Ramblin' Jack Elliott: A Stranger Here

Contents: Rising high water blues — Death don't have no mercy — Rambler's blues — Soul of a man — Richland women blues — Grinnin' in your face — New strangers blues — Falling down blues — How long blues — Please remember me.
Recorded at The Garland House, South Pasadena, CA, July 21-24, 27-29, 2008.
"Who better to bring some musical perspective to these troubled times than Ramblin' Jack Elliott, as he takes on Depression-era blues classics on A Stranger Here, his second release on Anti-Records … part of a musical thread that links Guthrie to early Bob Dylan. And as Dylan has recently done, Elliott, at age 77, proves the new relevance of traditional blues. 'Children stand there screaming, "Momma we an't got no home,"' he rasps on the album's opener, Blind Lemon Jefferson's 'Rising High Water Blues.' Elliott brings a seen-it-all authenticity to this repertoire while Joe Henry's sympathetic production (aided by guest appearances by Los Lobos' David Hidalgo and Van Dyke Parks) is pitch perfect. … Elliott skillfully reintroduces these songs and, for that, he deserves to be no stranger to a new generation of fans" (Billboard, 4/11/09).

Nate Chinen on Lucky Thompson

"The great saxophonist Lucky Thompson died in 2005, at 81. In musical terms his silence began much earlier: he gave his last known performances in the 1970s, after which he more or less disappeared, leading an itinerant life. (His outspoken disdain for the music business is often cited as motivation.) 'New York City, 1964-65' (Uptown) captures him a decade before his self-exile, around the time of his landmark album 'Lucky Strikes.' The newly unearthed material, from two distinct engagements, compounds our sense of what was lost when he withdrew from the scene. First up is a 1964 concert featuring Mr. Thompson’s music arranged for octet, a preferred format of his. The orchestrations are unfussy and appealingly lightweight, and most of the enlisted sidemen — notably the pianist Hank Jones and the baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne — make robust solo statements. But the real treat is hearing Mr. Thompson caress ''Twas Yesterday,' a courtly ballad, and then barrel through 'Firebug,' a jaunty blues bracketed by Latin-jazz fanfare. No less rewarding is 'The World Awakes,' on which he trades his soft-burred tenor for a pristine soprano" ("Playlist," 3/29/09).

Duke Ellington: The 1956-1958 Small Group Recordings

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Contents: 1., 2. In a mellow tone, 3., 4. Happy reunion, 5. Diminuendo and crescendo in blue, 6. Wailing 'bout, 7. I cover the waterfront, 8. Deep blues, 9. Circle of fours, 10. Perdido, 11. The riff, 12. Bluer, 13. Slow blues ensemble, 14. Blues a la Willie Cook, 15. Three trumps (aka Spacemen), 16. Way back blues, 17. Where's the music?, 18. Rubber bottom, 19. Play the blues and go, 20. Prelude to a kiss, 21. Miss Lucy, 22. March 19th blues.
Personnel: Duke Ellington, piano on all tracks, plus Paul Gonsalves (tenor), Jimmy Woode (bass), Sam Woodyard (drums), tracks 1-8; above plus Clark Terry (trumpet), tracks 9-10; above plus Ray Nance and Willie Cook (trumpet), tracks 11-13; Ellington, Woods, Woodyard, Nance, Cook, track 14; above plus Terry, track 15; Ellington, Terry, John Sanders (valve trombone), Jimmy Hamilton (clarinet), Johnny Hodges (alto), Woode, Woodyard, tracks 16-19; above plus Cook, Cat Anderson, Nance (trumpet), Britt Woodman, Quentin Jackson (trombone), Russell Procope (alto, clarinet), Gonsalves, Harry Carney (baritone), tracks 20-22.

