Weber: Oberon

CML call number: CD/OPERA/Weber
Bernard Holland wrote in the New York Times: "Weber's last opera … emits an uncomplicated humanity. … Weber's lyrical impulses knew exactly where they were going, and his clarion ear for orchestration was deeply admired by those who came after him — by Debussy and Berlioz in particular. So acute are his treatments of the clarinet and the horn that those instruments almost become people. None of which changes the fact that 'Oberon' … is a complete mess. … [B]y the time of its premiere in 1826, Weber was more than half dead of consumption. … [Conductor John Eliot Gardiner], the Monteverdi Choir, the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, seven soloists and a narrator have made a reclamation project of this sublime wreckage. … [I]n addition to the music and the singing, there is a speaker … to introduce the players and set the scenes. … Sir John's excitement over this music is palpable. The famous overture puts listeners at the edges of their seats but never sounds feverish. The chorus is crucial to Weber's operas, and this one sings beautifully" ("A Guided Tour through the Ruin of 'Oberon,'" 11/27/05).

Our New Orleans 2005: A Benefit Album

CML call number: CD/JAZZ/Our
Contents: Yes We Can Can (Allen Toussaint), World I Never Made (Dr. John), Back Water Blues (Irma Thomas), Gather by the River (Davell Crawford), Cryin' in the Streets (Buckwheat Zydeco), Canal Street Blues (Dr. Michael White), Brother John Is Gone/Herc-Jolly-John (Wild Magnolias), When the Saints Go Marching In (Eddie Bo), My Feet Can't Fail Me Now (Dirty Dozen Brass Band), Tou' Les Jours C'est Pas La Meme (Carol Fran), L'Ouragon (Beausoleil), Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans (Preservation Hall Jazz Band), Prayer for New Orleans (Charlie Miller), What a Wonderful World (Wardell Quezergue Orchestra), Tipitina and Me (Allen Toussaint), Louisiana 1927 (Randy Newman and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra).
Jon Pareles wrote in the New York Times: "Louisiana musicians recorded the songs … within weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated that city and, for some, their homes. It's an album full of mourning, obstinacy and longing for redemption. … [T]he old songs become haunted and prophetic. And … the city's old party spirit reveals itself as defiance."

Nelly Furtado: Loose

CML call number: CD/ROCK/Furtado
Kelefa Sanneh wrote in the New York Times: "'Loose' is an addictive, deceptively lightweight album of electronic pop; at different points it evokes Janet Jackson, M.I.A., Gwen Stefani and Gnarls Barkley. Ms. Furtado and [hip-hop producer] Timbaland love unexpected details, and this secretly meticulous CD is full of them. At the end of the first song, 'Afraid,' voices collapse in giggles. And in 'Do It,' Ms. Furtado utters a casual 'Yeah'; Timbaland samples it and turns it into a rhythm instrument that returns at the end of the song, to reward everyone who's paying attention. … It was 'Promiscuous,' a playful electro-pop song from 'Loose,' that announced Ms. Furtado's return: last week it hit No. 2 in Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The rapping, by Ms. Furtado and Timbaland, is a bit ungainly, but Timbaland's beat is typically marvelous: his synthesizers sound simultaneously brittle and dreamy. (Sort of like Ms. Furtado's voice.) Meanwhile 'Maneater,' another Timbaland collaboration from 'Loose,' has topped the British charts. … [T]his album keeps reminding listeners that a dance floor is one of the most complicated places on earth" (6/19/06).

The Raconteurs: Broken Boy Soldiers

CML call number: CD/ROCK/Raconteurs
Chuck Arnold wrote in People: "Should Meg White be worried? Her White Stripes partner, Jack White, is stepping out on her with the Raconteurs, a side project that sounds like the real deal. The quartet's first single, 'Steady, as She Goes,' is catchier than just about anything on the last White Stripes record. All retro cool with its jerky rhythms and groovy bass line, it's a near-perfect pop song that could be a lost Kinks gem. The more tuneful nature of this and other tracks on this concise, 34-min. disc could be attributed to the Raconteurs' other lead singer-guitarist, Brendan Benson, White's fellow Detroit scenester who has built a solo following making power pop. … They even conjure up the Beatles on songs like the psychedelic-tinged ballad 'Together.' These dudes clearly have a thing for British classic rock: The spirit of Zeppelin, a major influence of White's, can be heard on bluesy rockers such as 'Level.' While White certainly seems energized to be working with his new, full band, Broken Boy Soldiers incorporates just enough weirdness to show that he hasn't completely changed his stripes."

