jonas Hellborg has had one of the most interesting careers in bass guitar.  It may not even make sense to classify him under any genre, but jazz would be as good as any other since everything he plays has at least hints of jazz, but he has traveled far and wide, musically speaking.  To listen to the 1989 recording, Adfa, with the capacity to listen to subsequent recordings like his famed albums with Shawn Lane and beyond, Adfa is something of an oddity.

Merely two years later, Hellborg would release the far more adventurous, The Word, backed by a string quartet, playing vaguely Middle Eastern-themed music in a timeless way.  Prior to Adfa, he had played solo bass.  Somewhere in the midst, came this album with production and arrangements that are just immediately identifiable as late 1980s fusionesque music.  Not quite full-blown fusion of the kind that Hellborg played with McLaughlin, not the experimental oddity of what Hellborg did with Bill Laswell... just somewhere in the middle.

To be sure, all instruments are well played, solos are interestingly constructed, there are hints of Hellborg's exploratory side, including the presence of the great, Trilok Gurtu, with whom Hellborg collaborated elsewhere.  Yet one cannot help but notice the production, nor the somewhere-in-the-middle nature of the music that can come across from the perspective of later period Hellborg as the bassist still searching for sounds.  After this, Hellborg would release The Word, work with Shawn Lane, artists from the Middle East and India, and generally speaking, step further outside the norm.  Perhaps that is what held back Adfa.  To some degree, it can sound too much like a conventional, 1980s fusion album.  Better than most, to be sure, but of its genre and period, and knowing what Hellborg can do when he is unconstrained by any expectations, Adfa is a little limited.

The best way to listen to Adfa as a Hellborg fan is as a kind of trailer, which can be entertaining even knowing the full feature.  Hey, there's a great Hellborg-esque bass flourish!  Hey, there's a Middle Eastern twist on fusion!  Where does Hellborg go next?  Next time, on the Swedish bass virtuoso!  Demos, perhaps, of your favorite album.

Is Adfa a necessary album?  That will depend on how fascinated one is with every detail of Hellborg's thinking and development.  He is at the forefront of jazz bass.  Or... bass.  How did he get there?  If you care about the answer to that question, Adfa matters, even if it isn't as wildly creative as The Word, as intense as his work with Shawn Lane, as eclectic as Aram of the Two Rivers and Good People...  Of course, a Hellborg fan who comes across Adfa will probably want a copy, so just get it.  It's Hellborg.


title: Music to expand the scope of art

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Tigran Hamasyan is here to open minds.  He is an instrumentalist and composer like few others, but he does not always make it easy.  In the tradition of jazz piano, we can think of a kind of spectrum from Tatum to Monk to Sun Ra in terms of accessibility.  Everyone loves Tatum because his clean virtuosity and if-it-ain’t-got-that-swing approach, even if he preceded the line, made him impossible to dislike, even for people who would claim to dislike jazz.  Monk could swing, but his off-kilter melodic sensibilities were off-putting for some, and he epitomized what jazz skeptics find difficult about the genre.  He challenged the listener.  And then there are artists like Sun Ra, who make you work for it.

Tigran Hamasyan is building a body of work that suggests he may eventually go up on that Mount Rushmore of jazz.  Is he there yet?  Maybe not, but he’s young still, and if there is anyone on the jazz piano scene today who’s going to make it, it’ll be either him or Lafayette Gilchrist, one would hope.

And Hamasyan, while he can groove, doesn’t always make it easy.  The Call Within may be a kind of breakthrough album with rock appeal, but much of his work is weird and exploratory, if not necessarily dissonant or a-melodic.

Shadow Theater falls into a strange category.  At once challenging to the discerning jazz fan, and potentially accessible to a casual audience, what does one make of it?  What is Hamasyan doing?  That is a common question of this most singular of artists.  Hamasyan is delving deeper into the Armenian folk tradition on Shadow Theater than on some of his other albums, yet this is not a world folk music album.  Rather than taking Armenian folk pieces and playing them on solo piano, as he has done on other albums, he builds them.  Into big and challenging works.  Electronics and all.

There is a level at which someone unfamiliar with jazz, the complex time signatures, the dynamic arrangements, the melodic structure, or Hamasyan’s instrumental skill could hear Shadow Theater, and mistake it for 80s or 90s pop-crossover.  In places.  And perhaps even go with it.  For a while, until turned away by Hamasyan’s more clearly unconventional passages.  At the same time, an inattentive jazz fan could hear the same thing, and say no thank you. Pop-crossover.  No thank you. Or be caught off guard by the weirdness of the rhythms and arrangements, and similarly say no thank you.  Or what’s with the vocals?

The casual listener will be quickly turned away, and jazz traditionalists can find so many reasons to bristle, at least at first approach.  Shadow Theater does not even give the exploratory audience the same immediate hooks as The Call Within, thanks to aesthetics that almost recall those pop-crossovers.

All of that makes Shadow Theater a remarkably strange album, and a challenging album.  It dares the listener with arrangements so unconventional, even to modern jazz.  For whom is this album?

Tatum made music for everyone.  Monk made music that pushed jazz forward.  Sun Ra challenged the world, and perhaps reality itself.

Tigran Hamasyan?  Shadow Theater could be for everyone.  Or no one.  He is a genius with few if any peers.  He is restless.  His albums have remarkable variety.  Shadow Theater has tones and sounds that could reach anyone open to different styles of art.  Maybe it is for those with broad tastes.  Maybe it is a prybar.  Maybe it really is for everyone.  Regardless, every time I listen to Tigran Hamasyan, my assessment of his genius goes higher.  The thunder and power of McCoy Tyner.  The compositional innovation of Monk.  The scope and vision of Sun Ra.  Hyperbole?  Perhaps.  Probably, but this man is a genius.


title: Short, but with authority

text:
Kenneth Brian's follow-up EP to Welcome to Alabama shows that his debut was no fluke.  It fully realizes the potential shown on that debut, while pulling out a few new tricks, even on such a short work.

Brian's debut album fit comfortably within an emerging subgenre that blends country with hard rock, and the presence of Jason Isbell on that debut album signaled the kind of fanbase likely to find an appeal in Brian's music, although Brian has more in common with Isbell's former bandmate, Patterson Hood.  Not a virtuoso musician, he nevertheless plays with complete devotion, and makes you feel every note.  Not a preternaturally gifted voice, he nevertheless sings the truth, and every harsh word of it.  And everything with authority.  Was that first album a fluke?  No.  Blackbird, though short, actually expands admirably on the sound of Welcome to Alabama by showing some influences that weren't as prominent on that debut.

