Listening Post /Brief reviews of select releases

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Pop

Sinead O’Connor, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got: Limited Edition” (EMI). It’s an abundantly rich tale collaborator John Reynolds tells in the liner notes to this limited edition of Sinead O’Connor’s platinum sophomore effort. Reynolds recalls taking the finished “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” to O’Connor’s record label for a first listen. Atter sitting through the songs, the suits refused to release the record, claiming the music was too personal and idiosyncratic. “Well, drop me then,” Reynolds recalls O’Connor spitting. She wasn’t kidding.

The album was eventually released just as O’Connor and Reynolds had originally presented it, went to No. 1, became an international best seller, and in many ways, defined the era of a brief rock renaissance. O’Connor was young, singularly talented, stubbornly convinced of the direction her art should take, and completely unconvinced that pop stardom was an honorable pursuit in the first place. She was right about everything, as it turns out. There is so much fire, passion and unflinching honesty in this music almost 20 years later that it’s not hard to understand how the suits in the boardroom must have squirmed in their chairs that day. Sinead is still hipper than any female popular musician to have emerged over the past quarter century, save Bjork and Cat Power. “I Do Not Want...” has lost none of its power, and has gained a bonus disc of rarities. Awesome. If you can listen to “Three Babies” without getting choked up, you probably don’t have any. ★★★★( Jeff Miers)

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Frank Sinatra, “Live at the Meadowlands” (Concord/ Frank Sinatra Collection) and “My Way” (Concord/Frank Sinatra Collection). Frank Sinatra spent so much of his career answering so much doubt that it’s virtually a monument to spite and persistence. The question in 1986 when he played a rainy night in the Meadowlands is whether or not his voice was in the same league as his old one. The answer was a tentative and mournful “no” but his voice was good enough and so abundant was his musical art as a popular singer and his raw charm that the previously unreleased “Live at the Meadowlands”— with a 24-page book and deluxe treatment—is as coveted as new Sinatra discs get these days. The question in 1969 when “My Way” first came out was “did Frank Sinatra still matter in an era where rock was busy making everyone look old and out of touch?” The answer proved by the album was a resounding “yes” and as his old pal Dean Martin might have said, ain’t that a kick in the head. Absolutely primo Sinatra from the family archives here which is why they’re not kidding calling it “The Frank Sinatra Collection.” Ratings: ★★★★ for both (Jeff Simon)

Jazz

The Stanley Clarke Trio with Hiromi and Lenny White, “Jazz in the Garden” (Telarc); Charnett Moffett, “The Art of Improvisation” (Motema). All good things come to those who wait, they say. So how many years has it been that we’ve waited for a straight-ahead acoustic jazz record by the great bassist Stanley Clarke, whose lucrative day job these days is more apt to be composing for Hollywood (Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac in “Soul Men,” for instance)? And while we’re at it, how long have we waited for exciting young jazz pianist Hiromi (Uehara) to have the kind of virtuosic musical company she so clearly deserves? Not as long as we’ve waited for Clarke, certainly, but that too has been a while. Here they are together, with Lennie White, and it’s obvious that Clarke hears in Hiromi a lot of the mercurial quirkishness that he heard once upon a time in the acoustic jazz of his longtime employer Chick Corea. Here then are three fusionists together going wonderfully straight to delightful effect. Clarke’s bass playing junior by 16 years, 41- year-old Charnett Moffett, grew up in an era when a jazz bass player would have to be crazy not to idolize Clarke. “The Art of Improvisation” is a wildly eclectic (often electric) bass display disc by Moffett that seems to have a little bit of everything on jazz bass playing, especially pyrotechnics on whichever bass he chooses to play (not to mention Middle Eastern music on “Call for Peace.”) It’s Moffett’s 10th disc under his own name and it’s hard not to get a little misty hearing Moffett’s duet with his drummer son Charnett “Max” Moffett on “Swing Rock” —especially when you remember that Moffett’s own father was one of the most extraordinary drummers Ornette Coleman ever had, the late Charlie Moffett. Ratings: ★★★ for both (J. S.)

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Joe Lovano Us Five, “Folk Art” (Blue Note). Bless Joe Lovano, he is that rare jazz musician in 2009 who is always ambitious; he is always up to something new and/or a wee bit different. Here is the tenor saxophonist’s new group, a double- drummer quintet that recorded after a preliminary gig at the Village Vanguard. The result is a kaleidoscope of colors and sounds and arrangements of the five musicians (who also include bassist Esperanza Spaulding, and pianist James Weidman). It is, in its way, a more artful thing to do with two drummers than, say, John Coltrane was doing at the end of his quartet when he virtually had Elvin Jones and Rashid Ali locked in earth-moving rhythmic combat (that virtually precluded anyone else being heard). But in truth the disc is still an admirable disappointment. It’s Lovano’s own sound, no matter what saxophone he’s playing, that proves to be too delicate to mix, or to lead, easily. ★★ 1/2 ( J. S.)

R&B/Rock

Booker T., “Potato Hole” (Anti-). Here’s a dream band for you—Booker T. teamed with alt-country-rock (relative) upstarts Drive-By Truckers for a set of steaming, sultry instrumental tracks. Oh, yeah, some dude named Neil Young is handling guitar duties, too. Not bad. Happily, “Potato Hole” is just what you’d want from this collective. It’s fun, sometimes just plain strange, always revolving around deep-pocketed grooves, and full of that eminently soulful, stabbing organ style that Booker T. pioneered more years back than he’d probably care to remember. An easygoing, laid-back, enjoyable ride. Worth it just to hear the killer take on Tom Waits’ “Get Behind the Mule.” ★★★( J. M.)

Classical

Leos Janacek, Sinfonietta, “Taras Bulba” and Suite from “The Cunning Little Vixen” performed by the Bamberger Symphony under Jonathan Nott (Tudor Super Audio/CD Hybrid). When brilliantly played, the Janacek Sinfonietta is, quite simply, one of the most exciting pieces in all of 20th century music. Even lesser performances of the piece are magical. (There are no outright bad recorded performances of it. Any orchestra that even attempts it knows that it can handle its difficulties and brass-laden instrumentation.) And the Rhapsody “Taras Bulba” and the suite from “The Cunning Little Vixen” are at the very top of the Janacek canon. So even in a large world full of high-level Janacek recordings, the repertoire here is as good as it gets. The playing may lack the unholy fire you can sometimes hear in some recordings of the Sinfonietta, but it’s fine enough under Nott. For those, then, to whom the pieces are unfamiliar, the disc is recommended. ★★★( J. S.)

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