Hank Williams Jr.: 127 Rose Avenue

Contents: Farm song; Red, white & pink-slip blues; High maintenance woman; Mighty oak trees; Forged by fire; Last driftin' cowboy (including a sample of "Honky Tonk Blues" by Hank Sr.); 127 Rose Avenue; All the roads (featuring the Grascals); Sounds like justice; Long gone lonesome blues; Gulf Shore Road.
Personnel: Paul Leim, Eddie Bayers, Steve Turner, drums; Joe Chemay, bass; Bryan Sutton, Bobby Terry, acoustic guitar; Brent Mason, Chris Leuzinger, Troy Lancaster, Bobby Terry, electric guitar; John Jarvis, piano; Paul Franklin, Scotty Sanders, steel; Jelly Roll Johnson, harp; Aubrey Haynie, fiddle; Eric Darken, marimba; Robert Randolph, pedal steel; Troy Johnson, Lisa Cochran, Perry Coleman, Lisa J, Ed Seay, Doug Johnson, background vocals; Bobby Terry, baritone guitar; B3 Hammond, Dennis Wage; The Grascals; Hank Jr., National guitar.
"Williams has an impending studio album called '127 Rose Avenue.' … Hank Jr. has certainly carved a fine legacy … and I'm sure his Old Man would be proud" (Rick Koster, "Born to Be Wild," The Day [New London], 5/28/09).

Vivien Schweitzer on the Ying Quartet

"On 'Dim Sum,' a recent CD from Telarc, the Ying Quartet plays short works by living Chinese-American composers, music that blends traditional Chinese sounds and techniques with the Western string quartet idiom. The most memorable part of the ensemble’s concert on Friday evening was an encore from that disc: Vivian Fung’s 'Pizzicato for String Quartet.' Ms. Fung’s evocative work, inspired by Chinese and Asian instruments like the pipa and gamelan, features percussive gestures and a medley of plucked sounds, including strumming. At one point the musicians rapped their knuckles against the wood of their instruments. … The four siblings — Timothy and Janet Ying, violinists; Phillip Ying, violist; David Ying, cellist — offered committed performances" ("Music in Review," New York Times, 4/22/09).
Other works on "Dim Sum" include "Song of the Ch'in" by Zhou Long, "Shuo" by Chen Yi, movements II and IV from "Silent Temple" by Bright Sheng, "Fu" by Ge Gan-ru, "Gobi Gloria" by Lei Liang, "Leggeriezza" and "Larghetto nostalgico" from the String Quartet No. 1 by Chou Wen-chung, and "Drum and Gong," "Cloudiness," and "Red Sona" from Colors by Tan Dun.

Brian LaRue on Tucker Jameson & the Hot Mugs

"Or Something In Between... (Horizon Music Group, myspace.com/tuckerjameson). Jameson and his band return just a year after their youthfully effervescent, often self-consciously over-eager first album with a more mature six-song EP. That is, if by 'more mature' one means slightly tougher-sounding, more rocking, more minor-key and hornier. They're also more soulful and more comfortable with their sound. Their debt to '60s and '70s pop is clear, but a groovier classic rock bent is present and the arrangements nod as much to contemporary pop-rock as they do to those retro roots. Settling into their craft while maintaining their energy and a hint of innocence, the band makes a strong case they've ascended from apprentice to journeyman status" ("Local CDs," New Haven Advocate, 6/18/09, p. 28).
Contents: My Best Friend's Sister, Friends & Lovers, Bring On the Night, Cat & Mouse, Out of the Blue, Cold Winter Night.
Personnel: Tucker Jameson, lead vocals, guitar; Blake Powell, lead guitar; Seth Glennie-Smith, bass; Dan Drohan, drums, percussion.

Joe Hagan on Sunn O)))

"Novelist and heavy-metal aficionado John Wray, author of Lowboy, once described being bludgeoned by metal avatars Sunn O))) as 'somehow more meditative than violent. The overall experience was not unlike listening to an Indian raga in the middle of an earthquake.' … Apparently there’s something about a global financial meltdown that calls for a curative blast of palette-cleansing noise. Witness … inveterate musical anthropologist David Byrne spotted, with earplugs, attending a Sunn O))) concert. He’s a fan. … The two members of Sunn O))) (pronounced simply 'sun' and named for a brand of amplifier) are big Miles Davis fans. Not that you’d necessarily hear the influence in their music. The image on the cover of their just-released album, Monoliths & Dimensions, features a Richard Serra painting from 1999, an image that looks like a big black hole entitled 'out-of-round X.' That gets the sound about right: overwhelming and too big to wrap your ears around. Onstage, Sunn O))) play bowel-shaking chords painstakingly slowly for two hours while wearing druid robes amid the ubiquitous fog. … It’s not unfunny, but it’s also riveting" ("Let There Be Doom," New York, 5/18/09).

Alex Ross on Esa-Pekka Salonen

"Salonen turned the Los Angeles Philharmonic into the most intellectually lively orchestra in America. … Salonen arrived with the conviction that twentieth-century and contemporary fare might not only cease to be an obstacle but even become a draw. … On April 7th, he presented a concert in the orchestra’s long-running new-music series, 'Green Umbrella,' which … has grown from a sparsely attended specialty offering to a mainstream attraction. … At a Philharmonic concert two nights later, Salonen offered a big new work of his own: the Violin Concerto, written for the fearless young virtuoso Leila Josefowicz. When Salonen announced that he was giving up the Los Angeles job, he said that he wanted to devote more time to composing, and the strength of his latest pieces suggests that he has not made a foolish choice. (His other conducting gig, at the Philharmonia Orchestra, in London, takes less of his time.) Salonen the composer is more openly expressive than Salonen the conductor; on a new Deutsche Grammophon recording, you can hear his Piano Concerto, which rivals the Romantic showpieces of yesteryear in its brash gestures and lush textures" ("Adieu," New Yorker, 5/4/09).

Tom Moon on the White Stripes

"Elephant, the fourth album from the Detroit duo known as the White Stripes … opens with one savage blast of rock and roll, a quintessential track one that telegraphs the big rock noise to follow. 'Seven Nation Army' transforms a lover's declaration of devotion ('A seven-nation army couldn't hold me back') into a crusade framed by a guitar riff that incorporates great hooks from British blues-rock of the late '60s and brash American arena fare of the '70s. The White Stripes—guitarist, singers, and songwriter Jack White, drummer and singer Meg White—first attracted attention in 2001 with a fuzzed up, irreverent take on the blues and an ear for quirky pop songs. … Elephant finds the duo in its comfort zone. … At the same time, it expands the Stripes' raw sound, with lilting piano and country-style guitar strumming, and, on the bizarro breakup song 'There's No Home for You Here,' lugubrious, defiantly out-of-time shards of metal guitar. … Follow the White Stripes through simple hooks, prog-rock darkness, and campy vaudeville routines, and it becomes clear that this band … made one of the most consistently riveting rock records of all time" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, p. 857).

Tom Moon on Suzanne Vega

"'My name is Luka, I live on the second floor.' Thus begins New York pop-folk songwriter Suzanne Vega's disquieting story of a city kid's attempt to deal with a volatile (and seemingly violent) home situation. Vega focuses not on the details of the kid's plight but on his awkwardness. She sketches his brave front—and the way it barely hides his fear, his sense of being overwhelmed. The song … sparked nationwide discussion about the domestic abuse of children. … The title tune alternates between a steady rock pulse and ethereal free-falling passages that seem borne from a daydream. … Solitude Standing yielded another improbable hit—the cinema-verité 'Tom's Diner,' which Vega sings a cappella. This song, which was remixed by the British producers DNA first without her permission then with her blessing, became a massive club hit the following year. … When audio engineer Karlheinz Brandenburg was developing the MP3 audio format for computers, he used the original 'Tom's Diner' as a test, explaining that if he could get the program to translate Vega's warm voice, it could translate anything" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, pp. 827-828).

Tom Moon on Cameo/Parkway

"Founded with borrowed funds by a music teacher named Bernie Lowe, Cameo (and later Parkway) was run out of the basement of Lowe's home. It started in 1956 and the very next year had, with its sixth 45-RPM single, a smash hit: 'Butterfly,' written by Lowe and his lyricist partner Kal Mann, and recorded by a South Philly rockabilly guitarist named Charlie Gracie. More hits followed, and many of them were first heard on a then-local TV show called Bandstand, a 'dance' show featuring Philly teens. The program went national in 1957, but because it was taped in Philadelphia, Cameo-Parkway was often asked to supply talent on short notice. Bandstand's host, Dick Clark, returned the favor by alerting Lowe to fast-spreading dance trends; it was his tip that convinced Lowe to rerecord 'The Twist,' a Hank Ballard song. The first single for a former butcher-shop employee Chubby Checker (né Ernest Evans), 'The Twist' became an international sensation. This four-disc set, a comprehensive reissue of the label's vast holdings, plays like a dream shuffle from a torrid decade of pop music" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, pp. 806-807).