Most notably, the Allman Brothers.  There really is a palpable Allman feel in several places throughout, to the point that he is practically note-checking the band.  That's not really Truckers territory, and while Patterson and Cooley wrote an album nominally devoted to Skynyrd, neither band really has a strong influence on the sound of the Truckers, nor much of the genre associated with them, except, ironically, Isbell.  The punk-ish side of the genre just doesn't really go the Allman route.  Here, though, Brian is getting in touch with not only the Truckers-esque side of twangy hard-rock, but with his Allman roots.  Growth.  We all like to see growth in an artist.  Is Brian a Duane-level virtuoso, or a Derek-level virtuoso?  No, but the point is his method of total commitment.  He knows the fretboard, and that combined with total commitment and you will enjoy it.  A new sound.  What else can you really hope to hear?

Promise fulfilled.


title: "What is this madness?"

text:
"What is this madness?"  That is the question one asks when listening to this, shall we say, charmingly titled band, and their third album, which contains the half-hour opus from which the album derives its title.  If musical "madness" is, to you, musical goodness, then you shall surely enjoy the album.  If asking that question is, itself, a rejection for you, then just turn back now.  That said, the album is actually comparatively accessible.  Comparatively.

Once upon a time, The Simpsons was a very good television show.  In a good, early episode, Homer had a barbershop quartet, with Barney as a kind of John Lennon figure.  Eventually, he finds a Yoko, and tells the group that he has become bored with barbershop, so he is taking it in strange, new directions.  He plays a demo meant to evoke Revolution Number 9.  It is a comment on the excesses of this kind of mentality, The Beatles in particular, and it was funny.  Yet, there is a lot to be said for progressive music, and for doing things differently when a genre gets stale.  The era also had Zappa, King Crimson, and plenty of people going in strange, new directions, and one shouldn't make fun of them.

And in modern music, if you are looking for those taking music in strange, new directions, like Barney Gumble, but, you know, not a joke, the place to look may be Japan.  The progressive rock scene there, for decades now, has been going in the strange, new directions that can make you say, "what is this madness?"  Within that realm, this particular band, whose name I am declining to type, is more accessible than some of those led by drummer, Tatsuya Yoshida, like Ruins, or that drummer's project with the guitarist in this band, Natsuki Kido, Korekyojinn.

That makes the band here more accessible than the name would imply.  Much of the time, they sound like a slightly off-kilter hard rock band.  They'll throw a violin in the mix, but Eric McFadden, and other American oddballs will do that.  They'll mix things up within a composition, and generally, push things a bit further than some of the late-60s and early-70s progressive weirdos, but in terms of the scale of "what is this madness," it is a madness that one can grasp.  It is a gateway.  If that sounds ominous, just wait until you hear Korekyojinn.

But start here.  Why here, specifically?  The title track, the half-hour opus, is like a progressive Japanese version of Zappa or King Crimson or whichever king of oddball rock.  For a period of time, you can feel like you are getting a handle on a groove, and then you get odd sounds, and then they find a groove again, and you can think of reference points for that.  And once you start to understand, you can explore beyond the band here.  The rest of the album is a little less abstract, with the exception of a brief noise track.  Mostly it will be just the kind of thing that can re-orient your thinking in terms of weirdo hard rock.

Because, yes, the rhythms are strange, and they change around, and you get these weird mixes of punk aesthetics with classical structure that you just don't find in American rock.  But it is only a few degrees off.  Once you can appreciate this particular madness, worlds open up.

What is this madness?  The coolest kind.


title: Not technically "Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys," still quite good

text:
Let's get something out of the way up-front.  Southland is billed as a "Lindsay Lou" album rather than a "Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys" album.  What's the difference?  Well, there's personnel overlap, even beyond the singer herself.  Not surprisingly, Josh Rilko in particular is all over Southland.  So what's the difference?  In fact, the difference in sound is  quite noticeable.  While Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys, as a band, have very much a bluegrass/newgrass kind of thing going, Southland has a different vibe.  While there are distinct bluegrass elements, they come primarily in shading from some instrumentation.

Instead, as "Lindsay Lou," the album at hand would slide more comfortably into a kind of country-folk-rock milieu.  There isn't much of a "high lonesome sound," and the songs themselves don't necessarily lend themselves to bluegrass-style lead breaks on the instruments.  You even get some electrification.  Of course, why stay put?  So many of the top artists in the genre do this anyway, in the tradition from Tim O'Brien up through the more high-profile Sarah Jarosz today.  So it's not bluegrass, and so it's not the same sound as Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys.  Who cares?  The question is, does it sound good?

Yeah, it sounds good.  Lindsay Lou, Rilko, and friends are still making good music.  Changing the mix, but still making good music.  Lindsay's voice can carry anything, the instrumental work is a little more restrained, yet tasteful, but everything still works.  If I have a complaint, it is that compared to Ionia, Southland doesn't quite have the same off-kilter feel.  Ionia felt like a unique and distinctive take on a hard genre to do distinctively.  Southland, while quite good, feels more like comfort food.  That hardly seems like much of a complaint, since musical comfort food is absolutely a good thing.  Yet, Southland just doesn't have as many "I didn't see that coming" moments.  It's just that this is territory in which artists like Tracy Grammer, The Black Lillies, Rising Appalachia, the Duhks, and plenty of others have gone further.

There isn't a bum note on this album, which I enjoyed thoroughly.  Fans of Lindsay's voice, and fans of the instrumental work from The Flatbellys will still be happy.  Artists should not just sit still, so I'm interested to see where they go.  Southland, as an album, will satisfy anyone with a taste for the folksy side of country rock, with a nice helping of bluegrass on the side.  It's just not as "wow" as Ionia.  So OK.  Show me what's next.  They have the talent, clearly, and let's find out what they do with it, searching for directions.


title: Dama is at his best in duo settings

text:
Once you start listening to Malagasy music, it does not take long before you encounter Dama Mahaleo, best known for the band known by his surname, Mahaleo.  The band is quite good, but of course, Dama is the star, and his guitar picking style is renowned throughout that country.  The band setting, though, is not really the ideal setting for Dama's style.  it can bury his guitar, and bury is elegance.  He is at his best in duo settings.  This was truly revealed by his album with the great guitarist, D'Gary on The Long Way Home.  D'Gary's guitar may have been the real star of that album, which had other contributors, but Dama rose to the occasion in the company of the new virtuoso on the scene.  Dama is a fine singer, and an elegantly efficient thumb and forefinger picker.  For that, you want this kind of stripped-down setting.

On Vaonala, he is joined by Erick Manana, who unfortunately does not have many available recordings in the West.  Unfortunately, because the man is truly gifted.  Gifted as a singer, picker, and fine counterpart to Dama with a very complementary style.  D'Gary's guitar sort of overshadowed Dama on The Long Way Home, which was fine for the time, given that D'Gary was the coming thing at the time, but the album was a little unbalanced as a result.  Wonderful, certainly, but not precisely balanced.  Yes, you should own it, and love it, but Manana, while an excellent picker, is someone who pairs better with Dama.  Rather than a flashy picker, he has the elegant touch.

