Pop



Peggy Lee, “Let’s Love;” “Two Shows Nightly: Live at the Copa” (EMI/Collector’s Choice).



Tackling the Great American Songbook has become a bit of a joke. Most of the folks who do so are simply following a preordained order, and looking for a bump in record sales, usually at a time when they’re lacking in songwriting ideas of their own. (There are, of course, exceptions to this rule.) Too often, tackling jazz-informed songs from a pop perspective leads to over-emoting, over-singing, and generally overdoing it. The late Peggy Lee didn’t concentrate solely on the songs of Sondheim, Rodgers, et al., preferring instead to interpret songs culled from a broad range of pop-based idioms, though she was a proven commodity as a songwriter herself. However, listening to Lee sing “Do I Hear a Waltz?,” the lead-off track from the new deluxe edition of the “Live at the Copa” set, one hears several things that tend to be missing from most modern G. A. S. interpretations—subtlety, soulfulness, sensuality, sexiness. Lee never over-sells the song. And that’s hot.



Simultaneous with the re-issue of “Live” comes the remastered “Let’s Love,” which is notable for the involvement of a guy named Paul McCartney. The story goes that Paul and Linda were invited to Lee’s hotel for a drink and a chat back in the early ’70s, and Macca showed up with a song he had written for Lee, in lieu of flowers, chocolates, or whatever goody the man is accustomed to bestowing upon his hosts. That song offered the title for Lee’s next album, and also provided that collection with context— “Let’s Love” found Lee interpreting then-contemporary songwriters like James Taylor, Melissa Manchester and Don Sebesky, in addition to the rather sterling McCartney number. The arrangements, by Don Grusin, are a bit dated, but Lee breathes sweet soul into every tune, and she makes the whole thing worthwhile. The McCartney song features Paul’s own arrangement, recording and performance, and Lee sounds right at home within its blend of music hall traditionalism and jazz balladry. Very cool. ??? (“Let’s Love”),???(“Live at the Copa”) (Jeff Miers)



Classical



Heavensong, Music of Contemplation of Light, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Orchestra at Temple Square (Mormon Tabernacle Choir). Thank God for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, keeping alive that 1950s tradition of those mighty choruses with their heartland-of-America sentiments. You forget how good this chorus is. I like the square accompaniments to “Sheep May Safely Graze” and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” The treatment of the Irish hymn “Be Now My Vision,” familiar to all of us post-Vatican II Catholics, hovers just this side of New Age. With the chimes in “The Shepherd,” the graphics on my Windows Media Player went crazy, sparking and dancing. They didn’t know what to do. The old is new again! There are also choral arrangements of Faure’s “Pavane,” and “The Prayer,” from “Quest for Camelot,” and John Rutter’s “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes.” New Age fans and anyone in need of a breather might like to give this a try. It’s the real deal. ???(Mary Kunz Goldman)



Hip-hop



Snoop Dogg, “MaliceN Wonderland” (Priority/EMI). Snoop Dogg—slippery-tongued rapper, host of “Snoop Bowl VIII”—has a pattern in his recording history. Going back to 1993’s four-star “Doggystyle,” one album is great, the next merely good-to-OK. All feature his laconic drawl and syrupy flow. As for his recent output, 2006’s “The Blue Carpet Treatment” was decent and 2008’s “Ego Trippin’” was solidly experimental and delicious. Following this pattern, “Malice” is back to decent. There are lame tracks recorded with rappers Kokane and Soulja Boy Tell ’Em. The crunk “1800”— produced by/co-starring Lil Jon —is particularly dated. There are some clunker wordplays like “I’m gettin’ Richard like Pryor.” But other collaborations in “Wonderland” are sultry, with subtly dramatic rhythm schematics, such as “Gangsta Luv,” produced by and featuring R&B smoothie The-Dream. And R. Kelly, Pharrell and Philly crooner Jazmine Sullivan enhance their Dogg duets. “Malice” is best, however, when Dogg raps alone and sinks into the belly of the beats, as in the sparsely arranged “Upside Down.” When, in “2 Minute Warning,” Snoop drops, “Ponytail still swingin/hair still braided/ Laker to a Clipper/I won’t be faded,” all you can think is how right he is. ???(A. D. Amorosi,



Country/roots



South Memphis String Band, “Home Sweet Home” (Memphis International). Old-time folk and blues are striking a chord in these troubled times. Last year on their respective albums, Geoff Muldaur and Maria Muldaur returned to the Depression-era jug-band music they helped revive in the ’60s, and a host of artists contributed to a tribute to the Mississippi Sheiks. Now a younger generation takes its turn.