Tom Moon on Phil Spector

"Whenever you hear a '60s-era production with echoey voices, five or six guitar parts, nearly as many keyboards, and perfectly aligned maracas and other percussion shaking and rattling underneath, it's safe to assume that the enigmatic Spector created it, or inspired it. The Bronx-born, L.A.-based multi-instrumentalist revolutionized record production with his elaborate multitracking, which became immortally known as the 'Wall of Sound.' … His break came in 1960, when some L.A. producers he'd been apprenticing with sent him to New York to work with the songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Spector hit it off with the pair right away, co-writing 'Spanish Harlem' with Leiber. … Spector formed his first record company in 1961. … Over the next three years, Spector was responsible for twenty successive smash hits, from the Crystals' 'Da Doo Ron Ron' to the Ronettes' 'Be My Baby' to Darlene Love's 'Chapel of Love' to the Righteous Brothers' 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.' These and many more towering productions are collected in the chronologically arranged mega-anthology Back to Mono" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, pp. 728-729).

Tom Moon on Frank Sinatra

"Honoring Sinatra with a Grammy Legend Award in 1994, U2 lead singer Bono described the singer's gift this way: 'Comin' through with the big stick, the aside, the quiet compliment, good cop/bad cop all in the same breath.' Songs for Swingin' Lovers is one of the best showcases for that dizzying sequence of uppercuts and jabs, in which unbridled cocksure exuberance is followed by moments of anguished soul-searching. It's among the early collaborations between Sinatra and arranger Nelson Riddle, and it shows how even when the rhythms are designed to not rattle the china, Sinatra somehow rattles the soul. On chart after ambling chart, each one decorated with a slightly different set of studio-orchestra colors, the Chairman of the Board demonstrates all the little ways exacting placement and phrasing can light up the room. His lines fall fitfully against the pattering rhythms. Or they glide along, gently increasing altitude, helped aloft by trembling strings. Or … his phrases are steeped in a besotted, lovestruck haze. No other American singer entertained this way, in sly bursts that formed their own iconographic musical language" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, pp. 706-707).

Tom Moon on Nina Simone

"In the song-drama 'Four Women,' one of several Nina Simone originals on this career overview released shortly after she died in 2003, at age seventy, the classically trained pianist and singer assumes the identities of four black female archetypes—the wise, long-suffering laborer, the whore, the militant, and the confused child of mixed-race parents. Each is distinct, stepping out of a different period novel. Through changes in inflection and dialect, Simone forces her listeners to confront those characters, feel their humanity, sense their struggles. By the time the song ends, you know about more than just four isolated women; you know about womanhood and pride, dignity and the tangled politics of identity and race. It's always that way with Simone. … She rarely throws herself completely into extremes like 'happy' or 'sad'—here is complex music in the key of bittersweet, complete with the messier aspects that jazz divas sometimes gloss over. Her love songs, like the wrenching 'I Loves You Porgy,' have the weary, worn-down countenance of the soldier returning from violent battle; her protest songs … are delivered with a romantic's blue-sky idealism" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, p. 705).

Tom Moon on Ma Rainey

"Ma Rainey comes through louder and clearer than any other blues singer of the 1920s. Though her recordings have the staticky veneer that plagues everything from the era, Rainey somehow pierces the noise. A veteran who'd been belting for more than twenty years before her voice was captured for posterity, she dispenses risqué notions and wronged-woman blues with wry and worldly inflections, a mixture of growls and shouts that just about everyone after her copied. Rainey (1886-1939) matters because she was among the first blues artists to develop more than a regional following: Through grueling roadwork as a part of circuses and minstrel shows, she and her husband … became well-known performers throughout the South. This made Ma Rainey a powerful influence: Bessie Smith, the so-called Queen of the Blues, heard (and openly imitated) Rainey. … Rainey is also significant because of the joy on display here. … Her tunes recorded between 1924 and 1928 are distinguished by a cheeky irreverence and great spirit. Her big voice bellowing, she … enjoys the double-entendre talk about her 'Black Bottom'—which, of course, is a dance" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, pp. 628-629).

Tom Moon on Puccini

"Giacomo Puccini's last opera is the story of a frigid princess who beheads suitors who can't answer her three riddles. The plot is ghastly at times; the title character a nasty tyrant. And yet Turandot contains some of the most sweepingly lyrical, arrestingly beautiful music in all of opera. … The title character typically had been played by Wagnerites, singers prone to oversized delivery. [Joan] Sutherland wasn't that—her calling card was finesse. Somehow, though, conductor Zubin Mehta draws an almost animalistic, instinct-driven performance from her. The entire work feels shot full of energy—Mehta gets the singers to attend to the specifics without neglecting the motives (and warped mores) of their characters. Puccini didn't finish Turandot, which some have speculated drew on his own experience (his wife was known to be a cold, jealous type). He had trouble with the resolution of the story, the moment in the third act when Turandot realizes her meanness and becomes a good wife to Calaf. He'd orchestrated the entire work, and made numerous attempts at endings, but was stymied by the final scenes. The opera was finished by Franco Alfano. …" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, pp. 620-621).

