Listening Post /Brief reviews of select releases
Rock
Les Paul & Friends, “A Tribute to a Legend” (EMI). Les Paul is the father of the electric guitar, yes. That’s no small contribution to have made, obviously, but add to it Paul’s pioneering work in the field of multitrack recording, and it’s easy to see that the man is the progenitor of 20th century pop record-making. And, at 92, Paul is still playing, arthritis notwithstanding. Here, he is joined by a host of guitarists and singers — as a well as a crack cast of studio musicians — for a blues-based celebration of the Gibson guitar that bears the Les Paul name. Joe Bonamossa joins Paul and the recently deceased Hiram Bullock for a swanky “The Good Luck You’re Having,” and Bullock injects some serious soul into “The Walls Came Tumbling Down.” Joan Osborne steals the show (and my heart) with her uber-sexy vocal on “I Don’t Want To Be With Nobody But You.” Goo Goo Doll John Rzeznik turns in a beautiful performance singing U2’s “All I Want is You,” and joining Paul and Peter Frampton in creating the song’s subtle wall of guitars. Les Paul himself aside, Slash offers the most incisive guitar playing on the collection, with his languid, lyrical take on “Vocalise.” A nice tribute to a wonderful musician, then. That said, if you’re new to Les Paul’s music, get his seminal recordings with Mary Ford first. That stuff is simply transcendent. ★★★( Jeff Miers)
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David Bowie, “iSelect Bowie” (Astralwerks/EMI). David Bowie assembles his own personal iPod-style playlist for your listening pleasure. Letting the man curate his own art exhibit offers some stunning results, not surprisingly. Bowie has always been his own worst critic, and by the same token, he knows that most of his best music is also his least well-known. Opening with “Life on Mars” — still chill-inducing after all this time — and then proceeding through some often-overlooked gems (“Lady Grinning Soul,” the “Sweet Thing/Candidate/ Sweet Thing Reprise” centerpiece from “Diamond Dogs,” the “Scary Monsters” diamond “Teenage Wildlife,” an awesome rerecording of “Time Will Crawl” that manages to rescue the song from the dreadful production that snuffed its flame on the “Never Let Me Down” album — “iSelect Bowie” is a stunning overview of one of the most compelling bodies of work in post-’60s rock. ★★★★( J.M.)
Country
Kenny Chesney, “Lucky Old Sun” (BNA). Here we go again. With “Lucky Old Sun,” Kenny Chesney crosses sand he has trod many times before. In other words, this is another set of songs largely about finding solace in a tropical clime. Like 2005’s “Be As You Are (Songs From an Old Blue Chair),” the superstar avoids his anthemic country-rock in favor of somber ruminations, sometimes with a Caribbean lilt, that are supposed to signal soul-baring. The upbeat, reggae-flavored “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven” and the horny old barroom tale “Ten With a Two” seem thrown in merely to change pace and mood. Problem is that, once again, Chesney comes across as hopelessly shallow. If there is any real depth to the singer — if he really does bear some restlessness and hurt that drive him to seek his healing in the sun — he’s not selling it. Combine his trite, one-note prescription for fulfillment with the easy-listening approach, and the result is a real snoozer. Guests Dave Matthews and Willie “I’ll Sing With Anybody” Nelson don’t do anything to help. ★ 1/2 ( Nick Cristiano,
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Lee Ann Womack, “Call Me Crazy” (MCA Nashville). In 2005, Lee Ann Womack corrected her drift toward inconsequential country-pop with the terrific “There’s More Where That Came From.” That title proves to be prophetic in relation to the star’s new album. “Call Me Crazy” opens with three killers: “Last Call” (“I bet you’re in a bar, because I’m always your last call”); “Either Way”; and “Solitary Thinkin’ ” (“and lonesome drinkin’ ”). Womack again comes across as a real woman dealing with heartache, disappointment and regret against exquisitely crafted music that echoes classic country without sounding retro. Plenty more highlights follow, including the devastating domestic drama “If These Walls Could Talk” and an elegant duet with George Strait, “Everything But Quits.” The only real misfire is “I Found It in You,” the kind of generic power ballad that throws the power and beauty of the rest of “Call Me Crazy” into even greater relief. ★★★ 1/2 ( Nick Cristiano)
Jazz
The Miles Davis All-Stars featuring John Coltrane, Broadcast Sessions 1958-9; The Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Paul Desmond, On The Radio: Live 1956-57 (Acrobat Premier Collection). Two sets of vintage radio airchecks from the era which generally proves how obnoxious jazz radio voices have been in the music’s history (Buffalo was incredibly lucky to have such jazz DJs as Joe Rico and Carroll Hardy.) By far the most important — but not the best — are from Miles Davis’ miracle 1958-59 sextet with John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Cannonball Adderly (though with Red Garland on piano as well as Evans). Mostly, it’s Miles and Co. playing knee-jerk bebop and almost audibly yearning for Gil Evans to help him leave this atmosphere behind for something more like art. The “Jazz Party” version of “What is This Thing Called Love?” is a fascinating affair with Miles and Cannonball joining (are you ready?) Candido, Gerry Mulligan and Nat Adderly (absurdly listed as playing “clarinet” — a misreading of someone’s bad handwriting for “cornet” no doubt. Adderly takes the first solo, in fact). Who’s the smoking guitar player here? Anybody’s guess. What East Coast guitar player was playing that much in 1958? Who knows? Much better is the vintage Brubeck Quartet from 1956 and ’57 when drummer Joe Dodge was replaced by Joe Morello. The DJs will drive you crazy, but Desmond and Brubeck’s playing is superb. Ratings: ★★★ for Miles, ★★★ 1/2 for Brubeck. (Jeff Simon)
Classical
Alison Balsom, Haydn, Hummel Trumpet Concertos, die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (EMI Classics). Poor trumpet players — they don’t have the wealth of concertos pianists have, or even that violinists or cellists have. They have to mine the second-rate composers. Or worse! Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto has its moments, but it is full of what seems to me to be blatant ripoffs from Mozart. A concerto by Giuseppe Torelli is graceful enough, but there’s nothing that could be called memorable. As for the Czech composer Jan Krtitel Jiri Neruda, his concerto is hapless enough so the liner notes just admit it: “It is a conventional, unsophisticated example, judging from its embryonic sonata form and unambitious interchange...” But this disc has its charms. For one thing, you get to hear what made Haydn great. Listen just to the graceful opening to his Trumpet Concerto, and you think: “Aaaahh. OK, I get it.” Also that Balsom, playing with a bright tone and incisive clarity, succeeds in making all this music a pleasure to hear. ★★ 1/2 (Mary Kunz Goldman)
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Schoenberg, Pelleas and Melisande and Erwartung performed by soprano Anja Silja and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Robert Craft (Naxos). Schoenberg’s tone poem on Maeterlinck’s play “Pelleas und Melisande” appeared in 1905, three years after Debussy’s opera on the same play. In Schoenberg’s case and according to the composer, there were riots at the premiere (a grand old custom as modernism busied itself being born in the world’s theaters and concert halls). Listened to now, the late- Romantic masterwork is one of the four greatest and most approachable works by the composer whose 12-tone music would, for a half century, send composers down the most difficult blind alley in the history of classical music. (The others are “Transfigured Night” in both sextet and string orchestra versions, “Gurrelieder” and the opera “Moses und Aron.”) Stravinsky’s old amanuensis Robert Craft leads a fine performance with the Philharmonia Orchestra, but it’s just not in the league of those by Boulez and others. “Erwartung” from 1909 — a mere five years later — is from another, atonal, world and is as off-putting as “Pelleas” is enveloping. ★★★( J.S.)
