Discs
Jazz
Ravi Coltrane
Blending Times
[Savoy]
★★★½
It’s not unreasonable to look for traces of John Coltrane’s influence in the work of his son, Ravi Coltrane. Then again, it’s not unreasonable to look for traces of the late Coltrane’s influence in the work of anyone who has picked up a tenor or soprano saxophone within the small group format since, say, 1960.
No one escapes ‘Trane, whether they’re working with plentiful chord changes, splitting the difference within the modal medium or going “free.” He created the paradigm that jazz saxophonists — and many players of various other instruments — have worked within ever since he hooked up with Miles Davis in the late ‘50s and then launched the most fertile period of his own work, beginning in 1960. So, naturally, Ravi Coltrane sounds a bit like his father. Everyone worthwhile sounds a little bit like his father.
One might be better served by tracing the outline of Ravi’s mother’s footprint throughout the rather outstanding “Blending Times.” Alice Coltrane’s sense of serene beauty and musical stoicism informs much of this new album, which features Ravi’s working group (pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Drew Gress, drummer EJ Strickland) rooting around in the same fertile soil that yielded ethereal John Coltrane pieces like “Spiritual” and “Wise One.” The album is marked by some gorgeous playing on the part of the soloists, but its greatest attribute is certainly located in the delicate, refined interplay between the musicians, whether they’re following Ravi’s lead through thematic improvisations (“First Circuit,” “Amalgams,” “The Last Circuit”) or reinterpreting a more formal standard, a la Thelonious Monk’s “Epistrophy.” (The latter is a burner and features some rhythmically enticing — though not particularly Monk-like — soloing from Perdomo, who simply swings his butt off over Monk’s changes.)
Fittingly, “Blending Times” closes with a piece bassist Charlie Haden wrote for Alice Coltrane and first recorded with her in 1976. Haden shows up here to reprise the tribute to Alice, who passed away in 2007, and not surprisingly, the performance is touched by an aching poignancy, particularly during Ravi’s breathy tenor solo, which has the flavor and feel of an elegy.
It’s stirring stuff and ably closes Ravi Coltrane’s finest studio work to date.
— Jeff Miers
Folk
Judy Roderick & the Forbears
When I’m Gone
[Dexofon]
★★★½
When blues musicologist Dick Waterman first saw Judy Roderick take the stage of Cambridge’s Club 47 back in the 1960s, he expected to hear something prim and preppy — like maybe “Greensleeves” — from this petite musician, dressed in plaid skirt and sensible shoes.
What Waterman heard was an inspired blues belter, fluent in the form and so much more.
Roderick, who died in 1992 just shy of 50, left behind a modest but remarkable body of work, born of the ‘60s folk revival and enriched by a contagious respect for myriad styles, from vintage jazz to country blues. Her commercial high-water mark was “Woman Blue,” released by Vanguard Records in 1965 and still available in retail racks to this day.”
Her extended family, including notable musicians scattered hither and yon, fans of long memory and kin at Sardinia’s Olmsted Camp, continue to fly the flag for Roderick, who could perform in any company, bar none, and quite admirably.
Longtime collaborator Dexter Payne, witness to this unique talent, has reassembled and re-released “When I’m Gone,” a 1982 recording of Roderick and her incredibly tight band, the Forbears: Washboard Chaz Leary, Don DeBacker, Tim Martin and Payne. The recording, which includes several guest slots by Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John, is a rollicking reward from the git-go to git-gone.
Extended-play honors go to the title cut, “When I’m Gone,” an achingly clever, slyly hip musing on being here — and not being here. Roderick soulfully surfs the crest of a strong horn section and Dr. John keyboards on three other barn-burners: “Surprises,” “Denver to Dallas” and Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “Shout Sister Shout.” She turns on the slow heat in a slinky and sultry take on Jimmie Lunceford’s “Dream of You.” The disc ends in a folkie mode, mining a late 1970s track of “Floods of South Dakota,” back in the days when Roderick and Payne kept company with a group called The Big Sky Mudflaps.
“When I’m Gone” is a clear view of an amazing artist who deserves much more recognition. It is fresh and vital.
— Randy Rodda
Pop
Bee Gees
Odessa
[Rhino]
★★★
Forty years back — and less than 10 before they threw their hat into the disco ring, where it stayed for good — the Brothers Gibb made a truly excellent orchestral pop record. “Odessa” isn’t just the most ambitious music the Bee Gees ever made; it’s also a bittersweet hint of what might have been, had the boys steered clear of Studio 54. (Nothing against “Stayin’ Alive” and the like; clearly, they represent disco’s peak. But this “Odessa” thing is a different kettle of fish altogether.)
To mark “Odessa’s” 40th birthday, Rhino has come up with a lavishly packaged tribute to the record, a three-disc deal with 20 unreleased demo versions of the songs, two bits that didn’t make the final cut, and both mono and the original stereo mixes of the album proper.
Apparently, “Odessa” is a concept record whose lyrics revolve around some sort of nautical theme. I declare that it matters not a bit what the three Gibbs are going on about. They might as well be singing an ode to a particularly memorable “barbe on the beach” for all the difference it makes. “Odessa” is baroque pop of the first order, and thus, is all about the melodies (they are insanely catchy), the vocal harmonies (they absolutely kill) and the arrangements (they’re lush, ornate, a little bit silly, and exactly as they should be).
That the Bee Gees ended up as they did — massively successful, but a little bit compromised, artistically speaking — is what it is. Certainly, the band made some great dance music as the ‘70s neared their end, the pants got tighter and the silk shirts demanded to be unbuttoned to navel level.
“Odessa,” however, proves that the group was bursting with talent and capable of creating some broadly ambitious — and frankly, strange — music. That’s worth celebrating. The deluxe edition of “Odessa” will be available Jan. 13.
— J. M.
Classical
Vanessa Wagner
Variations
[Naive]
★★★½
Here are piano variations you don’t hear often. Haydn’s haunting F Minor Variations (you don’t often hear the word “haunting” applied to Haydn, I know, but trust me) and Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme by Corelli. Brahms’ variations on a theme by Schumann, Op. 9, are also haunting: Brahms wrote them at 21, when Schumann was already in the mental hospital, and he dedicated them to Schumann’s wife, Clara. In between, this engaging set offers Rameau’s “Gavotte variee” and a set of five variations by Luciano Berio. Wagner, a French pianist, has a spare style that brings out the voices and subtlety of this music, all of it unusual in different ways.
— Mary Kunz Goldman
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