Gerald Wilson Orchestra: Legacy

"Contemporary big band music had a resurgence this year. Ninety-three year old Gerald Wilson had an exquisite offering with his brilliant Legacy" (Ralph A. Miriello, "My Picks for the Best of Jazz 2011," Huffington Post, 12/19/11).
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Pixies: Doolittle

"The iconic foursome, who legends like Kurt Cobain and David Bowie credit as inspirations, recently stopped by Napa's Uptown Theater to play their breakout record, 1989's Doolittle, from start to finish. It was their second-to-last stop on the second leg of their 'Doolittle World Tour,' which began two years ago to commemorate the album's twentieth anniversary. ... Frontman Frank Black's signature high-pitched yowl sounds just like it did in the 80s -- maybe even clearer. The group seamlessly made its way through all the big hits, from the upbeat, poppy 'Here Comes Your Man' and the silly, jazzy 'La La Love You' (the only song ever penned by drummer David Lovering) to the biblical shout-ballad 'Hey' and 'Monkey Gone To Heaven,' an early nod to environmentalism" (Carly Schwartz, "Rock Is Most Definitely Not Dead (As Evidenced by the Pixies)," Huffington Post, 12/2/11).
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Thelonious Monk: Brilliant Corners

"[Monk's wife] Nellie called those lean days [1951-54] the 'un-years,' mired in a kind of internal exile, when, banned from playing clubs, Monk retreated into his own head, drifting along to his own tempo. 'There was no money,' Nellie said. 'No place to go. A complete blank.' Monk described it as like 'laying dead.' Then Monk got a call from Charles Delauney inviting him to France to play at the Third Paris Jazz Festival. ... Monk was ready for Paris, but the Parisians, who had embraced so many black jazz musicians, didn’t know what to make of Monk. ... After Monk returned to New York, his career began to pick up. He signed a deal with Riverside Records and quickly recorded two of his best albums: the startling Thelonious Monk Plays the Music of Duke Ellington and Brilliant Corners with Sonny Rollins blowing a fire-breathing sax. Both records sold relatively well and earned Monk some of his best reviews" (Jeffrey St. Clair, "Out Walked Monk," Counterpunch, 12/2-4/11).
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Various Artists: The Green Album

"In advance of the fall release of the new Muppets movie (simply titled 'The Muppets'), Disney is releasing an album of Muppets songs, covered by some big names in the rock world, according to Pitchfork. Among the participants on 'The Green Album': Weezer, My Morning Jacket, Evanescence's Amy Lee, OK Go, The Fray, Alkaline Trio and Andrew Bird. It's not the first Muppet-Weezer crossover. Kermit and Co. appeared in the pop rock band's 2002 video for 'Keep Fishin''" ("Album News," Sound Magazine, 9/11).
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Michael Feinstein: The Sinatra Project, Vol. II

"Three years ago Michael Feinstein, the piano-bar crooner turned stand-up entertainer jumped ship, so to speak, with his album 'The Sinatra Project,' in which he became an acolyte of Ol’ Blue Eyes after two decades in the Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire camps. ... Now comes 'The Sinatra Project, Vol. II: The Good Life,' whose stylistic center of gravity is the 1960s, where the first volume had its heart in the ’50s, Sinatra’s greatest decade. ... From the opening cut, Dickie Thompson’s obscure, campy 'Thirteen Women,' (the B-side of Bill Haley and the Comets’ global game changer 'Rock Around the Clock') exhibits a more playful attitude. On songs like 'Hallelujah, I Love Her So,' 'Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?,' 'Luck Be a Lady' and 'The Lady Is a Tramp,' Mr. Feinstein doesn’t bear down as heavily as before. ... Three beautifully sung ballads — 'I’ll Be Around,' 'The Way You Look Tonight' (a smooth, glossily orchestrated bossa nova) and the old Tony Bennett hit 'The Good Life,' arranged for just voice and piano — are the heart of an album that finds Mr. Feinstein embracing his past as an intimate crooner and popular music purist par excellence" (Stephen Holden, "New Music," New York Times, 10/31/11).
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The Fall: Ersatz GB