So what you get with Vaonala is actually a balanced album.  Two troubadours.  And the sound will actually feel quite comfortable to the western ear, even to those who don't listen to much music from Madagascar.  Very folk-like, with even some pleasant touches of harmonica, like you are at a coffee house, and the two best coffee house musicians ever are hitting exactly the right spot.

To be sure, this is not an American folk album.  Dama's style and his sound still dominate, and it remains rooted in Madagascar, but the duo feels like you could encounter them in some club in one of the more interesting corners of New York, Toronto, LA or some similarly cosmopolitan Western city.  As Tri Continental merges Madagascar Slim's Malagasy roots with the sounds of Bill Bourne and Lester Quitzau to get something more familiar to a Western ear, the folksy sounds of Vaonala just sound at home anywhere.

It's just impossible for me to imagine any acoustic guitar fan or folk music fan who won't dig this album.


title: Good, if a little "by the numbers"

text:
I apologize.  I couldn't help myself, but that description really does basically sum up this album.  How To Count One To Ten is one of many bands on the Japanese math rock scene with a very specific aesthetic.  Sometimes, it's all in the details, and sometimes, innovation comes from providing real surprises.  Nevertheless, the scene works because it's a good sound.  Delta blues, gypsy jazz, Seattle's grunge, lots of scenes just develop their own aesthetic and it works because there's just something there.  So it is.  Yet even within these scenes, a few standouts steal the show by breaking the mold, while plenty of others are fine musicians, even if they aren't the breakout stars.

I hate to say it, but Blue Building Blocks starts with kind of a fakeout, in this sense.  The first track creates the initial impression that the band is going to do a cool and unique blending of math rock and classical in a way that just isn't done, and it gets a listener ready for something totally new and different.  But, that's not really what's here.  Instead, the music quickly shifts to something that will be immediately familiar to those familiar with the scene itself.  Everything is precisely played, and cool in the sense of "cool jazz."  Not antiseptic, but also not fiery.  Precise, and often linear.  Yes, there are the unusual times that are quintessential to math rock, but there is nothing that makes a listener familiar with the genre say, where did THAT come from?  This is sort of where an educated listener may land here.

For an audience whose listening consists of classic rock and not much beyond that, Blue Building Blocks will sound like it comes from another planet, in the same way that a lesser-known Chet Baker album will sound totally out of nowhere to someone who knows nothing beyond WC Handy and Jelly Roll Morton.  Yet, compared to the wilder experimentations of Korekyojinn, or even the more mildly funky sounds of LITE, to say nothing of Japan's zeuhl scene, Blue Building Blocks just kind of sounds like it fits in the scene.  Good?  Yes.  Put this on, and anyone with a taste for math rock, or even just an instrumental rock fan with an ear for expanding their palate should be happy.  It kind of has that pleases-everyone vibe.  In that sense, the album may be a good way to ease people into math rock, in the same way that Chon or Yvette Young can, since the band doesn't play around with dissonance or have different musicians playing contrasting polyrhythms, or anything like that.

Basically, then, yes, this is a good album, in the same way that a jazz album that is simply an exemplar of its scene would be.  Is this where I'd start a listener?  Not necessarily, but it wouldn't be a bad starting point, and I have a hard time thinking of the listener who would truly be bothered.

So yeah.  Nicely done.  Great?  Boundary-shattering?  No, but on the Japanese experimental scene, that can be polarizing.  Ruins isn't for everyone.  Blue Building Blocks may be.


title: Strange and wonderful

text:
Solo Razafindrakoto, or whatever he wants to call himself on this album, doesn't make it easy for people to get into his music.  He doesn't just challenge you musically.  He won't even make it easy for you to find his music.  This album is credited to "Solodeguitare," or depending on the listing, "Solodeguitar."  This from a guy whose given name is Solo Razafindrakoto, but sometimes goes by Solorazaf, or sometimes something else entirely.  Come on, man, we just want to fine your albums.  There aren't enough of them anyway!

Just getting here is challenging, particularly if all you know is the listing of "Solo Razaf" (yet another moniker) from the compilation, The Moon And The Banana Tree.  How, from that, are we supposed to find this gem?  Lots of searches.  Regardless, you're here.  And since you are, you should know what you're getting.  Despite Solo's background, this is not Malagasy music.  Nor is this the kind of music that he played when backing Nina Simone.  Nor even backing Miriam Makeba, whom he covers here.

Look at the tracks, and you see covers of mostly Hendrix, but also The Beatles and others.  Now, with Hendrix, you'll always face a "why bother" question.  You better do something different.  Solo's style, or rather, styles lend to that.  He plays largely acoustic, or electrified acoustic, and he's mainly a fingerpicker, so he isn't going to do Hendrix imitations.  He doesn't cover.  He reimagines.  If you're going to do covers, that's really the only way, in my opinion.  Otherwise, to repeat a phrase, why bother?  Ironically, the best touchstone for any of the covers is for Solo's version of All Along the Watchtower, which brings to my mind Michael Hedges, who did a very cool version.  That's a neat trick.  Cover Watchtower, which is a Dylan song, do it in honor of Hendrix, and evoke Hedges, while still having an echo of Madagascar here and there.  Neat trick.

Beyond that, though, Solo does his own thing on basically everything to the point that you have to listen to understand both what he's covering and why he makes the choices he does.  Now let's be clear.  This is not elevator music.  Not at all.  Solo does have a lot of jazz running through his playing-- he did play with Nina-- but that brings some angularity to his playing that you wouldn't hear in most Windham Hill type albums.  Between that and the rhythms, this is not a soothing album.  This is a weirdo, experimental album.

At this point, I'd listen to Solo play just about anything.  He'll take a composition, break it down, and build it back up in some mutant form playing wild fingerpicking over it, and you'll barely recognize it.

That's how you do a Hendrix cover album.  That's how you cover The Beatles.  That's how you do covers, period.


title: Dated, but Jonas Hellborg played bass

text:
There's an old Greg Brown song, "Mose Allison Played Here."  It is about a dive bar where everything is terrible.  But once, Mose Allison played there, so that makes it cool.

Kollektiv makes me think of that Greg Brown song.  It is a 1988 album that absolutely reeks of 1980s production.  Rinky-dink keyboards, inorganic tones, silly arrangements, and the works.  The instrumentalists are pretty good, and the general groove is mostly straight-forward 80s fusion-jazz, but... Jonas Hellborg played bass.  As bass guitarists go, there really aren't many better than Hellborg.  He is not just technically far above everyone else, he is creative, unique, immediately identifiable, and he pushes those around him to a level that raises Kollektiv above the limitations of what would otherwise be little more than rote 80s production.