Tom Moon on "My Fair Lady"

"Most original-cast albums of the 1950s were recorded in a single day. Producers tried to schedule the sessions as close to the opening of the musical as possible, thinking that the nuances of the work would be fresh in the performers' minds. That strategy sometimes backfired. The frenzy of getting a show off the ground meant performers hadn't yet settled into the songs. And were often exhausted besides. Amazingly, there's no fatigue in the zippy readings of this Lerner and Loewe masterpiece, which was recorded in one marathon fourteen-hour session on March 25, 1956. … The show yielded an astounding number of songs that became standards. … [Rex] Harrison, as Henry Higgins, enjoys every wink of his ironies: When he describes himself, in 'I'm an Ordinary Man,' his exaggerated demeanor suggests his character is anything but ordinary. That Harrison caught this specific dynamic so early in what became a historic extended run is remarkable. In a vivid illustration of how precarious these inflections can be, by the time of the 1959 London cast recording, he lost that gleam—he's no longer in on the joke—making the iridescent 1956 version the clear choice" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, p. 447).

Tom Moon on Whitney Houston

"It's not often that a record designed down to the last breath to be commercially accessible ends up changing the rules. Whitney Houston's debut did exactly that. Discovered and launched by legendary record executive Clive Davis, Houston came out of nowhere in early 1985, and within two years virtually everything on urban radio sounded like an echo of this album—producers shamelessly borrowed the beats, the string sounds, and the plush padded keyboards, while a school of singers (Toni Braxton, the members of TLC, Janet Jackson) emulated Houston's writhing phrases and demanding-diva delivery. Houston was, to be sure, something special. The daughter of gospel dynamo Cissy Houston, she grew up in Newark, New Jersey, singing in church. Her early career included jingle dates and appearances in clubs—her first recording was with producer Bill Laswell's experimental rock band Material. From the start, Houston had an unusual combination of skills: the timing of a jazz singer and the range … of a gospel soloist. This enchanted Davis, who spotted her one night when she was singing in a club [and] offered her a contract on the spot …" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, p. 370).

Tom Moon on Henryk Górecki

"Nothing much happens in the first few minutes of [the Symphony No. 3, Op. 26: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs). We open in a pool of low-strings murk, and we stay there, stewing. It's as though the Polish composer Henryk Górecki is clearing his throat, insisting on a certain quality of attention. Or, perhaps, he's making sure the whole room reaches the proper gloomy frequency. This stasis has an effect. When the sonorities do change, they have cataclysmic impact. Górecki organized the extended first movement as a series of overlapping 'canons,' or rounds, in which slow-moving motifs are layered over each other to create a counterpoint. It's a cerebral technique sometimes used by minimalists, but Górecki lets the ideas emerge so gently, it hardly seems like a device at all—the dissonances that result carry their own emotional surges. The chords swell up one by one, gusts of wind announcing a gathering storm. When the voice enters, after thirteen minutes, things have swirled to a head; the grieving mother at the center of the work is finally heard. What had been indistinct atmosphere becomes jabbing weaponry behind her" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, p. 319).

Tom Moon on Derek and the Dominoes

"In 1970, the recording engineer Tom Dowd brokered one of the most auspicious meetings in rock history—between guitarist Eric Clapton and the slide-guitar master Duane Allman. Clapton was working with Dowd at Miami's Criteria Studios, attempting to shake off the bitter demise of Blind Faith with a new group that included keyboardist and singer Bobby Whitlock. … Allman called, curious to see the British guitar legend in person. Clapton's group went to watch the Allman Brothers play instead, and after the concert, the musicians partied all night, eventually repairing to the studio the next afternoon. Dowd: 'We turned the tapes on, and they went on for fifteen, eighteen hours like that. …' Those jams … set the stage for Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, a multidimensional rock landmark. Clapton was, according to legend, at loose ends during this time: He'd fallen in love with Patti Boyd, the wife of his best friend George Harrison, and was deeply troubled—a pain evident not just on the celebrated title track he wrote with Jim Gordon, but also such apt covers as Freddie King's sorrowful blues about messing with a friend's wife, 'Have You Ever Loved a Woman' …" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, p. 219).