Vivien Schweitzer on Sandrine Piau

"At Weill Recital Hall on Friday evening the superb French soprano Sandrine Piau explored the 'mysteries and dimensions of womanhood': a bountiful topic that has kept male poets busy for centuries and provided texts for innumerable songs. Most of the works she performed are also featured on 'Évocation' (Naïve), her new disc of 19th- and 20th-century French and German songs. …Known primarily as a Baroque and Classical specialist, Ms. Piau sang with a clear and deeply expressive voice, nuanced phrasing and immaculate control. … Ms. Piau sang Chausson’s melancholy 'Hébé' — to a text by Louise Victorine-Ackermann, the only female poet in the program — with delicate yearning, and offered an achingly lovely interpretation of 'Le Colibri.' Debussy was represented by selections including 'Nuits d’Étoiles,' with arpeggiated piano chords evoking a harp. Ms. Piau demonstrated her facility with German repertory in a flavorful rendition of Strauss’s 'Mädchenblumen' (Op. 22), four songs in which women are compared to clinging vines and flowers. She also sang four songs by Zemlinsky, including 'Frühlingslied,' a setting of a Heine poem" ("Music Review," New York Times, 10/12/09).

Third Eye Blind: Ursa Major

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Contents: Can You Take Me (Stephan Jenkins/Tony Fredianelli), Don't Believe a Word (Jenkins/Fredianelli), Bonfire (Jenkins/Fredianelli), Sharp Knife (Jenkins/Fredianelli), One in Ten (Jenkins), About to Break (Jenkins/Ari Ingber), Summer Town (Jenkins), Why Can't You Be (Jenkins), Water Landing (Jenkins), Dao of St. Paul (Jenkins), Monotov's Private Opera (Jenkins), Carnival Barker (instrumental; Jenkins/Fredianelli).
Personnel: Stephan Jenkins, vocals, guitars, keyboards, percussion, drums (Why Can't You Be); Brad Hargreaves, drums, percussion, piano; Tony Fredianelli, guitars, backing vocals, keyboards. Also: Jon Evans, bass; Herve Salters, keys (Why Can't You Be); Robyn Croomer, backing vocals; Cynthia Taylor, backing vocals; Minna Choi, backing vocals; Ben Stokes, drum programming (Water Landing), synth (Can You Take Me); Mauri Skinfil, backing vocals (Dao of St. Paul); Arion Salazar, bass (Bonfire).
Artist website: http://www.3eb.com/

John Adamian on Steve Lehman

"He plays jazz, yes — he was a Charlie Parker fanatic at 10, and studied with Connecticut saxophone giants Anthony Braxton and the late Jackie McLean — but he also works extensively in what’s called 'spectrum music,' which is an approach that pays special attention to the physical properties of sound. … Lehman went to Wesleyan, where he studied and performed with Braxton. Meanwhile, he attended McLean’s sax seminars at Hartt. Braxton and McLean urged students to 'find a personal music,' says Lehman. … Listening to Lehman’s music, particularly to his exciting new record, Travail, Transformation, and Flow, the analogies from visual arts come to mind. The microtonal harmonies and unusual paired timbres (vibes and tuba, for instance) can make one think of the paintings of Josef Albers, who explored the ways that our perception of colors changed in different contexts and settings. Lehman’s compositions often achieve a kind of beguiling surface calm, with pensive monochromatic dabs of sound serving as a backdrop for more detailed pointillistic soloing. … 'I feel like I’ve gotten better at being genuine with my intentions as I’ve gotten older'" ("Music," New Haven Advocate, 10/8/09, p. 41).

Ben Greenman on Cheap Trick

"Cheap Trick’s latest album is one of its trickiest yet, from the winking title ('The Latest') on down. The first single, 'When the Lights Are Out,' is a cover of an old Slade song—an old cover of an old Slade song, actually, recorded in 1976 and rescued from the Cheap Trick vaults—that fits the original over the galloping drumbeat of the band’s early hit 'ELO Kiddies.' Throughout, in fact, the group (still composed of the guitarist Rick Nielsen, the singer Robin Zander, the bassist Tom Petersson, and the drummer Bun E. Carlos) plays fast and loose with its own history. The sparkling 'Miss Tomorrow' is a leftover from Zander’s early-nineties solo career. … Elsewhere, the group continues to do what it has always done, balancing delicate balladry ('Miracle,' which has another highly Lennon-like vocal) with skewed popcraft. … Sometimes, they do both in the same song: 'Closer, the Ballad of Burt and Linda' is a soaring love song about Burton Pugach, the New York lawyer who spent fourteen years in prison for hiring thugs to throw lye in the face of his girlfriend and future wife, Linda Riss. … Moving confidently into the future while remaining convincingly rooted in the past? Now that’s a neat trick" ("Pop Notes," New Yorker, 7/27/09).