Listen superficially, and this could easily fade into the background, just from the aesthetics.  Listen closely, and whether Hellborg is taking the solo, or just propelling everyone else forward, he ensures that the music always has more funk, more creativity and more sophistication than what you would otherwise hear.  I am reminded of Lost Tribe-- a similar sounding album that rises above the production because of instrumentalists like David Gilmore (-ore, not -our).  Hearing albums like this puts you in a frame of mind, and you have to make a conscious choice.  You have to decide, are you willing to listen to dated music?

After all, listen to Blind Blake.  Listen to Duke Ellington.  This is "dated."  Yet, we don't think of it the same way as 80s production.  Of course, that's style rather than production, and this speaks to the issue of production choice, but from the listener's perspective, how different is that?  I don't know.  I just raise it as a question to ask yourself.  If you dig old blues or old jazz, how different is that from the dated sounds of 80s production?  I'll admit that 80s production bothers me more, but I can't 100% defend that.

But with Jonas Hellborg, I'll overlook it.  He's just that good.

Further listening:  like I said, Lost Tribe.


title: Great performances, and worth it, even with familiar material

text:
There just aren't enough solo/minimalist recordings of Vlatko Stefanovski available.  Whenever some guitar buff starts talking about the big names, Stefankovski is one of my go-to people to demonstrate that a) westerners, and b) music fans in general often don't have a clear sense of just how many great guitarists there are out there, once you start digging.  And we don't have enough of him.

If you are reading this, you probably know him from either his duo albums with Miroslav Tadic, or maybe Leb i Sol.  This live performance is essentially electrified acoustic, and ranges from solo to minimal accompaniment, putting it in the same basic category as the Tadic recordings.  We don't have enough of these, and let's be honest.  You need this.  If you know how great those Tadic albums are, just get this.

Here's my quibble.  There is a lot of familiar material here, if you have those albums, and listen to similar material, including the duo albums from Goran Ivanovic & Fareed Haque, and such.  Another Jovano Jovanke, another Kasapsko Oro, and so forth.  In other words, he's going back to the same well.  Given how few recordings of this type there are, I'd really like Stefanovski to branch out more.  It is a shame that he isn't.

That said, Stefanovski is an improviser.  His roots, after all, are in jazz.  That was Leb i Sol's bread and butter.  So yes, he is hitting the same tunes again, but he is doing them differently, and once he gets going, look out every other guitarist on the planet.  Yes, it is still worth it to hear Vlatko do more versions.  Would I prefer different tunes altogether?  Sure, but really, this is worth it.

Accompaniment is minimal, and you get some vocals, but the musicians Vlatko selects are mostly there to help, keep up, and provide a stage.  You're here for a stunning guitarist, and that's what you get.  Put him in any setting, and he'll thrive.

Next, Vlatko, would you please branch out and do some different tunes?  Realistically, I'll buy whatever you sell, but come on.

Further listening:  In addition to those mentioned above, Tev Stevig, Cavatina Duo, Dusan Bogdanovic.


title: Worth a listen for Eden Brent fans

text:
Eden Brent should be one of the towering giants on the blues scene.  While she has a following, she isn't quite the superstar she should be, and she hasn't recorded nearly enough for my tastes.  What she has recorded, we can treasure.  Those fans she has may go in search of more, and find themselves here, with The Brent Sisters, and Party Dress.  Here, Eden is joined by... do I have to finish it?  Her sisters are Bronwynne and Jessica, and Party Dress is a set of songs by their mother, Carole Lamb Brent.  There are a few more musicians accompanying, all talented.

The material is good, and diverse.  It ranges from blues, to country to some old, jazzy type material, and you get the sense that if not Carole herself, then the Brent family is in many ways as musically omnivorous as Eden herself.  Eden didn't come from nowhere.  The album is quite short, at just over 22 minutes, though, and from the perspective of an Eden Brent fan, there isn't all that much of Eden cutting loose on the piano, nor showcasing the power of her voice.  If you are looking for something like Mississippi Number 1, this isn't it.  She is, of course, sharing the stage with some other talented musicians.  This is a talented family, but the affair as a whole is more laid back in its entirely than an Eden Brent album, which would also take some turns towards the rollicking.  This is more of a homey album, as you might expect.  Good?  Yes.  Comforting?  Yes.  Revelatory?  No.

If you are looking for the lost Eden Brent album, this isn't quite it.  But, it is a good album, and if you can't get enough of Eden, pick up a copy, if you can.  You'll enjoy it.


title: A fusion guitarist who is both a "guru" and probably a Zappa fan

text:
I think a critical reference here is, oddly enough, Frank Zappa, and specifically, the song, Cosmik Debris, from his 1974 classic, Apostrophe.  If you are a Zappa fan, you know the song, and get what I mean.  The song is about faux-deep gurus, and seeing through their blather.  At first glance, one might wonder whether or not fusion guitarist Phi Yaan-Zek is the guru in that song, but closer examination of Solar Flare suggests that, despite some new agey, mystical leanings, he’s probably a Zappa fan.  That’s the salvation of Solar Flare.  That duality.

Solar Flare is, at its core, a jazz-rock fusion album, and a pretty rocking one, but with some Indian leanings that don’t really dominate, but come through periodically.  John McLaughlin would likely approve, but the risk of this is taking one’s self, and the music too seriously.  This could get tedious.  Yaan-Zek avoids that with a sense of humor that is, interestingly enough, very Zappa-esque, and reminiscent of the kind of fusion that you might get on Hot Rats (with Jean-Luc Ponty!), or The Grand Wazoo, or Waka Jawaka.  Yaan-Zek will start off with some basic but well done fusion, and then detour into something clearly intended as a joke, demonstrating that for all the new-agey trappings here, he doesn’t take himself so seriously that he can’t just goof off and have fun, and the Zappa-esque quality has me thinking about Cosmik Debris given what I would otherwise have thought.

The humor is really necessary.  Humor in music is hard.  You don’t want to come across like the thing is just a lark, and you can’t undercut the whole endeavor.  At the same time, if you create an image that begs to be made fun of, you’re better off making the joke yourself.  I think that’s what Phi Yaan-Zek is doing here.  If I’m reading things right, there is sincerity in some of the underlying trappings, but not taken to the point that he wants to bash you over the head with it, and to that end, the humor really does work.  If you come across a bit like the character in Frank Zappa’s Cosmik Debris, you could do with some Zappaesque humor in your music.  It just works.  Best fusion ever?  No, but it works.


title: Jazz, made like the best chefs

text:
I warn you, my analogy here will not exactly be the most novel, but it works for Kaiso.  Yes, it's a great album.  Let's get that out of the way right now.