Gnarls Barkley: St. Elsewhere

CML call number: CD/ROCK/Barkley
Chuck Klosterman wrote in the New York Times Magazine: "Gnarls Barkley is just two people: Danger Mouse ([Brian] Burton) and an Atlanta-based singer-rapper named Cee-Lo (born Thomas Calloway. But in a larger sense, Gnarls Barkley is really just one person, and that person is Burton. Cee-Lo is essential, but he's essential in the same way Diane Keaton was essential to 'Annie Hall': he is the voice that best incarnates Burton's vision, so he serves as the front man for this particular project. … Danger Mouse … wants to be the first modern rock 'n' roll auteur" (6/18/06).
Jim James of My Morning Jacket commented to Winter Miller of the Times: "Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse are right on the cusp of what is starting to unify everybody. People don't have enough in common, the world is trying to isolate us, but they're a good spiritual force and have something to say. There's something strange going on with them, and I mean that in a good way. Intricate melodies, great beats, great lyrics, these guys are hitting it all" ("Playlist," 7/2/06).
Caution: off-color language occurs on at least one track.

Golijov: Ainadamar

CML call number: CD/OPERA/Golijov
Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times: "The story begins … during the last minutes of the life of the Catalan tragedienne Margarita Xirgu. The dying actress thinks back over 40 years of playing the title role in 'Mariana Pineda' by the daring young Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, who lionized Pineda, an early-19th-century martyr for Spanish independence. The young Margarita was shattered when Lorca was arrested and executed by fascist Falangists in 1936. As Margarita dwells on their life-transforming friendship … the story of Lorca's death is told in dreamy flashbacks. … Raised in Argentina by a family of Eastern European Jews, Mr. Golijov, 45, has striven to reconcile the music of his roots … with contemporary classical idioms. … [T]he performers on the Deutsche Grammophon recording seem enthralled with the work. There are brave and vulnerable performances from the soprano Dawn Upshaw … the soprano Jessica Rivera … and the mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor as Lorca. Yes, Lorca is a mezzo role, which lends the portrayal intriguing ambiguity. … [A] vivid performance … incisive, rhapsodic and expansive."

Neil Young: Living with War

CML call number: CD/ROCK/Young
Contents: After the Garden, Living with War, The Restless Consumer, Shock and Awe, Families, Flags of Freedom, Let's Impeach the President, Lookin' for a Leader, Roger and Out, America the Beautiful. All songs except "America the Beautiful" written by Neil Young.
Chuck Arnold wrote in People: "Don't expect Neil Young to be hitting the golf course with President Bush any time soon. On his new album — which comes just eight months after last year's strong Prairie Wind [also on hand at Case Memorial Library, CD/ROCK/Young] — a ticked-off Young issues a fierce indictment of Dubya on 'Let's Impeach the President': 'Let's impeach the President for lyin'/ And misleading our country into war/ Abusing all the power that we gave him/ And shipping all our money out the door.' Elsewhere, on 'Lookin' for a Leader,' he searches for a new commander in chief: 'Maybe it's a woman/ Or a black man after all.' The anti-Bush, antiwar message is delivered in raw, powerful folk-rock performances, with Young backed throughout by a 100-member choir that sounds like his own personal army."

Robert Glasper: Canvas

CML call number: CD/JAZZ/Glasper
Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times: "Over the last five years, one of the best musicians to make his home in places like Fat Cat and the Up Over Jazz Cafe has been the young pianist Robert Glasper. He has regularly been great, starting out from powerful, precise expositions of theme and then expanding his area of play, always followed closely by his trio. But the grapevine has its limits: unless you're a New York jazz musician, or you hang out with them, you've probably never heard him. 'Canvas' … shows Mr. Glasper doing what he has done, more or less, in those shows, and that is good. There will be time later to build concepts; the main thing is to get a representative sample of his rolling pulse in improvisations, his sputter of ideas within the close watchwork movements of his regular trio, with Vicente Archer on bass and Damion Reid on drums. Mr. Glasper owes a debt to Herbie Hancock, as do most mainstream jazz pianists who came along in the last three decades, and he doesn't hide it in the album's pretty harmonic changes. But laid thickly over any secondary stuff is his own jittery, hip-hop-altered sense of groove" ("Out of the Small Clubs …," 9/11/05).

