|
|
Robin Trower
Living Out of Time
Ruf Records RUF1111
If one lists the guitar gods of the late '70s, when screaming, extended electric guitar solos were all the rage, Robin Trower will certainly appear on the list. The “Jimi Hendrix, Jr.” trip that separated him from the classical rock group, Procol Harum, and he went, predictably, into power trio recordings leading to lots of airplay and touring. He's still doing it with this new, live release.
This sort of record sounds best by itself. It doesn't jive with anything else in rotation, unless one has a lot of that sort of music (Cream, Ten Years After, Ted Nugent, etc.) available and the neighbors are out of town. Alone, it does get one into the groove of intricate guitar for the sake of guitar. It's not the critic's place to determine the purpose of an approach to rock. Suffice it to say that this is a well-recorded rock album and that Trower has lost none of the mastery of his genre that earned him his place in the pantheon.
Shrimp City Slim
Dark Road Piano
Erwin Music EM-2003
Here's a man who's brought the blues to his region for many years in any way possible. This has required him to flirt with beach music, novelty songs and the borderline sound of Fats Domino era New Orleans. Hey, blues is the cake; who cares what an activist ices it with to get people to take that first bite?
The “icing” has influenced him. Most readers will probably think that's a bad thing, that blues, in his hands, is watered down by those outside forms. Such is not the case. He's found some familiar embellishments from outside the blues and used them to make the stories for which his primary genre is so ideal his own. If “Dark Road Piano” immediately jumps out as being from someplace other than the exact center of the bell curve of blues, it's because it's uniquely listenable.
Shrimp's a flawless, exciting blues pianist who knows how to hammer the keys until his audiences respond. His voice is no great shakes, but vocal quality has never been a make-or-break criterion in the blues. It's a clear voice, a warm and fun loving midrange. Accent-wise, it's Chicago Midwest. Song subjects range from the crass (“Buy My Music While I'm Still Alive”) to the poignant(“Say Goodbye to Charleston”).
These fifteen songs are a thorough body of work, creativity applied to the accumulated observations of a man who's loved his home and his music. At first listen, none of them are great, but all of them are good. Later listens reveal a workingman's passion and depth of feeling about things he cares about – rewards, comfort and pleasure. As one gets to know the man through these songs, one learns to appreciate his joys, his blues and his blues.
Wanda Johnson
Natural Resource
Erwin Music EM-2004
A producer's faith in a discovered talent shines through here. Past recordings have tried to make Ms. Johnson a blues belter. This release finds her groomed and with fourteen extremely various tunes to put over. There's not an evident specialty here, and she doesn't lead the pack as any particular sort of chanteuse, but she does well enough with each song to interest listeners in her, and in the songs themselves. There's sweet pop, borderline shlock, jumping R & B and lovelorn balladry among the selections, all handled elegantly. Very sequined evening gowny stuff. One more step as great as the one from her last record to this one and she'll be ready for anything the music industry can offer.
There's no hurry. The industry itself is not ready for her yet. People need more artists like Wanda Johnson out there before they can really discern what's best in that kind of talent. Right now, she's very good, and sounds better, because there's no current competition for her. A few decades ago, she would have competed for major label attention with Carla Thomas, Aretha Franklin, Etta James and Dionne Warwick, and that would have been tough. Today, we've got Celine Dion, who doesn't really prepare listeners for the full-time application of soul to pop music at large that is Ms. Johnson's gift.
It is hard to tell how good she really is when the industry isn't good enough to familiarize her audience and sidemen with what “good” is in her context. Take her in, let her take you back, look forward to the music business catching up with her.
Big Al Anderson
After Hours
Legacy Records 82876 78810 2
He was the guitarist for NRBQ, a group so eclectic that it backed Carl Perkins on one record and John Candy on another. After giving up drinking and becoming a Nashville songwriter in the mid-'90s, Anderson himself wrote songs that were covered by Alabama, Pam Tillis, Carlene Carter and other names that judiciously seek the best material.
This is an album for those brief Southern winter nights, relaxing with the never-completely dry logs crackling in the fireplace and soft accents chatting with close friends. It's a Patsy Cline meets Nat King Cole ambience, relying on warm vocals and warm themes, caressed guitar chords and arrangements that avoid severe peaks and dips. If not for the effective expression of emotion, twang of Anderson's voice and accurate, vibrato response of his guitar, it would be lounge music. As it is, it's a collection of good songs that, one suspects might be delivered better by others ... in short, a gifted songwriter's demo, done in a god studio by people who knew what they were doing; probably Nashville's equivalent of lounge music.