The Best Is Yet to Come: The Songs of Cy Coleman

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Contents: The best is yet to come (performed by Patty Griffin) — I've got your number (performed by Jill Sobule) — Why try to change me now (performed by Fiona Apple) — I live my love (performed by Madeleine Peyroux) — Then was then and now is now (performed by Ambrosia Parsley) — I'm gonna laugh you right out of my life (performed by Julianna Raye) — You fascinate me so (performed by Sam Phillips) — Hey look me over (performed by Perla Batalla) — Too many tomorrows (performed by Sara Watkins) — I walk a little faster (performed by Fiona Apple) — Where am I going? (performed by Sarabeth Tucek) — The rules of the road (performed by Nikka Costa) — (I'm) in love again (performed by Missy Higgins). Produced and arranged by Dave Palmer, who also plays keyboards on all tracks.
"The new tribute album, 'The Best Is Yet to Come: The Songs of Cy Coleman,' features top female vocalists interpreting the works of the great songwriter" ("On the Horizon," New Yorker, 10/19/09, p. 25).

Steve Smith on Stile Antico

"Stile Antico, a bright, young early-music vocal ensemble from England, made its New York debut as part of the Music Before 1800 series at Corpus Christi Church on Sunday afternoon. … Listen to Stile Antico’s most recent CD, 'Song of Songs,' and you are confronted with an ensemble of breathtaking freshness, vitality and balance. It was no fluke of marketing that made the disc a best seller and earned it a Gramophone Award (though the group’s profile was probably boosted by having worked with Sting). Nevertheless, Stile Antico’s extra effort paid dividends during a concert that nearly duplicated the contents of the album, a collection of 16th-century European settings of passages from the biblical Song of Solomon. … Working without a conductor, the singers kept a keen eye on one another, giving their pitch-perfect sound a finely honed precision in the rippling sequences of Clemens non Papa’s 'Ego flos campi' and the ricocheting counterpoint of Sebastián de Vivanco’s 'Veni, dilecte mi.' Rich harmonies in selections by Nicolas Gombert and Jean Lhéritier had a luminous glow. … You could almost smell the perfume wafting through a ravishing account of Victoria’s 'Vidi speciosam'" ("Music Review," New York Times, 10/27/09).

David Fricke on Big Star

"The legend of Big Star was almost over at the starting gate: when co-founding singer-guitarist Chris Bell quit the Memphis pop band, right after its 1972 debut, #1 Record, came out and flopped. The LP — a white-soul Abbey Road with a Lennon-McCartney-like tension between the grainy ennui of ex-Box Tops singer Alex Chilton and Bell's desperate romanticism — became an object of cult love. … Barring the discovery of more golden eggs, the four CDs of Keep an Eye on the Sky are the last word on Big Star's first, ultimately glorious lifetime: the albums plus outtakes, related curios and live tracks from a 1973 Memphis club show. The original sequences of #1 Record and Radio City are disrupted with alternate mixes of pure-pop pillars like 'In the Street' and 'Back of a Car.' More interesting are rattling garage-pop demos for Radio City and Chilton's harrowing solo sketches for 3rd. But what looms largest here is what might have been. Bell, who died in 1978, is out of earshot before Disc One is over. … As Bell's idea of a perfect pop band, Big Star ended when he left. Everything that follows is stubborn, brilliant defiance" ("Big Star's Lost Pop Dream," Rolling Stone, 10/1/09, p. 80).

Steve Smith on the Pacifica Quartet

"Cycles are nothing new for the Pacifica Quartet, which recorded all of Mendelssohn’s quartets for the Cedille label from 2002 to 2004 and which firmly cemented its place among today’s elite ensembles with its complete traversals of Elliott Carter’s five string quartets in concerts at the Miller Theater in 2002 and at the New York Society for Ethical Culture in 2008. The Pacifica recorded Mr. Carter’s works for the Naxos label. The first volume won a Grammy Award, and the feat made a durable impression, not least on the composer himself. 'Obviously I never had the idea that these pieces would all be played in a string,' Mr. Carter said in a recent conversation at his Greenwich Village apartment. 'They were not composed like that. Each one’s about 10 years apart. What interested me was the fact that one string quartet related to another one, but that they understood how to keep it as though they were not all sounding alike. I thought they caught that very well, and that impressed me a good deal.' For the Pacifica members, working with Mr. Carter helped to enrich their understanding and interpretation of his works" ("An Ensemble with Many Homes Finds Another," New York Times, 10/18/09).