Glazunov: Symphony No. 8 / Raymonda

CML call number: CD/CLASSICAL/Glazunov
Contents: Symphony No. 8 in E flat major, op. 83; Raymonda (suite from the ballet), op. 57a.
Russell Platt wrote in the New Yorker: "The works of Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) provided the perfect soundtrack for late imperial Russia: a society that depended on brilliant surfaces could readily appreciate a kind of music that shone with the lustre of a ruby in a tsar's crown. Glazunov's music doesn't have the emotional complexity of Tchaikovsky's, but it can be far more than a luxury item, as José Serebrier's new recording (Warner Classics) of the Symphony No. 8 in E-Flat Major proves. Serebrier, once Stokowski's protégé, has had an unusually serpentine career, without any major music directorships on his résumé. But his pacing of this symphony — which has at once a Brahmsian economy and a radiantly Russian energy — is unerring; perhaps no one has ever conducted Glazunov's music with more color and verve. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, normally a reliable second-tier band, turns in an inspired performance" ("Classical Notes: Imperial Interludes," 11/7/05, p. 18).

Bach: Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas

CML call number: CD/CLASSICAL/Bach
Jeremy Eichler wrote in the New York Times: "In 1980, [violinist Gidon Kremer] recorded all six sonatas and partitas for Philips in an explosive set that became the best introduction to his blend of peerless technique and wild interpretative imagination. The intervening decades have not tamed Mr. Kremer, but they have brought him full circle, back to this sad and noble music by Bach. In interviews and in disarmingly personal booklet notes, Mr. Kremer has discussed this new recording as a kind of existential travelogue, a wandering musician's 'last confession.' It is a superb account, bursting at once with piety toward the spirit of the music and sheer irreverence toward its execution. At the center is Mr. Kremer's umistakable approach to tone production: raw, molten fortes are pulled from deep inside the strings, ghostly pianos are floated with lightning-quick bow speed. On the whole, tempos are fast, and Mr. Kremer's approach to Bach's thick chords is more compact and vertical. The chaconne is choppier, less heroic. The C major Adagio leans more heavily on the passing dissonances. Like the earlier set, this one bristles with fresh ideas."

Ben Monder: Oceana

CML call number: CD/JAZZ/Monder
Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times: "'Oceana' … isn't really a jazz record, although it could only have been made by a jazz musician; there's its free-thinking attitude, its obsession with harmony and technique, the clean tone and heavy reverb of the guitar. … [Ben Monder's] sound is terrifically concentrated: he metes it out in rapid, fingerpicked puzzles with an independent thumb. … In some places, there are floating, repeated figures with Theo Bleckmann singing wordless vocals. Pat Metheny fans will recognize some of the guitar technique and the sweep of the ambition. … Two solo pieces, 'Still Motion' and 'Double Sun,' alternate between single arpeggiated chords and fast chordal movement, tracing larger areas of harmony as they progress. Recurring motifs bind the record together, culiminating in the full-band, distortion-drenched 'Rooms of Light,' which also contains the album's only breakaway guitar solo. … And the final 'Spectre,' with a row of intervals moving softly and slowly for eight minutes under Mr. Bleckmann's long tones, gets into Morton Feldman's territory; it's like walking slowly through a series of clouds" (11/21/05).