I'm glad to own it. I'm always glad to stumble upon a great songwriter. I look forward to playing it for musician friends and urging them to consider covering some of the material.
Coleman Hawkins
The Hawk Relaxes
Prestige Records PRCD-8106-2
“When Coleman Hawkins blows his horn / You remember the tune for many a morn ..”
“This Joint's Too Hip For Me”
That heavy growl defined jazz tenor sax. Others innovated, but Hawkins was the king of his instrument, beating more “cutting edge” peers at every new direction they took the music from swing to bebop. He believed that all music was good music when it was played by good people. Even rock left him unruffled. Said Lester “The Prez” Young, He's the person who played the tenor saxophone, who woke you up and let you know there was a tenor saxophone.”
“The Hawk Relaxes,” recorded in 1961, eight years before his death, found Hawkins playing slowly and cleanly rather than in the roller coaster mode for which he was most renowned. The record sounds as if the challenge du jour (Hawkins loved challenges) was to wring every bit of emotion out of ballads. While not typical of the Hawkins style, these seven cuts apply his huge tone nicely to the more romantic side of jazz.
Not the one Coleman Hawkins record to own if one is owning only one, it is essential for a complete Coleman Hawkins collection or to include in a library of romantic jazz. Nice in rotation with Billie Holiday and mid-'50s Miles Davis.
John Coltrane
Lush Life
Prestige Records PRCD-8103-2
Coltrane's always such a great intro to small combo jazz for people with rock backgrounds. His sax sound crackles on the edge of distortion, a tone sought by rock guitarists(“torrential attack” is the phrase used in liner notes), and his solos, which took the whole band wherever he wanted to take them, live on as dreams come true for those who dream of dominating bandstands, regardless of musical genre.
This release comes from the period in which Coltrane, already a respected sideman who'd worked with the best, struggled successfully against substance abuse and began to record under his own name. Never noted for consistency of interpretation, he was a giant talent and master of intensity without ever really innovating. His intensity and accuracy, however, was unmistakable, and is particularly distinctive on this remastering of work with studio partners (Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Arthur Taylor and others) who played rests as well and respectfully as notes.
This is a good release for study of Coltrane's place within the form, as it is here that he first, and, possibly, best made the step from concept to execution, from phrase to tune.
Sonny Rollins
Saxophone Colossus
Prestige Records PRCD-8105-2
He's never had time for anything but the music, and music's been good for him. Today, he is a colossus of music itself as a healing tool for humankind. When this record was recorded half a century ago, he was just being recognized as a master of his instrument. The distinctive punch at the end of his notes, particularly pyrotechnic on solos that gather momentum as they drive toward crescendo, was already fully developed.
Sonny Rollins was and is cutting edge post-bop, sounding as if he's on the verge of something new with bebop as foundation, because the relatively short turns he takes in rotation with bandstand and studio partners always leave one wanting more, and he's always just a little more sophisticated and deep than anyone he works with, no matter who they are.
“Saxophone Colossus” an exploration of the bare bones of modern jazz, has been cited as an influence by Branford Marsalis, Ron Blake and Soweta Kinch, and “St. Thomas,” the Rollins piece that brought calypso into the jazz spotlight, starts the record off. This is a record that has flavored mainstream, small combo jazz since its release.
Miles Davis
Relaxin' With the Miles Davis Quintet
Prestige Records PRCD-8104-2
This is the great Miles Davis Quintet – Miles Davis(trumpet), John Coltrane(tenor sax), Red Garland(piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones(drums). It's available elsewhere, bundled as two LPs (“Cookin'” and “Relaxin'”) on one CD, but the sound quality isn't as good as it is here. As for the work on this particular release, well, it's Miles Davis, a man so gifted that he transcended his own attitudes.
He didn't give a damn about the audience, as demonstrated best in the story of him blowing one note one time during one concert and calling it a night, claiming later that it had been the right note. These cuts were assembled as part of recording sessions that yielded enough material from two days' recording to produce the four records he owed the Prestige label for contract fulfillment(he went next to Columbia, for which he did, among other LPs, “Kinda Blue” “Sketches of Spain” and “Porgy and Bess.” One must guess that his already low regard for listeners was at an even lower ebb than usual during the creation of this record, given the circumstances.
Nevertheless, this is small combo, improvisational jazz in the hands of an extraordinary group that had worked together and become a team, and it jumps exuberantly throughout. It is a hint of the next stage in the form, when the songs became obvious, extremely vocal and lucid conversations between the instruments.