Listening Post /Brief reviews of select releases
R&B/Pop
Hall&Oates, “Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall and John Oates” (RCA/Legacy, four discs). What’s so striking about the music spread across this four-disc box set is just how timeless it is. Hall&Oates is the most commercially successful pop duo in history, and a more callous view might relegate the two to the Top 40 dustbin. The thing is, this is legitimate Philadelphia soul music, and if it managed to bother the top of the charts across three decades, well, for once, that’s because it deserved to. Everything is here —the early, straight soul hits, the more folk-oriented “Abandoned Luncheonette” period, the Todd Rundgren-produced Philly soul/prog-rock hybrids, the mega-hits from the ’80s. Tons of unreleased stuff, too, so both completist and more casual fans will be satisfied. Fantastic. ★★★★(Jeff Miers)
Classical
Antonio Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, arranged for piano by Jeffrey Biegel, Jeffrey Biegel, piano (Naxos). Sometimes, arranging orchestral music for piano can place it in a whole new light. I once heard Beethoven’s “Pastorale” as arranged for piano by Glenn Gould, and it sounded startling and New Age. Hearing Vivaldi on piano, you notice the music’s flaws. But the occasional repetitiveness and flat-footed rhythms gain a new charm, like Philip Glass. The piano also makes you appreciate Vivaldi’s moments of sublimity —the slow movement of “Winter,” for instance, which shines in its genius and simplicity. Biegel, who just turned out a marvelous set of gently improvised-upon Mozart sonatas, adds the same discreet embellishments to these pieces. He shows you new things in them. As a follow-up to “The Four Seasons,” he plays a lute concerto and a mandolin concerto, both arranged by Andrew Gentile. This is a great novelty at a bargain price, and a bright new look at a composer we thought we knew inside out. ★★★★. (Mary Kunz Goldman)
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Arnold Schoenberg, The Works of Arnold Schoenberg, Volume One: The Robert Craft Edition (Naxos, five discs). A collection of discs, most previously released, in an enormously important series begun in the early ’90s on Koch. Robert Craft’s two greatest claims to fame (and/or infamy) are: 1) His notorious collaboration with Stravinsky at the end of the great composer’s life, when books were published under Stravinsky’s name that were largely by Craft, and 2) His groundbreaking complete set of the works of Webern (not to mention his early Gesualdo recordings). He is, then, a remarkable conductor of the composer with the frequently unwarranted reputation for being the sternest climb in 20th century music. You won’t find Craft recording either of the great, late Romantic Schoenberg masterworks here—“Verklaerte Nact” and “Pelleas Und Melisande”— but you will find the big Variations Op. 41, the Violin Concerto and the notably ear-friendly adaptations of Bach, Brahms and Monn. ★★★½ (Jeff Simon)
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Pablo de Sarasate, Virtuoso Works for Violin, Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony, violinists, Akira Eguchi, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon, Alejandro Posada, conductor (Canary Classics). Gil Shaham and his wife, Adele Anthony, played last month at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s season-opening gala. He gave a knockout performance of Sarasate’s “Carmen” Fantasy, and as an encore, they gave a performance of Sarasate’s “Navarra” for Two Violins that was lightning-quick and electrifying. Their personalities, like their Stradivarius violins, seem widely different. Anthony has a quiet humor. And Shaham radiates a crazy, manic humor, which seems to have taken him over just in the past few years. (I love that. It’s rare that you get to see a musician evolving before your very eyes.) The contrasts add excitement to this CD, issued on the couple’s independent label. Anthony solos for three numbers, Shaham takes seven, and they finally join for that “Navarra.” Highlights include Anthony’s whistly take on the “Song of the Nightingale”—uncannily birdlike—and Shaham’s sizzling trips through hot Spanish dances like the “Habanera” and the “Zapateado.” Lots of fun and fire. ★★★★. (M. K. G.)
Folk Rock
Various Artists, “The Village:
A Celebration of the Music of Greenwich Village” (429 Recordings). A wonderful idea, to be sure. And for the first three cuts, you think you have stumbled on an unheralded gold mine—modern reinterpretations of the music of Greenwich Village from the era of The Bitter End, the Cafe Wha?, The Village Gate and a few hundred other clubs that dotted the street in what Dave Van Ronk mordantly called “the folk scare” of the ’60s (when, as Martin Mull, even more mordantly noted, “it almost caught on”). In other words, you have Rickie Lee Jones (perfect casting) doing the most antecedent of her streams-of-consciousness, Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Then the Duhks in a great version of Dylan’s “It’s All Right Ma, I’m Only Bleeding,” followed by Lucinda Williams’ expressionist version of Dylan’s “Positively Fourth Street.” Ah, but then things fall apart quite nicely with Sixpence None the Richer and, yes, John Oates, doing traditional folk evergreens and a surprisingly lackluster Los Lobos version of “Guantanamera.” Don’t despair. Tim Buckley’s “Once I Was” by the Cowboy Junkies could bore anyone, but it’s impossible to dislike Shelby Lynne’s version of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right” and impossible not to admire Rachael Yamagata’s “Both Sides Now” (I’ll bet Joni Mitchell would love it). Hit and miss, sure, but the hits are awfully good. ★★★(J. S.)
Jazz
Chris Potter, Steve Wilson, Terrell Stafford, Keith Javors and others, “Coming Together” (Inarhyme). Not to be missed. A deeply emotional tribute disc to a young saxophonist and student at North Florida University named Brendan Romaneck who was, at the age of 24, about to make his recording debut. He had gone as far as choosing the title of the disc, “Coming Together,” assembling the repertoire and getting trumpet player Terrell Stafford on board as a sideman. And then, before he could get into a recording studio, he was struck down by a car. To pay tribute to such a promising and tragically unfulfilled life, one of his teachers, pianist Keith Javors, fulfilled the recording date with Stafford and saxophonists Chris Potter and Steve Wilson, who alternated halves of the disc and are utterly extraordinary in the cause—especially Potter who is, in most circumstances, among the more extraordinary and underrated of musicians but is gorgeously committed to Romaneck’s tunes. Terrific. I just wish Javors hadn’t cut off his own solos. ★★★★(J. S.)
Rock
Built to Spill, “There Is No Enemy” (Warner Bros.). Doug Martsch is to indie-rock what Brian Wilson is to orchestral pop music—an absolute master at crafting layer upon layer of sonic and harmonic information. Wilson might be the more advanced musician, technically speaking, but with Built to Spill as his vehicle, Martsch is all but peerless in his manipulation of guitar textures. “There Is No Enemy” is a Martsch tour-deforce, a vital, rewarding cycle of songs that blends the primal abandon of classic indie-rock with the detail-oriented approach of the recording studio craftsman. The “wall of guitars” approach can be off-putting in lesser hands, but Martsch knows where to leave space— rarely do sounds and textures compete with each other for the listener’s attention, instead moving in and out of the mix in deference to each other. The result is a huge sound that breathes, slowly and evenly. If you’ve ever cared about Built to Spill, you need to own “There Is No Enemy.”★★★½ (J. M.)
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