Listening Post /Brief reviews of select releases
Jazz
Julian Lage, “Sounding Point” (Emarcy). A delectably eclectic self-introduction disc by the young guitarist in Gary Burton’s band that includes some delicious interplay with banjo prodigy Bela Fleck, surprisingly tender duets with saxophonist Ben Roseth and a convincing conversion of the “incredibly grounded grooving” Basie/Hefti classic “Lil’ Darlin’ ” into a trio version “with a pulsating, folk style rhythm guitar feel.” It isn’t the slightest bit uncommon for young musicians to introduce themselves by brandishing a wide variety of clever ideas and interesting friends in our ears but they don’t all do it with as much art —or in as much good company (especially young pianist Taylor Eigsti, bassist Jorge Roeder and percussionist Tupac Mantiilla). ★★★( Jeff Simon)
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Steven Pasquale, “Somethin’ Like Love” (PS Classics). Pasquale is a protege of John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey —who produced this disc and who, with their radio show and constant recordings, could be considered jazz’s first couple these days. The newcomer has an unapologetic boy-toy voice, but it’s nice enough, even if it’s a bit on the mild side. And it’s set off to near perfection by a combo including piano, guitar (Pizzarelli), bass (Martin Pizzarelli) and drums (Tony Tedesco). The song selection leaves a little to be desired. “My Funny Valentine” and “Summertime”—I have heard them so much that if I never heard them again, I’d be happy. Better are the two lesser-known Frank Loesser numbers, “I Wish I Didn’t Love You So” and “The Lady’s In Love With You.” And “Somethin’ Like Love,” by Pizzarelli and Molaskey, hasn’t had time yet to become a classic. But it could. ★★★( Mary Kunz Goldman)
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Anthony Braxton, “The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton” (Mosaic Records, eight discs, by mail from Mosaic Records, 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, Conn., or www.mosaicrecords.com ). Say “amen” to this, the first sentence to Mike Heffley’s superb notes to this massive and, yes, important set of Anthony Braxton’s output for Clive Davis’ then-new Arista Records from 1974-1980: “It may seem strange to those who think of Anthony Braxton as the penultimate outcast to recall (or learn for the first time) that he was once the prime candidate for the crossover marketing and promotion offered by a major label.” Long before he became the godfather of the “American Idol” business, Davis was doing an enormous amount of penance by offering jazz’s far left wing on record. Braxton—who, at the time, gave a solo alto saxophone recital at Buffalo State College that remains one of the most unusual jazz events in the last half century of jazz in Buffalo (similar music occupies almost a full disc here)—must now qualify as one of the most talented jazz musicians of his time but also one of the least interested in precisely that kind of “crossover.” The multireed virtuoso who, at one time, seemed to pick up where the late Eric Dolphy so tragically left off, ends up on the final work here, the hourlong “Opus 95 for Two Pianos,” being performed by two of the greatest figures in classical New Music, Frederic Rzewski and Ursula Oppens. He had “crossed over” but not exactly to a place where Clive Davis was going to go with him. There’s a huge variety of music here from trio blues to saxophone quartets with Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiet to difficult music with Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul, most of it with Braxton’s use of chemical symbols as titles. A magnificent and unexpected collection. ★★★ 1/2 ( J. S.)
Rock
Bodeans, “Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams” (Slash/Rhino). Taking the title for its debut from Mick Jagger’s speedball rap during the Rolling Stones’ “Shattered,” and the basis of its sound from Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and Bruce Springsteen, Los Angeles duo Bodeans arrived like a diamond in a sea of gaudy 1980s costume jewelry. With T-Bone Burnett at the board, and a host of then-top session musicians on the other side of the glass, Sam Llanas and Kurt Neumann conjured a collection of songs peopled by ghosts, drifters, the abused and discarded, and the just plain blue. All shared one common trait—a desire to get somewhere, anywhere, other than a place where atrophy, convention and economics collide to preside over the death of dreams. The pair didn’t invent this paradigm, nor did the duo do it better than everyone else. But the continued relevance and resonance of “Love&Hope &Sex&Dreams” proves that hearing the music, falling in love with it, studying it, adding to it, and passing it on, is often more than enough. (This definitive twin-disc edition of the classic rights some of the wrongs common to analog-to-digital conversion in the late ’80s, so the record sounds better than it ever has. A nice essay from veteran scribe Dave Marsh and a bonus DVD of a Bodeans gig filmed at First Avenue in Minneapolis—the very club where Prince filmed performance sequences for “Purple Rain”—round out the package.) ★★★( Jeff Miers)
Classical
Kile Smith, Vespers performed by Piffaro, The Renaissance Band and The Crossing Chorus (Navona). What a beautiful and remarkable thing this turns out to be. Here on a new label, is newly composed music in the spirit of the Renaissance and “the musical flowering of the Lutheran Reformation” that seems to combine both the most sumptuous beauty of Church music with the charm and delight of court music. It’s altogether gorgeous and haunting. And when, out of some necessity of text and some version of harmonic calamity, a sudden dissonance arrives that out-Gesualdos Gesualdo, you remember that Kile Smith is a 21st century composer living in Philadelphia who has, almost like some Borgesian Pierre Menard (who wrote “Don Quixote” out of his own modern needs), synthesized all of this anew out of what has gone before. It would appear that we now have a piece of contemporary music that, in its very different way, deserves to be mentioned along with Rachmaninoff’s “Vespers.” The performance here is stunning. ★★★★( J. S.)
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Various Artists, “100 Best Concertos” (EMI Classics, six CDs). Testing out my new iPod Shuffle, I was puzzled by its scrambling feature, which lets you hear all your “songs” in random order. It showed the casual relationship a lot of people have with music. It’s background, it doesn’t matter what order you hear it in. This sprawling set made me think of that. You get over 100 selections—sometimes movements from concertos, sometimes excerpts of movements. A single concerto is often represented not by the movement that rightfully makes it a hit, but by another movement. There are cruel cutoffs— the Adagio from Beethoven’s “Emperor” cut off right at that glorious moment when it zooms into the last movement, a Mozart concerto lopped off when it isn’t even in the home key. It’s a good idea for newbies, just give them a lot to listen to. But this is a little mad and scrambled. And considering the riches in the EMI vaults, I sometimes got the feeling they could have chosen better performances. ★★( M. K. G.)
Reggae
Buju Banton, “Rasta Got Soul” (Gargamel). At home in Jamaica, Buju Banton is a fully tenured dancehall icon, a living embodiment of modern reggae’s tendency to marry the pre-hip- hop “toasting” style with a post-hip-hop focus on machine-generated rhythms, beats and grooves. Banton’s considerable fan base might find the immaculate “Rasta Got Soul” a bit surprising, for there’s nary a dancehall track in attendance here. Settling with grace into an organic, band-driven reggae groove that begs to be called “old school,” Banton and his gifted crew do what the greatest reggae musicians have always done—establish indelible, slow-and-easy grooves for a singer to do his thing atop. Banton’s Rastafarianism urges him to exult and celebrate the spirit, while simultaneously noting the injustices perpetually piled on the back of the righteous man. The centerpiece, “I Rise,” offers in a microcosm the album’s rhythmic and textual charms. Woozy and Ganja-fied, Banton’s music seeks to celebrate the indomitability of the human spirit. “I and I” approve. ★★★ 1/2 ( J. M.)
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