"Against the stereotype of the aging musician, [Mark E.] Smith has, over the years, steered his band toward a heavier and more truculent sound. There is even a moment of what sounds like heavy metal in the entirely hysterical 'Greenway,' which opens with an irrelevant little piano figure and then drops into a chug that could be an amateur version of Metallica. Smith growls, comically enough to make people across the room take notice. Then he abandons that routine and goes into his more usual mode of loud recitation, which makes no pretense at singing. 'Channel-hopping the other day on Danish rock TV,' Smith says that he has spotted someone in a video who bears a coincidental resemblance to him. He then calls neighbors in his hotel to see if they have a CD player. After visiting their room—it’s hard to imagine that these people invited Smith over—he passes judgment: 'Their tone was snotty and offensive, so I called them / People like that really get on my nerves / To relax, I called my cat.' Entirely logical. 'Mask Search' is a more typical Fall number, alternating between two or three simple patterns. Smith gurgles, 'I’m so sick of Snow Patrol / and where to find Esso lubricant and mobile number.' Here, again, is that marvellous tension of Fall songs—the solid, immovable forces beneath the voice, which refuses to do anything remotely predictable" (Sasha Frere-Jones, "Plug and Play," New Yorker, 11/14/11).
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Helene Grimaud: Mozart

"She had just come back from Bologna, where she had recorded two Mozart piano concertos, with Claudio Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart. Abbado is one of her longtime supporters, and he has conducted her many times over the years. ... This time, however, there was a dispute. According to Grimaud, the taping of the two concertos, the Nineteenth and the Twenty-third, went well; but the next day, when the orchestra had disbanded and Abbado and Grimaud were in the 'patch' session—fixing blemishes on the recording—he asked her to perform a cadenza that Mozart had written for the Twenty-third. During the recording of that concerto, they had taped Grimaud playing one by Ferruccio Busoni, the late-nineteenth-century composer. Grimaud had first heard the Busoni cadenza on an old Vladimir Horowitz recording, with Carlo Maria Giulini conducting. 'I told myself, "When I play the concerto, that’s the cadenza I will play,"' she said to me. At the patch session, Grimaud sight-read and played the Mozart—'to humor' Abbado, she said. Two weeks later, Abbado, having listened to the recording of the two versions, decided that they should use the Mozart. ... Grimaud refused to back down. 'I simply said no,' she said. Soon afterward, Abbado had Grimaud uninvited from the Lucerne Festival, which she was set to open, in August. ... Grimaud didn’t just demur over the cadenza; she fought back. She enlisted the soprano who had sung in Bologna, Mojca Erdmann, and paired her with another ensemble, the Bavarian Radio Chamber Orchestra, with whom Grimaud had performed the concertos earlier in the year" (D.T. Max, "Profiles," New Yorker, 11/7/11).
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Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica

"There's loopy, ambient minimalism aplenty in Brooklyn-based experimental musician Daniel Lopatin's latest offering, but there are also surprising nugs of humor, like the beginning of 'Nassau,' where an insignificant, fifth-pitched vocal sample gets twisted into a motive, surrounded by burbling rhythms and passable piano doodles. Lopatin's modus operandi involves re-purposing snippets of TV ads, bathing them in Juno-60 washes, acoustic samples and reverb plates, and letting the whole affair loose as a sink-or-swim kind of deal. Each of the 10, often formless, tracks of dance-less electronica free-flows into the next, a George Winston/Animal Collective jam session with Teo Macero producing. Some float by, unnoticed. Close, repeated listenings reward the patient" (Michael Hamad, "CD of the Week," New Haven Advocate, 12/1/11).
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James Blake (self-titled)

"Looking out into the sold-out Music Hall of Williamsburg, Blake's first words were 'Oh, hi! Thanks for coming,' before breaking into his set. Blake's style of music is a hybrid of experimental dub step, lo-fi, and electronica and his lyrics show his vulnerability, passion and sensitivity. Only releasing his self-titled debut last month, he has become a critical favorite, and now on his first trip to America and at his debut US show, Blake is a fan favorite" (Salvatore Bono, "British Buzz Boy James Blake Arrives in Brooklyn," Huffington Post, 3/15/11).
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Dropkick Murphys: Going Out in Style

"The Dropkick Murphys did a few things differently on their new album, 'Going Out in Style.' For one thing, the band (including West Hartford native Tim Brennan on guitar) didn't tour last fall during the making of the record, which meant the musicians were fully focused on the writing and recording process. Also, it's more of a narrative album. 'This is our "London Calling," in a way,' singer Al Barr says, referring to the Clash's seminal release during a phone call from Minneapolis, on a tour that stops Sunday at Mohegan Sun. 'It's brought us to a new level with ourselves in terms of songwriting and approaching recording.' Although the Boston Celtic-punk act has often traced narrative paths through individual songs -- the band's iconic single 'I'm Shipping Up to Boston,' featured in Martin Scorsese's film 'The Departed,' is something of a story song -- the group carries a theme through all of 'Going Out in Style.' 'One of the first songs the band wrote was what ended up being the title track, and we just kind of realized with the title song that we had this character, and it would be kind of cool to thread this character's life throughout the record,' Barr says. The character is Cornelius Larkin. The title track takes place at a wake for the Irish immigrant, and the album traces his life -- through his arrival in America as a teen, his military service during the Korean War and his family life with a wife and nine kids" (Eric R. Danton, "Dropkick Murphys Very Much 'In Style,'" Sound Check, 3/1/11).
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Miles Davis: Bitches Brew