Etienne Charles is probably the most fascinating musician working in jazz today.  For all of the backward-looking nature of the jazz world, and all of the devotion to the bebop through modal eras, there is some great jazz being made today, and so when I say that Etienne is at the top of the game, that really is something.  What puts him there?  The same thing that makes for a great chef.

Start with some interesting background, then move to a culinary destination.  Trinidad to New York.  Then, maintain an individual identity rooted in your background, while absorbing the world around you.  Calypso and other Caribbean sounds, along with everything from the modern jazz world.  That's Etienne.  The thing about this... recipe, so to speak, is that it can actually be rather simple.  In Italian cuisine, you are mostly working with some basic ingredients-- always fresh, if you care-- and just keeping it simple to let those ingredients shine.  It's all in subtle variations of the mix, twists on preparation, and just not messing up the quality basic ingredients.  Other cuisines are far more complex, have more ingredients, and more difficult preparations, but Italian is about just not messing up a few basics that won't steer you wrong.

While Etienne Charles made his way from Trinidad to New York, that's kind of how he approaches things.  The basic components of his music are relatively consistent, but somehow, each album has its own voice.  Vary the mix a bit, vary the mood a bit, and just let the music breathe.  Let the groove breathe.  When you start with quality ingredients, let them work for you.  Vary them from dish to dish, but just let them do the work for you.

And that's what Etienne understands.  He gets bebop.  He gets calypso, and the other sounds of the Caribbean.  What gives Kaiso a voice different from his other albums?  Subtleties in the mix.  As an example, there's Kitch's Bebop of Calypso, which may be the most Etienne Charles thing Etienne Charles has ever recorded.  The title pretty much tells you what it is.  Calypso bebop, but the genius of it is a twist on a concept you can hear elsewhere.  There is a thing that guitarists sometimes do in other genres where they imitate other famous guitarists.  One that comes to mind is Bill Kirchen's Hot Rod Lincoln.  Even if you don't like country, it is worth a listen, just to hear how effectively he can imitate so many famous guitarists.  On Kitch's Bebop of Calypso, Charles does something very different.  He plays calypso homages to his bebop heroes, most notably, Dizzy Gillespie.  He doesn't do it in their styles.  He does it in his style.  Or, one of his.  More on the calypso side, with a healthy dose of bebop.  It's the kind of thing that only Etienne Charles would really do.  It's just perfect.

The mix of calypso and bebop varies throughout the album, and it doesn't have set proportions, but there remains some cohesion anyway, which is a neat trick.  Mostly, though, it just slides along, and one of the points that should always be made about Etienne is that he is truly a bandleader rather than just a showboating soloist.  He brings along people who can mesh together, he showcases musicians like Monty Alexander and Lord Superior, and his priority is always the groove.

That's why he's the best in the business today.


title: 5 stars for the music, 2 for the packaging/mastering

text:
I'll spare you the "I love John Lee Hooker" thing.  I do, but do you really need to read another testament to why John Lee Hooker was great?  This compilation is actually a great idea.  The set of albums from 1958 through 1962 comprises his most important period, and you could get the music from that period and call that your John Lee Hooker collection without feeling like you have missed too much.

What happens with this kind of budget collection, though, is that it can be hit or miss.  They don't give you much.  You are missing detailed liner notes, of course, so it all comes down to the remastering, and that is where this collection is really lacking given today's technology.  If you are listening to some old Charley Patton recordings, there's only so much that can be done to bring it back to life.  You are stuck with the few remaining and badly damaged recordings available.  You listen and accept the recording flaws because that's the only option for Charley Patton.  By the time you get up to 1958, you aren't as limited.  Granted, not all of the blues classics have been as meticulously preserved as some of, say, the first Miles Davis Quintet albums which predate these recordings, but the base recordings give you more opportunity for remastering and preservation.  Not a lot has been done here to take advantage of that, and that's a shame.  It means you really do feel like you are listening to a budget compilation.  Which... you are, so there's that, I suppose.

For the money, where does that leave you?  You get John Lee Hooker's classic albums from his best era for a low price.  There's something to be said for that, but I can't help but feel like the music deserves more.


title: Looking to the future of blues

text:
I think it is unfortunate that there hasn’t been a strong relationship between the blues and younger generations for so long.  Once upon a time, the blues was a genre for both the masses, and for the youth and, well, if I said, “rebellion,” it would sound corny, but you get the point.  Still.  It is easy to hear why jazz has moved aside.  Swing was once a popular genre, but jazz has become more abstract and academic (I say as a jazz fanatic), while swing has come to lose its appeal comparatively, without the edge of newer forms.  Blues, though?  There’s your edge.  So why hasn’t there been a connection maintained?

Part of it is that subsequent generations have just move on to newer forms, but part of it is that blues musicians don’t really reach out and draw connections to those newer forms.

That’s a solvable problem, and enter musicians like AJ Ghent.  This is a very good album, along those lines.

The son of Aubrey Ghent, AJ comes from the sacred steel tradition of lap steel/pedal steel players who combine blues and gospel traditions with slide guitar in a unique and wonderful sound.  If I’m being honest, though, when you are introduced to the sound through virtuoso, Robert Randolph, AJ’s father, Aubrey, can sound a little tame.  It’s a little like starting with Hendrix and then going back to Chuck Berry.  So, where do you go from there?

Where AJ goes is someplace different, and someplace musicians really should go.  Reaching out and crossing lines.  The Neo Blues Project shows AJ combining blues and sacred steel slide sounds with some modern R&B in order to play a style that actually can reach out to newer generations who aren’t typically reached by the blues that a lot of older generations have grown to love.

AJ is an outstanding slide guitarist, if not quite the mind-bending leader of the instrument that Robert Randolph is.  You don’t need to be, though.  The important thing is to innovate, and AJ does that.  He is a very accomplished player, and a very good singer who has ideas.  He expands the sounds of sacred steel with some modern R&B sounds in a way that can allow people raised on modern R&B to hear some real blues, and that’s kind of what’s going on here.  You start out with “Do The Rump.”  Junior Kimbrough.  This is North Mississippi hill country blues.  Juke joint.  Not what the younger generation usually gets, but package this up, along with the rest of the album, with some modern flourishes, and you have something that can bridge a generational divide, and that’s what AJ Ghent does.

I really wish more blues musicians did this.  Jazz has become something of a conservatory genre, and that’s not the healthiest thing.  Blues… well, there are weird demographics in the fanbase and player base for the blues.  It needs this.  I dig what AJ Ghent is doing here.  This isn’t the most revelatory album ever, but I like where AJ is going.

