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| ARCHIVED ENTRIES BELOW |
| 12.02.03 (2:10 am) [edit] |
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I've pulled in entries from the old Blogger hoon's tunes into this new version, courtesy of tBlog.
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| The Truest Rock and Roll Band |
| 12.02.03 (2:08 am) [edit] |
It may appear immodest to claim veracity as a signal
quality for electric guitar-driven music, a form entering
its fifth decade of vitality. But Los Lobos takes simple
materials and just does their thing on „Good Morning
Aztlan‰ without a hint of archness, posturing, or
audience mongering. That they‚ve survived every
trend without ever becoming trendy or ever becoming a
museum piece, at this point, is due to their commitment
to a truly modest verity: they love to make music. Los
Lobos are romantic dramatists; yet the diamond-hard
stories here don‚t concern extravagant and indulgent
recollections of the rock and roll journey they‚ve
been on for thirty years. Sans such drama, they‚re
content to play their road house blues and Chicano rock
for their own, and our own, enjoyment. This latest record
is not the least bit fussy or experimental, it‚s
funky and instantly ingratiating and true.
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| Astonishing Return |
| 12.02.03 (2:07 am) [edit] |
Tenor and soprano saxophonist Wayne Shorter, like his
peer Sonny Rollins, wouldn‚t have to record another
note to have his legacy secured by the music he waxed in
the sixties. But, also, like Rollins, Shorter has made
fitfull attempts to extend his legacy in the decades
since, attempts compromised by their sailing the changing
winds of post-bop. Yet, again like Rollins, his
relentless sensibility has won out, and, on this fully
realized acoustic date, „Footprints Live!‰, he
makes music at least on a par with his reknowned earlier
work. Recent dates hardly hinted at this return to form.
Here, at the head of his working quartet [Danilo
Perez (piano), John Patitucci (bass), Brian Blade
(drums)] he revisits his own classic compositions and
etches solos everybit as gripping as his very best
work.
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| Desert Dreams |
| 12.02.03 (2:05 am) [edit] |
Multi-instrumentalist Omar Faruk Tekbilek's new disc,
"Alif", resonates with longing and sadness. An able and
restrained synthesizer of east and west, here the
atmospheric touches of programming and keyboards don't
interfere at all with Tekbilek's somber spirituality.
Filled with prayerful searching, this superb music is
centered and heart tugging. Gardener, featuring
Mamak Khadem's beautiful voice as a counterpoint to the
leader, is a good example of the weaving of feminine and
masculine longing in his music. The inescapable beauty of
"Alif" tenders the praxis of lover, loved and beloved.
Tekbilek's approach is synthetic but the strands of
improvisation, ambience, and modernism, in as much as
those elements divert the music from the purely classical
modes of Anatolia, are rendered with such refinement and
focus as to evoke the universal song of the devoted
believer.
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Dave Douglas
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| 12.02.03 (2:04 am) [edit] |
"A Thousand Evenings" (from 2000) features a small group
with truly orchestral ambitions. Accordion virtuoso Guy
Klucevsek and string players Greg Cohen (bass) and Mark
feldman (violin) join Douglas on a taut program of
originals and a sensational version of Nat Adderley's
The Boy With the Sad Eyes.
It's a record full of elegiac graceful melody and sober
playing. Douglas doesn't play the form of blues here, yet
I find this fascinating for a kind of beautiful blues
feel, Euro-centric and fashioned with 'jazz' technique as
it is. Sounds universal.
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| 12.02.03 (1:59 am) [edit] |
I've decided "Noites Do Norte", Caetano Veloso's
international effort from 2001 is one of his very
best records. It's quite a stew too, covering as it does
almost the entirety of the vast musical territory the
great Brazilian has made his own over three plus decades.
So, string laden art songs rub against reggae, rock, and
Veloso's signature playful urbane 'nueva folklorico'.
He's achieved a stature in Brazil beyond even Dylan's
here, yet, his artistry seems most like Mandy Patimkin.
Both singers seem to revel in a high wire act defined by
extreme audacity effected by both rigorous control and an
ability to bring back -alive- adult tales from the
caverns of the human heart. Read the lyrics.
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