"Miles Davis ... ever ahead of the curve, began inventing '70s jazz in 1969, first with the sublime electrified sounds of In a Silent Way and again, later that year, in New York City at Columbia Records Studio B (the same room where Springsteen would record his demos). At 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 19 -- the morning after Jimi Hendrix closed the Woodstock festival a hundred miles upstate with his wildly improvisational take on 'The Star-Spangled Banner' -- Davis began recording Bitches Brew, the opening salvo of the jazz-fusion movement" (Will Hermes, Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, p. 20).
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Dawes: Nothing Is Wrong

"Robbie Robertson uses these guys as his backing band, and with good reason. Of all the groups who cite the Band as an influence, Dawes are the ones who come the closest to capturing the spirit, without copying the sound. Great melodies, great ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll tunes, and they're even better live" (M.S., "Best Albums of 2011," New Haven Advocate, 12/22/11).
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Honegger: Pastorale d’Été, Symphony No. 4, Cantate de Noël

"Since the London Philharmonic Orchestra engaged the Russian maestro Vladimir Jurowski as its principal conductor in 2007, this august institution has reaped consistently strong notices for its dynamic, exacting performances and broad repertory. ... Associated with the Parisian composers’ klatch Les Six, Honegger often found himself at odds with the group’s anti-Wagnerian modernist cheek. In his best-known work, 'Pacific 231,' a modern orchestra’s heft and might evokes the machine-tooled power of a locomotive. That work is not included here, but its brawn comes through in parts of 'Une Cantate de Noël' ('A Christmas Cantata'), completed by a terminally ill Honegger in 1953. Created partly from themes he composed during World War II, the 22-minute piece for baritone soloist, adult and children’s choirs and orchestra opens in a gloomy tone, rising to a haunting plaint. But from there the piece proceeds through a medley of European carols, blazing with joy up to its serene finale. The baritone Christopher Maltman ... sings with care and passion. Mr. Jurowski maintains a balance among the work’s dense layers, and the orchestra plays brilliantly. Add in lucid accounts of Honegger’s sunny Fourth Symphony ('Deliciae Basilienses') and gently bluesy 'Pastorale d’Été,' and what results is a disc admirable in all seasons" (Steve Smith, "Classical Recordings," New York Times, 12/25/11).
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Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook

"'In the very beginning,' said Hal Schaefer, a jazz pianist, composer and arranger who was hired as [Marilyn] Monroe’s vocal coach, 'I told her to buy Ella Fitzgerald’s recording of Gershwin songs. And I ordered her to listen to it a hundred times.' 'She wasn’t really into jazz when she came to me,' Mr. Schaefer added, by phone. 'But I told her: "Look, I’m going to be your guide. This is where we have to start: listening to the best female singer there is."' The actress became a fan of Fitzgerald, and the two women became friends. In 1955 Monroe persuaded the owner of the Mocambo, a popular Hollywood nightclub, to lift its policy of not booking black performers and hire Fitzgerald. Monroe reportedly promised to attend every performance seated at a front table. Years later Fitzgerald told Ms. Magazine, 'I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt'" (John Marchese, "Channeling a Bombshell, One Jazzy Note at a Time," New York Times, 8/7/11).
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Death Cab for Cutie: Codes and Keys

"MR: Any track that you're closest to? BG: I think probably the title track, 'Codes And Keys,' is one of the songs that is very close to me. I'm very proud of how it turned out. It's one of the lyrics on the record that I'm the most proud of, and I think that over the course of its three or so minutes, it kind of takes a nice little lyrical journey, so to speak. It starts out a little nervous and ends in this very anthemic, uplifting out-chorus of sorts. It's a song I feel very close to. MR: I know what you mean about it feeling resolved by the end. BG: Yeah, and it's nice to have a song that opens up kind of nervous and you're not sure where it's going, and by the end of it, it's solved its own question. MR: What's the story behind that one? BG: There's not a particular story. I think in the past, when I've been writing songs, I've had a very specific event in mind to such an extent that the event is referenced in the song or that a particular song on one of the older records exists in a very specific time and place, either in my life or in the fictitious, kind of pastiche of life that I surround myself with. One thing that I'm kind of fond of in a number of these songs is that I feel the details are very specific--the emotional details and touchstones are very specific, but the song doesn't exist within a particular event. I feel that somebody can listen to the song and place it in their life and kind of interpret it in a way that fits them more specifically, because the song isn't placing itself in a particular location by referencing that location" (Mike Ragogna, "A Conversation with Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard," Huffington Post, 7/18/11).
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Wilco: The Whole Love