More of this, please.  Definitely, more of this, Mr. Ghent.


title: A glorious mess

text:
Next to nothing.  I suppose that is a good phrase for what one sound on this album has to do with the next, making it the definition of “a glorious mess.”  Like poutine, or some similar food.  If you are not familiar with poutine, it is a strange concoction from certain regions of Canada consisting of french fries, gravy and whatever else the cook feels like throwing on top of that.  Well composed, like a Michelin star meal?  No.  Tasty?  Oh, yes.  That’s “Next To Nothing.”  Even the best chefs will sometimes just start throwing things together.  Will it all work, in the sense of being well-composed?  Maybe not, but it may be tasty.

Led by Nicky Skopelitis, this is a 1989 project from the Bill Laswell crowd, including the late-great Ginger Baker on drums.  Skopelitis played guitar on some of those great Baker albums, and Next To Nothing is a little different.  Middle Passage had a cohesive sound.  Even Skopelitis’s Ekstasis had a cohesive sound.  They were well-composed, in that you could understand why one thing fit next to another.  On Next To Nothing, it’s more like a poutine of musical coolness.

Here’s some experimental rock.  You like french fries, right?  Here’s some middle eastern stuff.  You like gravy, right?  You know Nicky could play oud, right?  Let’s throw a fried egg on that.  Some slide blues would be cool, I guess, so how about some fried cheese?  Who doesn’t like fried cheese?

This makes no sense, and it clots your arteries.  There is no composition, no logic, no coherence, random 1980s synthesizers, all thrown on your plate without a single idea of why.

But come on.  It’s cool!  Because it’s weird!  And don’t you just get sick of another pop song?  Sometimes, don’t you need a little weirdness in your musical life?  Don’t you need Ginger Baker’s spacious but powerful drumming played off against the weirdest guitarist ever to come across Laswell’s production crew?  Yes, you do.

Is this where I’ll send you for Nicky’s music first?  No, I’ll send you to Ginger, or to Ekstasis, but there is precious little of Nicky’s recorded output, and as incoherent as Next to Nothing is, the ideas carry the album.  Good stuff.


title: Classical guitar for people bored by classical music

text:
I'll admit it.  I don't listen to classical music.  Guitar?  Sure.  Of all varieties.  And yes, I dig Segovia.  He was a hep cat, and I type that knowing full well that he would hate the phrase, stodgy old stickler that he was.  I can appreciate the process of transcribing Bach or another composer to my favorite instrument, and the aspects of the music that are highlighted in the process, but truth be told, I am mostly bored by classical music, including the Spanish composers who are so frequently featured by classical guitarists.

It takes something different to get my attention, and some time ago, I picked up Brouwer, Guitar Music Vol. 1, performed by Ricardo Cobo, and yet even then, it sat mostly dormant in my collection.  Listening to it again recently, though, I do truly find it appealing, and it earns a place in my non-classical heart.  Brouwer brings a lot more Afro-Cuban influences to the table than the old classical canon, which is not to say that this is swingin' jazz, as much as I love Afro-Cuban jazz.  However, the rhythms have a little more umph to them, and Cobo plays in such a way that you get both that umph, and a spaciousness that often doesn't come across when classical guitarists are trying to fill as much space as possible to compensate for the absence of a full orchestra, or even chamber group.  That balance is truly impressive here.  Cobo gives you the fire of those influences, the intellect of Brouwer's compositions, and enough space to appreciate it all.  You don't need flamenco fireworks to hear passion, and sometimes, that over-the-top thing can detract from the underlying compositions themselves.  So the balance here is actually quite impressive.  It means I can listen and not feel like Cobo is about to break into yet another unnecessary Leyenda rendition because, really, do we need that?  Does everyone have to play that?  Are we done with that yet?  Can we please put a moratorium on Leyenda?

OK, then.  My point is that Brouwer was different, and Cobo does justice to the music.  The result is an album of classical guitar that doesn't just sound like another person living in the shadow of that hep cat, Andres, or as I know he liked to be called, Siggie.  Enough stuffiness in classical guitar.  Brouwer, Guitar Music Vol. 1 has the goods without the pretense.

There may be some hardcore classical snobs who will tell me why I am wrong to prefer Cobo to some Bream transcription of Paganini, but this works for me.  I dig anyone who plays the lute, man, because the lute is a groovy instrument, but Cobo's guitar is workin' for me.


title: Perfect, modern island-lilted jazz

text: It took me too long to get into Etienne Charles, but now that I get it, I get it.  Culture Shock is a pretty good title for this album, which I recommend in the strongest possible terms.  While the star, obviously, is the soulful, Caribbean jazz trumpet of Mr. Charles, what comes to my mind throughout is actually how strongly influenced the whole endeavor sounds by one of my favorite traditions-- that of Charles Mingus.  That runs from the range of influences to the role of the well-played bass of Rodney Jordan.  I'm not going to tell you that Jordan is Mingus reincarnated, nor would Jordan claim that.  Mingus was a singular figure in the history of jazz, and the bass, but thinking back to albums like Tijuana Moods, or more directly pieces like Haitian Fight Song, Mingus could get a certain feel, combining Latin or Island rhythms and feels with distinctly urban jazz structures, putting his bass at the center of everything, even in large arrangements.  Here, what stands out to me as I listen to Culture Shock is the interplay of Jordan's spacious bass playing with Charles and his elegant tone and phrasing, built around not just "Bronx" feelings, evoked in pieces like "Lost In The Bronx," but Charles's more native rhythms filtered through post-bop.  Charles isn't the flashiest trumpet player around, and the band isn't there to get in his way.  That spaciousness I mentioned is important for what Charles is doing.  Not so much Culture Shock as cultural melding, which really was a good comparison with Mingus and pieces like Haitian Fight Song.  As I said, that was in mind mind listening anyway.  The blues and the soul carry through, and like with Mingus, that's what will keep you coming back to Etienne Charles.  He has his own thing, comforting with the familiar elements of Mingus-esque jazz, but showing you something unique, from his Caribbean home.  Great stuff.


title: Still good without Vince Herman, but not quite the same

text:
It probably wasn't fair of me to do this, but once Vince Herman left Great American Taxi, I stopped paying attention.  I have been a Leftover Salmon fan for a long, long time, and he was the initial draw for me.  Make no mistake, the entire band distinguished itself, but once Vince left, for reasons not entirely fair, I just didn't pay attention.  A band doesn't often recover in a situation like that.  Still, Great American Taxi was never just a Vince Herman solo vehicle, so while Vince has always been a fascinating musician, his departure wasn't necessarily going to destroy the band.

In fact, it did not.  Dr. Feelgood's Traveling Medicine Show is still a fine album.  Is it Reckless Habits, or Paradise Lost?  No.  The band lost a central figure and leading influence.  However, the band members who remain are all skilled instrumentalists capable of playing fine, roots-oriented music, and the band that remains is still a fine group on the country-influenced rock scene.  Flashy music, this is not.  Boundary-pushing music... this still is not.  It has a familiar feel to it, if you are the type of person who still follows all of that stuff that was once called "alt-country," or roots music, or whatever.  That doesn't make it bad, though.  It just means they are playing within a more established genre.  Anyone currently being blown away by Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson and that crowd will still find a smile on their face listening to Dr. Feelgood's.  There is a hint of damning with faint praise from that, but it only comes in the context of albums that did blow me away, with Vince.