Eighth Blackbird: Fred

CML call number: CD/CLASSICAL/Rzewski
Allan Kozinn wrote in the New York Times: "[T]he six musicians of Eighth Blackbird … have … identified the thread that runs through [Frederic] Rzewski's work: an almost organic current of narrative tension. … And theatricality is a component of all three works the band plays on 'Fred.' … The newest, 'Pocket Symphony' (2000), was written for Eighth Blackbird, and if it thrives on interplay of different kinds … it also leaves room for improvisation in the cadenzas for each player. … Two oldies catch Mr. Rzewski in his Minimalist period. The skeleton of 'Les Moutons de Panurge' (1969) is a single 65-note melody. The work borrows moves from Philip Glass, Steve Reich and John Cage. The melody is built gradually by adding notes on each repetition … but Mr. Rzewski counted on at least one musician to make a mistake … so that the unison line would move out of sync … creating a web of intricate counterpoint. In 'Coming Together ' (1971), the musical backdrop is a brisk ostinato, heard first in the piano line … But the spotlight is on the narration, drawn from a letter of Sam Melville, a prisoner at Attica who was killed in the 1971 uprising there."

Van Morrison: Magic Time

CML call number: CD/POPULAR/Morrison
Contents: Stranded, Celtic New Year, Keep Mediocrity at Bay, Evening Train, This Love of Mine (Parker/Sanicola/Sinatra), I'm Confessin' (Daugherty/Neilburg/Reynolds), Just Like Greta, Gypsy in My Soul, Lonely and Blue (Brooks/Razaf/Waller; an adaptation of "Black and Blue" by Razaf and Waller), The Lion This Time, Magic Time, They Sold Me Out, Carry On Regardless. All songs by Van Morrison except as noted.
Rolling Stone wrote: "What, you expected a screwed-and-chopped album? This is Van the Man, and he doesn't mess around with fashion on Magic Time — he just sticks to the turf he knows, which is the steady-rolling Celtic folk soul that makes his Irish heart beat. As always, his voice is pure gold, and the songs are worthy as well, with a new Van theme song in 'Keep Mediocrity at Bay.' He sings the curmudgeonly pleasures of isolation ('Just Like Greta'), but he can't resist the call of true love in 'Lonely and Blue,' one of his most gorgeous R&B ballads" ("The Top 50 Records of 2005," 12/29/05-1/12/06).

Jack Johnson: Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George

CML call number: CD/SOUNDTRACKS/Johnson
Contents: Upside Down, Broken, People Watching, Wrong Turn, Talk of the Town, Jungle Gym (featuring G. Love), We're Going to Be Friends, The Sharing Song, The 3 R's, Lullaby (featuring Matt Costa), With My Own Two Hands (featuring Ben Harper), Questions, Supposed to Be.
Personnel: Jack Johnson, Merlo Podlewski, Adam Topol, Zach Gill, Ben Harper, G. Love, Matt Costa, Kawika Kahiapo.
Artist website: http://www.jackjohnsonmusic.com/
Publisher's website for Curious George: http://houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/cgsite/
While this might appear to be a recording for children, it charted No. 1 in Rolling Stone's Top 40 Albums the week of its release (issue of 3/9/06). Certainly the music has great charm for this adult listener, and others too if word of mouth can be trusted. Some of the song titles point to kid-friendly content, but a track such as "Wrong Turn" could easily be about an adult relationship, and even capture a fragile moment in that relationship better than most songs for grownups.

Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Writers Speak

CML call number: CD/SPOKEN/Fresh
Contents: Interviews with Stephen King (2000), Maurice Sendak (1993), Richard Price (1986 & 1992), Philip Roth (2000), James Baldwin (1987), Norman Mailer (1991), Allen Ginsberg (1994), Joyce Johnson (2001), John Updike (1989), David Rakoff (2001), Fran Lebowitz (1995), David Sedaris (2000), and Billy Collins (1998).
Terry Gross is the host of the public radio program Fresh Air, an award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, produced by WHYY in Philadelphia and distributed by National Public Radio. Her interviews with famous authors allow the listener to hear their "voices" in a different and refreshing sense. Material on this three-disc set includes Stephen King reading from and discussing his 2000 book On Writing (B/KING/[Stephen]/King); Richard Price reading from and discussing Clockers (1992; Fiction/Price); and Philip Roth reading from and discussing The Human Stain (2000; Fiction/Roth).
Released in 2004, new to our collection. Our thanks to the anonymous donor!