"Released almost exactly 10 years after they were dropped from Reprise, The Whole Love is Wilco's first entirely self-produced LP and the first to be released through their own dBpm label. This seems to be the catalyst that allowed them to recapture some of the risk and danger that colored their turn-of-the-century work. The album begins with 'Art of Almost,' a broken-down industrialized groover that is the closest the band has come to the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot since its release" (Theo Spielberg, "Wilco Returns to Form with The Whole Love," Huffington Post, 9/27/11).
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Tony Bennett: Duets II

"On a bright Sunday afternoon shortly after one o'clock in Manhattan, a few days before his eighty-fifth birthday, which he would modestly acknowledge on August 3rd by dining at a neighborhood restaurant with his wife, Susan -- who, within a few weeks, would be celebrating her own, forty-fifth birthday -- Tony Bennett was standing behind a microphone at the Avatar Studios, on West Fifty-third Street, rehearsing a few lines from 'The Lady Is a Tramp' while awaiting the presence of Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga was expected to arrive at two o'clock, with her hairdresser, her makeup artist, her creative director, her vocal coach, her producer, her security guards, and others who know her by her pre-fame name, Stefani Germanotta; and then, after she had warmed up, she would join Bennett in singing 'The Lady Is a Tramp,' the final recording for his latest album of duets, 'Duets II'" (Gay Talese, "High Notes," New Yorker, 9/19/11).
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David Lynch: Crazy Clown Time

"The creepiness in a David Lynch film comes as much from the soundtrack as from the Surrealistic images: the subtle melancholy of Laura Palmer’s theme in 'Twin Peaks,' Isabella Rossellini's come-hither rendition of the title song in 'Blue Velvet.' Mr. Lynch, the filmmaker, devotee of transcendental meditation and coffee distributor, has long dabbled in music himself; he has written songs for his films and others (often in collaboration with the composer Angelo Badalamenti), and he sang with Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse for their 2010 album, 'Dark Night of the Soul.' Last week he released his solo debut, 'Crazy Clown Time' (Sunday Best Recordings/PIAS America), a brooding electronic blues album with his highly processed vocals, created in his home studio with the engineer Dean Hurley. 'Mostly it starts with a jam,' Mr. Lynch said. 'Dean now lately on drums and me on guitar, and out of the jamming comes some kind of form, like, lots and lots of garbage — you can picture a landfill — but some chunks of gold.' He released the album at the behest of the label — 'When you find somebody enthusiastic about your stuff, it really helps, and it inspires you to finish up things and polish things and get them out,' Mr. Lynch said — and over his own fear of being a singer. (He has no plans to play live.) That’s where the processing, which can make his voice sound high pitched, comes in. 'It’s like some other character comes in and is singing,' Mr. Lynch, 65, said" ("Playlist," New York Times, 11/13/11).
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Phil Collins: No Jacket Required

"British singer and drummer Phil Collins has used his personal website to announce his retirement in a bid to clarify recent speculation over his career. ... Speculation about a possible last act for Collins was sparked by an interview in April's issue of FHM magazine in which the former Genesis drummer and frontman said 'it feels like a good time to stop for awhile.' ... Collins has sold an estimated 100 million albums as a solo artist, but he told FHM he looks at events like the MTV Music Awards and says he 'can't be in the same business as this.' 'I don't really belong to that world and I don't think anyone's going to miss me.' ... The 60-year-old singer of hits like 'Groovy Kind of Love,' 'In the Air Tonight,' 'Another Day In Paradise,' 'Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now),' and 'Separate Lives' with Marilyn Martin, has also won an Academy Award for his soundtrack to the film 'Tarzan.' His album 'No Jacket Required' won a Grammy for album of the year in 1985" (Cassandra Vinograd, "Singer Phil Collins Announces Retirement," Huffington Post, 3/8/11).
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Susan Boyle: Someone to Watch Over Me

"Someone to Watch Over Me is the third album by Scottish singer Susan Boyle, which was released on 7 November 2011 in the United Kingdom and 1 November 2011 in the United States. The album has been described as a 'diverse mix of music' which includes songs inspired by the stories of Boyle's fans who write letters to her. Susan announced the album title and release date on September 1, 2011. Boyle announced the news on the semi-final results show of America's Got Talent, after performing a track from the record called 'You Have to Be There', the song was written by ABBA legends Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and is taken from their popular Swedish musical Kristina från Duvemåla. After Susan performed 'You Have to Be There' on America's Got Talent she said: "I'm so pleased the audience enjoyed the song. I really loved performing that big number. I was also a little nervous introducing something new. America's Got Talent - it's where I started with my first album, so it was wonderful to be back'" (Wikipedia).
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