The South Memphis String Band is a roots supergroup of sorts featuring Luther Dickinson, Alvin Youngblood Hart and Jimbo Mathus. The album contains only two originals, but “Worry ’Bout Your Own Back-yard” and “Bloody Bill Anderson” fit seamlessly with the rest of the material, which is listed as traditional or from the likes of Blind Willie Johnson, the Mississippi Sheiks and the Carter Family. It all points up just how deeply the three musicians have absorbed this music. They bring it all back home (or “Home Sweet Home”—the album title comes from the final song) in a way that makes it resonate anew. ???(Nick Cristiano,



Jazz



Greg Reitan “Antibes” (Sunnyside); David Leonhardt Trio, “Explorations” (Big Bang). It isn’t every young jazz pianist whose new trio CD comes with notes by the great jazz producer Orrin Keepnews, the man who was in the booth when pianists as disparate as Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans made some of the great records in jazz history. What Keepnews hears in Greg Reitan is what almost any jazz listener would—“full command of his instrument, a warm sound and a fluent touch,” a musician who, in his mid-30s, “has developed a readily identifiable personal approach.” Reitan is 36, Seattleborn and now lives in L. A. His touch on the keyboard is, if anything, even more tender than Bill Charlap’s. His own compositions are beautiful, but just as impressive is his taste in the lesser-known compositions of others, whether his “friend” Denny Zeitlin or Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans and Wayne Shorter. Only “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” is really a standard. With L. A. drummer Dean Koba and bassist Jack Daroo, he’s almost as impressive in the “art of the trio” as his contemporary Brad Mehldau (who is only three years older). David Leonhardt, on the other hand, is a veteran jazz pianist (everyone from Jon Hendricks and David “Fathead” Newman to Buddy DeFranco and Benny Carter). He’s as given to keyboard poetry as Reitan, but his touch is more robust and percussive. Nor is his taste nearly as refined as Reitan’s; his standards, jazz, rock and otherwise, are more common and, to be entirely frank, what he does in the bridge of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” should be illegal. But “Explorations,” too, is a beautiful jazz piano trio disc. Matthew Parrish is his bassist and Allvester Garnett his drummer. ??? for “Antibes,”??? for “Explorations.” (Jeff Simon)



Rock



Vampire Weekend, “Contra” (XL). Enough already with the whining about whether the Columbia University grads in Vampire Weekend have committed crimes of inauthenticity by dallying in Afro-pop from a privileged Upper West Side perch. Instead, kudos to Ezra Koenig and his Ralph Laurensporting crew—particularly keyboard player/producer Rostam Batmanglij—for expanding on their 2008 self-titled debut’s most agreeable mix of New Wave perkiness and King Sunny Ade juju without sacrificing an iota of instantly accessible catchiness.



On “Contra’s” 10 clean, concise songs, Koenig sticks to his playfully worldly lyrical guns, while adding depth to his songwriting. In “Horchata,” he rhymes the titular Mexican agua fresca drink with “Aranciata” and “balaclava,” and he gets his modern-art jollies in a “Richard Serra skatepark” on “White Sky.”



But there’s also the wistful heartbreak of “Taxi Cab,” and contemplative tranquility of the closing “I Think UR A Contra,” as well as such deft musical touches as the Auto-Tune-plus-strings effects on “California English,” the ska-flavored escapism of “Holiday,” and the M. I. A. sample in the world-beat collage “Diplomat’s Son.”



Sorry, naysayers, there’s no sophomore slump in store. ???(Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer)