Rating: NNNNN
Classical
NAIDA COLE Reflections: Bartok, Ravel, Liszt (London) Rating: NNN
Naida Cole is a Canadian pianist with a strong line in the French impressionist composers. The cover of her album is a state-of-the-art piece of classical marketing circa 2002. There’s no indication that she plays the piano, there’s no indication that it’s a classical recording until you get to the third line of title print, and she’s styled into a not bad simulacrum of the young Kathleen Turner. London’s marketing her babe-itude, not her pianism, which does exist. The best piece here is Ravel’s Miroirs, which is beautifully shaded and controlled. That also describes her approach to Liszt’s monumental B Minor Sonata. It’s a valid one, linking Liszt with a generation of composers he’s usually not linked to, but I’m too imprinted on Sviatoslav Richter’s Sofia performance, which is a performance to repel the Germans from Stalingrad, to really appreciate its delicacy. JH
Philip GLASS ENSEMBLE The Hours (Nonesuch) Rating: NNN
Philip Glass Ensemble and YO-Yo Ma Naqoyqatsi: Life As War (Sony Classical) Rating: NNNN
These two motion-picture soundtracks represent the mellower side of Philip Glass. The music is still recognizably Glass — ostinato-laden and based on rhythmic repetition — but it’s not as jarring as he can be. Naqoyqatsti, the score for Godfrey Reggio’s third and final defiantly non-linear eco-tragedy, has the tragic resignation of Yo-Yo Ma’s gorgeous cello solos. The Hours seems adapted from Glass’s downbeat solo piano music, and it could actually create unexpected fans for the composer. Of course, they can be cured of that by his score for Koyaanisqatsi or his monumental Music In Twelve Parts. JH
GLENN GOULD A State Of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations, 1955 & 1981 (Sony Classical) Rating: NNNN
Aside from pondering the inaccuracy of the title — Sony has a third Gould Goldbergs in the catalogue, the live 1958 Salzburg Festival performance — I’m wondering how many times Sony is going to repackage these recordings. As it is, there are two attractions in this three-disc set: the 1981 Goldbergs are drawn from the analog tapes that were recorded as backup to the digital and the third bonus disc, a 50-minute radio interview that Gould did in 1982 with journalist Tim Page, editor of The Glenn Gould Reader. It’s interesting in and of itself and as an example of one of those Gould interviews that are less interview than pronunciamento — the questions, including the phrasing, are by Gould. His linguistic fingerprints are all over them, including his rather odd strategies for making interviews sound casual. JH
WYNTON MARSALIS All Rise (Sony Classical) Rating: N
Wynton Marsalis has positioned himself as a major figure in the history of jazz despite the fact that he hasn’t made a single major contribution to the development of the form. At the same time, he’s fond of composing large-scale and phenomenally dull pieces like the Pulitzer Prize-winning Blood On The Fields. His latest, All Rise, is 105 minutes of meandering orchestral stuff in the vein of Duke Ellington’s large-scale compositions, though without Ellington’s fluidity. It has the grand advantage of being more than an hour shorter than Blood On The Fields, and the disadvantage of juxtaposing his own Lincoln Center Ensemble with the L.A. Phil under Esa-Pekka Salonen, who proves that it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing. The liner notes, by Marsalis’s critical pimp, I mean, intellectual mentor, Stanley Crouch, are unintentionally hilarious. JH
MOZART: COMPLETE SYMPHONIES The English Concert under the direction of Trevor Pinnock (Archive) Rating: NNN
Why would anyone want all 40-something of Mozart’s symphonies? Most of them, composed before the Little G Minor (No. 25, K. 183 — the opening theme from Amadeus), are juvenilia and interesting only because you can hear that they are in fact by Mozart or someone who would become Mozart. The English Concert under Trevor Pinnock is among the more venerable period-instrument bands, and these recordings, made between 1992 and 1994, are cleanly recorded, brightly played and very straight musically. This is an ensemble devoted to the text, so look for every repeat in the Jupiter. I’d like a little more creative spice in the mix, and prefer John Eliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists or Roger Norrington’s London Classical Players in the later symphonies — those conductors have a greater sense of the theatrical than Pinnock. Eleven discs, packed in paper sleeves and stuffed into a slimline box, can be found downtown for about $60, which certainly makes this the best combination of price and performance you’re likely to find. JH
Murray Perahia The Chopin Etudes (Sony Classical) Rating: NNNN
Murray Perahia made his name with the digital era’s first integrale (complete recordings) of the Mozart piano concertos, a set I never liked I prefer people who play Mozart a little less prettily. Since coming back from a hand injury, and particularly beginning with a superbly controlled set of Bach’s English Suites, Perahia seems to put rather more spine into his playing, and his tonal palette has darkened. His playing sounds fuller and richer, rather like that of Claudio Arrau. This set of Chopin’s 24 Etudes is no exception, and offers playing on the level of Rubinstein and Richter, though not of the same type. If Horowitz’s transcendent flashiness remains unmatched in certain études, Perahia is more consistent throughout. This is a very fine set, and Perahia’s performances of certain études — the Aeolian Harp (Op. 25, No. 1) and the Black Keys (Op. 10, No. 5) — have very few equals. JH
Soul/R&B
SOLOMON BURKE Soul Alive! (Rounder) Rating: NNNN
In most cases, a track listing that has five medleys on a live album should be cause for alarm, but Solomon Burke’s recordings are an exception. On the fantastic double disc Soul Alive!, documenting a DC nightclub show from 83, the King of Rock ‘n’ Soul gets down and testifies, imparting life lessons with his classic tunes to turn each medley into a stirring soul sermon. It’s not difficult to spot the crucial influence this recording had on the young Danko Jones, who clearly went to school on Burke’s audience interaction techniques.TP