That's why it is difficult, but important to try to listen with fresh ears.  Great American Taxi is still an impressive album by a fine band.  Lively instrumental work and the comforting feeling you get from "No Depression" style alt-country/roots rock/whatever.  Just don't think of it as the same band.  Be fair.

And for me, four stars means a heck of a lot.  I'm picky.  I do miss Vince's presence, though.  I can't deny it.


title: Billy Strings, on his way

text:
Billy Strings is one of the shining stars in the bluegrass world right now.  If you want creative guitar work, there are few more interesting on the scene right now than Billy.  Of course, it takes some work for any musician to develop a style, and this fine, little EP is Billy settling into his style, fusing the kind of traditional flatpicking that will appeal to anyone who wants to hear the musical grandchildren of Doc Watson pickin' up a storm with the new directions in which Billy is taking the style.

Much of the EP-- and there isn't much, it being an EP-- is pretty traditional, in the same way that Billy's recordings with Don Julin are traditional.  You could hear much of the music here, and if you are expecting someone who has made the progressive wing of the genre go nuts, you might wonder what is going on.  Sure, he plays and sings expertly, but much of the music here sticks within the bounds of what others do.  Then, you get to Red Rocking Chair, which I know as Dock Boggs' "Sugar Baby," (and plenty of other titles, given how many different versions of the tune there are).  Billy gives the tune the full New Grass Revival treatment, and you get a sense of why the progressive side of the genre really digs Billy Strings.  He isn't just recording new versions of Black Mountain Rag.  He has something new to say.

And while I make reference here to New Grass Revival, his treatment of Sugar Baby (or, fine, Red Rocking Chair) isn't a copy of NGR's sound.  That's just a reference for hitting the rock sound harder than most bluegrass artists.  My usual reference for Billy Strings is the great Larry Keel, whose aggressive flatpicking is too hard on the ears of many traditionalists, in contrast to the inhuman elegance of people like Jim Hurst and David Grier (that was intended as high praise, by the way).  However, Keel's brutality has found a home with the rock-influenced players like Billy, Jon Stickley, and some others.  (Even Michael Daves, although there isn't much rock in his style.)  That aggression is what separates Billy's rendition of Red Rocking Chair from anything NGR would have done, and it gives you a sense of where he is now, with his latest album, Home.

And to that point, It just sounds weird!  And I love that.  Black Mountain Rag?  Billy has his own take on that, and that's cool, but much of the short EP here is essentially traditional, at least by the standards of the bluegrass world that has been influenced by NGR, Strength in Numbers, and that is now ruled by the likes of Chris Thile.  So, amid that traditionalism, Billy plays a bunch of tunes that can appeal to traditionalists, and then throws in some of his now-patented weirdness.  Directions to where he is now.

Pretty cool.


title: Like a bad bootleg-- Get your Chet elsewhere (You need this music, but from another set)

text:
Let me start by saying that Chet Atkins was a genius, one of the greatest guitarists ever, and that his early recordings are national... nay, WORLD treasures in the history of artistic endeavors.  I take second to nobody in my admiration for Chet Atkins.

This boxed set is a scam.  Here's what the crooks at some outfit called "The Intense Media" did.  They found some cds of Chet's.  Did a sloppy rip, without error correction, leaving a bunch of those annoying pops and glitches in the electronic files.  Then, they just burned the discs with the same kinds of pops and glitches that you get if you have defective cds, rip without error correction, or just have some bad luck, as you will with about 2% of rips, just randomly.  These discs are riddled with encoding errors.  I don't mean that the discs will cause your computer or cd player to skip.  I mean that they SOUND like what happens when you rip a cd with errors, because THEY ripped cds, left in the errors, and then burned those errors onto the cds that they are trying to sell YOU.

And just to top things off, the track listings on the CD sleeves?  Filled with stupid typos.  They couldn't even spell the track names correctly.

This set is like a bad bootleg.  Chet deserves better, and YOU deserve a better set of Chet's early, classic albums.

Make no mistake:  You NEED Chet's early works.  There is a reason every guitarist worth his plectrum, thumb pick, fingernails, or whatever worships him, and there's a reason that those few who ever attained the status of C.G.P., like Tommy Emmanuel, just go around calling themselves, "Tommy Emmanuel, C.G.P.," like it's a degree from Cambridge, earned under the tutelage of Stephen Hawking, because for a guitarist, that's basically what it is.

Chet was it.  Period.

This boxed set?  It sounds like a bad bootleg.  Get your Chet elsewhere.


title: The solo album Stefanovski should have recorded years ago

text:
Vlatko Stefanovski is a brilliant but not always satisfying guitarist, to my taste.  (See what I did there?  Tongue?  Taste?)  Stefanovski's primary claim to fame in the Balkans is as their head honcho fusion electric guitarist from Leb i Sol, and much of his solo work includes a heavy fusion influence.  I'll admit that fusion isn't generally my thing.  What is?  His recordings with Miroslav Tadic.  Tadic comes from a very different conceptual background.  While also a Balkan-rooted musician, he has a much more classical mindset.  That leads to some great interaction.  The fiery jazz guitarist and the classical perfectionist.  When they play together in their acoustic duo, it just doesn't get much better, and they meet on common ground.  Largely Macedonian and other Balkan folk traditions, but played with very modern sensibilities.  Great, great stuff.  Some of the best acoustic guitar recordings available.

And then, as I indicated, there are Stefanovski's other works, which just don't really do it for me.  Leb i Sol, as a fusion group, is interesting from the perspective of seeing how fusion got taken in the Balkans, but Stefanovski's electric work just has the electric tone and basic structures of fusion overwhelm the uniquely Balkan elements of what he plays even post Leb i Sol, a lot of the time.  So, I don't tend to go for Stefanovski's solo works the way I go for Tadic's.

And then, there's Mother Tongue.  This is the one I wanted Stefanovksi to record.  It is acoustic, for starters, and played with the same attitude and roots as his albums with Tadic.  You don't get the interaction with the more classically-rooted Miroslav, and you'd think Stefanovski just goes nuts with wild runs, but instead, the playing is even more atmospheric.  Beautiful.  Virtuosic, mind-boggling technique, but hauntingly beautiful, rather than some of the live recordings in which Miroslav and Vlatko just try to one-up each other.

I didn't expect that, but it fills a gap in the recording output.  Vlatko needed to record this album.

Further listening:  Duet albums between Goran Ivanovic & Fareed Haque, Andreas Kapsalis & Goran Ivanovic, and also check out Tev Stevig.


title: Shook's second Bloodshot album shows that she won't get soft on us

text:
Sarah Shook is exactly what country needs right now.  This is her second album on Bloodshot Records, and the sophomore album really is a test, isn't it?  Plenty of artists can put out an interesting first album.  Who, though, is just a flash in the pan, and who can keep it going?  And of course, mention must be made of Bloodshot, for giving country music the attitude that is so desperately missing from the all-hat-no-cattle crowd.  Sarah ain't no cowgirl and doesn't pretend to be one, but for all the sad-sack stories in country music, Shook comes across as someone who lives the life, fights back hard and takes no prisoners.  Thank you, Bloodshot, for putting out music like this.

My reaction to her first album was amazement and thankfulness that someone had come along to take the place of Indestructible Machine-era Lydia Loveless.  Lydia will always be good, but her first album blew me away with its aggressive misanthropy.  She softened a bit after that, though.  The question for Shook would be whether or not she softened at all after her first Bloodshot album.  Nope.  She's as ragged and misanthropic as ever.

Nasty, drunken, brutal, self-critical, and without a hint of the irritating swagger of tough-guy country, Sarah Shook is the antidote to every overpolished, overproduced, and overcleansed marketing-gimmick.  And she won't go soft on us.  She doesn't have it in her.  She examines her life, what she does, she knows what goes wrong, understands her part in it, owns up to it, and sings about it with a tight band.  On Lydia's first album, she sang about how you can't change her, but apparently, you can change her music.  Not Sarah, though.

Or, maybe...  I find myself thinking of Jason Isbell.  He was great when he was deep in his alcoholism, and he's a different kind of great now that he's clean.  (Better?  Maybe?)  Artists do change.  What would happen if Sarah did change?  Could she pull a Jason Isbell on us?  Maybe.  It would be better for her, and there's something to be said for that.  For now, though, let's enjoy the fact that there's someone this brutal in country music.


title: A perfect blend of bluegrass and sacred steel

text:
Some guitar duets don't work because the guitarists are just too similar to make it worth anything.  Others just can't find similar ground.  Then, there are the perfect meetings.  This is one of those.

I admit freely that I came to this album almost purely for Roosevelt Collier.  Now, I love both bluegrass and sacred steel.  However, Hall wasn't the attraction for me.  I don't mind the Stringdusters, but they don't stand out enough from the crowd for me.  Dobro has what I sometimes call an Art Tatum problem.  Art Tatum was so astonishingly virtuosic on the piano that nobody could touch him.  Advancing the instrument required looking for new concepts rather than trying to outplay him because, frankly, nobody would ever be able to do that.  So, it took players like McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans to find conceptual approaches to advance the instrument.  (Yes, and many in between, like Monk-- I'm not trying to write a complete history of the piano.  I'm just making an analogy.)  For the dobro, that player is, of course, Jerry Douglas.  He is just so far beyond everyone else in technique that nobody can touch him.  MAYBE Rob Ickes, but Flux is just such a virtuoso that the instrument has sort of stagnated as people try to catch up to him.  The interesting dobro players are the ones who look for other approaches, like Billy Cardine, of The Biscuit Burners.

So, Andy Hall wasn't the attraction for me.  Roosevelt Collier, though...  If you follow sacred steel, you know him.  He has been creeping around in the background for a few years, but without much recorded output.  Go on youtube, though, and WOW is that guy amazing.  So, I've been waiting for some Roosevelt Collier recordings.  Honestly, I was hoping for some straight-up sacred steel, but whatever it was, I was going to get it.

Now, this could have been a train wreck.  Instead, it was perfection on... Reuben's Train.  That old bluegrass standard wound up being the perfect meeting ground for a bluegrass honcho and a sacred steel virtuoso to blend their styles, which are both rooted in blues and gospel anyway.  These two listen to each other and learn from each other.  That is what should happen on this kind of album, and when the styles have common roots anyway, that's when you have the potential for real magic.

I point out Reuben's Train for special mention here because some of the other tracks lean either more towards bluegrass or more towards sacred steel, but finding a proper blend is hard.  Nevertheless, Roosevelt Collier and Andy Hall are always listening to each other, always searching for common ground, and playing their rear-ends off.  I knew I was a Roosevelt Collier fan, and now I'm an Andy Hall fan too.  I don't know if I'll go out and get any Stringdusters albums since they tend to play their bluegrass a bit too straight for my tastes these days, but I hope to hear more from Andy as he experiments more.

Further listening:  Steve Cunningham's "Rustic Spirit."


title: I declare Stickley the next big thing in flat-picking

text:
OK, I hereby declare Jon Stickley to be the next big thing in progressive bluegrass.

Not "big" in the sense of popularity because he's way too weird to catch on, and nobody cares what I think anyway.  It's in my reviewer handle.  Jon Stickley rules, though.  He is the most interesting flat-picker to come along in quite some time.  After Lost At Last, I was mightily impressed, but it had a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" quality to it.  Triangular is a short-but-sweet little set in which everything comes together perfectly.

Bluegrass trios live or die by their ability to perform at the level of a quintet-- the original line-up, by the Bill Monroe standard.  Trios need something interesting.  You've got, for example, the Douglas-Barenberg-Meyer combo of dobro/guitar/bass, which is weird.  You've got the Berline-Crary-Hickman model of banjo/guitar/fiddle.  Weirdness.  Phillips-Grier-Flinner, bass/guitar/mandolin, which is a bit more standard.  Anyway, you get the point.  Trios need something to stand out and make them unique, but there is always the hard thing.  How do you fill out the sound with only three people?  That's hard.  Stickley had an answer.

Stickley's trio is a guitar-fiddle-.....-drums trio.  Yeah, drums.  OK, you've probably heard a drummer in bluegrass before, but it was probably just Larry Atamanuik.  Stickley's drummer, Patrick Armitage, is a little more hard-hitting, and complemented by Lyndsay Pruett's violin, you have a truly weird but full sound.

And it is more cohesive than on Lost At Last.  Stickley claims he wants to bring in influences from genres like hip-hop.  I despise hip-hop, but that drumming works here.  What you will hear is the influence of rock, Celtic, classical and a bunch of other stuff that just doesn't sound like anyone else out there.

It all comes together on Echolocation, in which the instrumentalists really do echo each other, followed by... Manzanita.  Yup, Stickley has the courage to tackle what is arguably Tony Rice's signature tune.  And he does it like a boss, backed by Armitage's drumming, sounding nothing like Tony.

That's why Stickley is so good.  He can do Manzanita, and make it sound like Stickley, not Tony Rice.  Now do you get why I like this kid so much?

So, yeah, I declare him the next big thing.  Big for me, anyway.  I wish he'd catch on.  He's probably too weird, but I'll listen to him.  You should too.