Debussy: Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien — Symphonic Fragments; Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

CML call number: CD/CLASSICAL/Debussy
Artists: Günter Wand conducting the NDR-Sinfonieorchester, recorded live September 20, 1982.
From the notes by Wolfgang Seifert, trans. by Graham Lack: "[After conducting Jeux in 1959, Günter Wand discovered] another early work by Debussy, one that since its famous premiere in May 1911 had hardly been performed again in its entirety: Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, a kind of mystery play cast as a musical revue for the famous dancer Ida Rubinstein. To a text by the Italian symbolist Gabriele d'Annunzio, Debussy wrote an unusually rich work for the stage, complete with soloists and choruses. By intentionally commingling elements of a Christ figure with those surrounding the Adonis cult … the composer caused a major scandal, leading to the work being banned by the Church. This is however one of the most beautiful and stylistically most mature of Debussy's creations. … The prelude and the interludes — these four symphonic fragments — give the impression of an extreme but strange beauty, admit an unique aesthetic. …"
Released 2000, new to our collection. Our thanks to the anonymous donor!

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Show Your Bones

CML call number: CD/ROCK/Yeah
Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in the New Yorker: "[B]eneath the art-rock trappings the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are pop musicians. Theirs is a slightly scruffy version of pop, made with cheap instruments and Karen O's surreal lyrics, but their songs … have all the traits of Top Forty hits: economy, momentum, personality, and pleasure. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs value joy over indie credibility, and they want to be catchy. … [Brian] Chase, a compact, bespectacled young man, who attended Oberlin College with Karen O, is one of rock's most satisfying drummers; he is capable of complicated polyrhythms but rarely plays anything fussy. [Guitarist Nick] Zinner… is fine-featured and rail-thin, with a nest of black hair and a talent for writing elegant, howling guitar motifs that echo, but never overwhelm, her singing. Both men need to be this good to hold their own against Karen O, whose fearsome charisma would have made her a success had she appeared with nothing more than a microphone and a pair of maracas. … Karen O's voice lacks the power of Björk's, but she is as versatile a performer" ("Positive Attitude," 2/13-20/2006).

Richard Rodney Bennett: The Mines of Sulphur

CML call number: CD/OPERA/Bennett
Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times: "It's an exciting addition to the discography of 20th-century opera. Set in 18th-century England, in a deteriorating manor, the opera tells of Boconnion, an army deserter seething with class resentment. Abetted by Tovey, a wily tramp, and Rosalind, a seductive Gypsy, he murders the sanctimonious landowner Braxton. As the ruthless conspirators celebrate their newfound wealth, some itinerant actors appear, seeking shelter. Boconnion houses them on the condition that they perform their newest work, 'The Mines of Sulphur.' But he is horrified when the play echoes his murder of Braxton. Though just 28 when he composed this work, Sir Richard showed a sure grasp of dramatic pacing and an intuitive feeling for character. He confidently adapted the 12-tone idiom to his distinctive musical and dramatic aims, reining in a wayward Bergian language with ravishing moments of tonal mooring. The vocal writing shifts naturally between sputtered outbursts and ruminative lyricism. The excellent cast is headed by Brandon Jovanovich (Boconnion), Kristopher Irmiter (Braxton). …" (9/18/05).

Teddy Geiger: Underage Thinking

CML call number: CD/POPULAR/Geiger
Contents: These Walls, For You I Will (Confidence), Night Air, Thinking Underage, Look Where We Are Now, Air Dry, Seven Days Without You [written by S. Bertrand and S. Brawley], Try Too Hard, A Million Years, Possibilities, Gentlemen, Love Is a Marathon.
Chuck Arnold wrote in People: "17-year-old Teddy Geiger … displays a talent far beyond his years on a first-rate pop CD that should win over fans of both Jesse McCartney and John Mayer. Not only did the self-taught Rochester, N.Y., native play guitar, piano, bass and percussion, he had a hand in writing all but one tune. Songs like the heartfelt 'For You I Will (Confidence)' demonstrate an assured knack for big, sweeping melodies, while the dreamy ballad 'Seven Days Without You' showcases Geiger's slightly raspy vocals that are just the right heartthrob combination of sexy and sweet. Thankfully, Geiger still possesses some of the innocence of youth: When he sings about waiting for his tears to 'Air Dry,' you want to give him a hankie" (4/3/06, p. 41).