Katie Goldsmith interviews Caleb Followill

"Caleb, Nathan, and Jared Followill … formed the rock band Kings of Leon … [Q] Is it true your Grammy-winning track 'Sex on Fire' was almost cut from the album? [A] When it comes time to put an album together, you try all different song sequences, and one or two usually have to go. My choices of songs to take off have become our biggest hits. … [Q] You’ve been criticized for abandoning the dirtier southern sound of your first three albums for something slicker. Do you think that’s fair? [A] No, absolutely not. You grow as a band, and you want to spread your wings. Whenever we get going to write another album, people will realize that our goal is always to do something different. [Q] When headlining a festival in Scotland in July, you got angry about the sound quality and ended up smashing your Gibson ES 325. … What exactly happened? [A] I don’t know—I think I just made a bad decision. … [Q] What are your plans while you’re in New York? [A] My girl [model Lily Aldridge] lives here, so I visit quite a bit. … I prefer the scene in New York much more than in L.A. or other cities because you can be yourself. I don’t like going out and getting my picture taken" ("Holy Roller: Caleb Followill," New York, 9/14/09).

Vivien Schweitzer on Marin Marais

"A memorable scene in Alain Corneau’s film 'Tous les Matins du Monde' shows Marin Marais eavesdropping while Jean de Sainte-Colombe, a reclusive 17th-century musician, practices the viola da gamba. Cinematic license aside, Marais was reportedly a fast learner and, after studying with Sainte-Colombe, became one of the first French players to achieve fame as a viol soloist. Marais published five books of music for viol and continuo between 1686 and 1725. The harpsichordist Skip Sempé accompanies the violists da gamba Josh Cheatham and Julien Léonard in selections from Marais’s third and fifth books on this disc from Paradizo, Mr. Sempé’s Renaissance and Baroque music label. The two viol players reveal their instruments’ dark-hued, soulful timbres. … The disc also includes a songful performance of Marais’s somber Sarabande for Two Viols in D minor from Book 1. But the highlight is the performance of a Suite in G from Marais’s Books 3 and 5, which includes a vigorous interpretation of the 'Allemande la Magnifique et Double'; a lithe Courante, in which the viol sings over the harpsichord continuo; a dynamic 'Gigue la Précieuse'; and a joyous Chaconne" ("Classical Recordings," New York Times, 4/6/09).

The Stone Roses Legacy Edition 1989-2009

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Contents: CD 1: I Wanna Be Adored, She Bangs the Drums, Waterfall, Don't Stop, Bye Bye Bad Man, Elizabeth My Dear, (Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister, Made of Stone, Shoot You Down, This Is the One, I Am the Resurrection, Fools Gold (bonus track). CD 2, "The Lost Demos": I Wanna Be Adored, She Bangs the Drums, Waterfall, Bye Bye Badman, Sugar Spun Sister, Shoot You Down, This Is the One, I Am the Resurrection, Elephant Stone, Going Down, Mersey Paradise, Where Angels Play, Something's Burning, One Love, Pearl Bastard. DVD: live, Blackpool Empress Ballroom; videos: Waterfall, Fools Gold, I Wanna Be Adored, One Love, She Bangs the Drums, Standing There.
"The Stone Roses were huge in England, but in the preglobalized '80s, their music was hardly available in the U.S. So what did we miss? Ian Brown's bleak northern outlook, sung over ecstatically romantic chords and harmonies. This three-disc set captures it all" ("Short List," Time, 9/18/09, p. 71).

Alex Ross on cadenzas

"The art of embellishment — improvising cadenzas, adding ornaments, taking other opportunities for creativity in performance — is a hot topic in classical music these days. For generations, conservatories preached absolute fidelity to the score: do what the composer wrote and nothing more. The problem is that the scores of prior eras can leave quite a bit to the performer’s imagination, and the earlier the piece the sparser the notation. Modern musicians specializing in the Renaissance and the Baroque have led the way in looking beyond the printed page: the great viol player Jordi Savall improvises heavily in his appearances with Hespèrion XXI, and Richard Egarr, in a new recording of Handel’s organ concertos, responds imaginatively to passages marked 'ad libitum.' … [Robert] Levin, the Harvard-based musician who for decades has been the chief guru of classical improvisation, believes that performances need to cultivate risk and surprise. Otherwise, he says, music becomes 'gymnastics with the affectation of emotional content' — a phrase that sums up uncomfortably large tracts of modern music-making" ("Musical Events," New Yorker, 8/31/09).

John Oates speaks to Jon Chattman

"The project was put on the back burner for quite a long time, but this year it got resurrected and Daryl and I both got into it creatively — hands on. Working with the guys at Sony Legacy was great, because they were real fans and really had a lot of passion for the music. They did a lot of amazing archival work in digging out tapes and stuff like that. ... I dug some things out of my vault, Daryl had some stuff of his, and together it was a really great project. I had some stuff — for instance — the live tracks that appear on the set. They are from our first concert in England in 1974 — it was the first time we went and performed there. I had it actually on video tape which we took the audio from and remixed it and remastered it. It's impressive. The band was on fire that night. We didn't have a lot of material to draw from at that time, so the arrangements are sort of really baroque. It's a unique glimpse into where we were at at that time. I'm far enough away from a lot of the music now and I'm pretty amazed at the depth of the material and the wide variety of production styles and approaches that we evolved through over the years" ("Hall & Oates Interview Part 1," Huffington Post, 9/22/09).