SAM COOKE With the Soul stirrers The Complete Specialty Recordings (Fantasy) Rating: NNNNN
This neatly annotated three-disc box set comprehensively documents the incredibly powerful gospel recordings soul great Sam Cooke cut for Art Rupe’s Specialty label. It includes some of his finest-ever vocal performances. Period. If you thought Cooke just wore cardigans and sang sweetly about Cupid and twistin’ the night away, listen to him raise the roof of the Shrine Auditorium while the audience goes berzerk. Suffice it to say that until you’ve heard Cooke sing gospel, you really don’t know the true glory of this man’s fabulous voice. TP
Craig David Slicker Than Your Average (Warner) Rating: NN
Craig David is clearly a quick learner. Just two albums in and the UK soul upstart is already in step with the bland, cliché-ridden status quo of American R&B. Slicker Than Your Average sounds like a cheap ploy by David to get recognition in America, driven by smoothed-out cookie-cutter beats, dim lyrics and soft-touch duets with Sting. The only bright spots come when David cranks up the tempo with a return to his 2 step roots. Where once he was a bright spot on the bleak R&B scene, his dumbed-down soul-lite now sounds like everything else out there.MG
ARETHA FRANKLIN The Queen In Waiting: The Columbia Years 1960-1965 (Columbia/Legacy) Rating: NNN
Most people, Aretha Franklin fans included, take it for granted that the Queen of Soul didn’t really find her voice until she began recording for Atlantic, but her prior work for Columbia wasn’t all schmaltzy supper-club standards and misguided pop crossover attempts. The two-disc Queen In Waiting compilation does a surprisingly good job of countering that perception by gathering together Franklin’s more down-home funky and impassioned performances, digging up the more swinging alternate takes and adding a few belting outtakes. There are still loads of over-egged productions and far too many corny string arrangements, but even when Franklin’s struggling waist-deep in cheese, the spiritual force of her awesome voice cannot be denied.TP
Midnite Blues Party (Electro-Fi) Rating: NNNN
Since leaving the airwaves, popular local blues radio personality Eddy B hasn’t been idle, as this house-rockin’ selection of 7-inch blues shakers, deep soul burners and dirt-floor funk indicates. Unlike most archival comps, which typically focus on a label, scene or loosely defined subgenre, Midnite Blues Party is instead assembled with attention to the rhythm, tone and tempo of the music, much like a contemporary dance mix disc or, more precisely, like one of Eddy B’s radio shows — without the controversial banter. Crack a cold one and discover what you’ve been missing by overlooked greats like Percy Welsh, Jesse Gee, Little Daddy Walton and Blue Bull.TP
TLC 3D (LaFace) Rating: NN
Considering they lost their most dynamic member, Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopes (in a car crash in early 2002), TLC should be congratulated for pushing ahead, but 3D is no way to honour their former bandmate. Only four tracks here — the ones that Lopes co-wrote — have the sassy grind that made TLC more than just another R&B girl group. Much of the rest of the disc is weighed down by soft-touch R&B and jerky filler dominated by the out-of-date beats of Rodney Jerkins and Dallas Austin. Even now-standard album savers Timbaland and the Neptunes can do little to inject life into this grim memorial.MG
GINO WASHINGTON Love Bandit (Norton) Rating: NNN
As a follow-up to the excellent Out Of This World collection of Gino Washington’s 60s R&B swingers, Love Bandit delivers more of our man’s breakneck Detroit dancers along with some cool unreleased demos and tracks he produced for Motortown mates Pearl Jones, Nathaniel Mayer and the Tomangoes. The latter’s storming I Really Love You should set the hearts of northern soul fans racing — or stop them dead, depending on whether they’ve already dropped a three-figure sum for the crackly original single.TP
Jazz
Donald Byrd & DoUg Watkins The Transition Sessions (Blue Note) Rating: NNNN
A treat for bop fans, the two-CD Transition Sessions unearths three obscure album sessions cut by Detroit schoolmates Donald Byrd and Doug Watkins in the mid-50s for the Boston-based Transition label run by Tom Wilson, famous for recording the legendary first records of the Velvet Underground and Mothers of Invention. Byrd’s trumpet work here is bright and punchy, characteristic of his early Jazz Messengers dates, which is what a third of this is in everything but name. With an all-star cast that includes Hank Mobley, Duke Jordan, Kenny Burrell, Art Taylor, Horace Silver, Art Blakey — and the great Joe Gordon — you’ve got a surefire cooker that has all the hallmarks of a swingin’ golden-era Blue Note set.TP
John Coltrane Legacy (Universal) Rating: NNNNN
A Love Supreme Deluxe Edition (Universal) Rating: NNNNN
Somehow the “greatest hits” and ballads collections never were any good at coming to grips with the totality of what John Coltrane accomplished in his all-too-brief exploratory stint here. Leave it to his saxophonist son, Ravi Coltrane, to finally get it right with this thoughtfully assembled four-disc Legacy box, which sensibly draws on the holdings of Prestige, Blue Note, Riverside, Columbia and Atlantic and effectively documents Coltrane’s creative progress through his different phases. The tracks, chosen for innovative importance rather than commercial appeal, are grouped thematically to connect the dots and reveal the big picture like no other previous Coltrane set has done. Improving on A Love Supreme, Coltrane’s crowning spiritual achievement, wouldn’t be easy, but the Deluxe Edition does it by adding a second disc with the first authorized release of the only known John Coltrane Quartet performance of the suite, along with alternate Sextet takes of Acknowledgement with Archie Shepp and Art Davis to boot!TP
AUDUN KLEIVE Generator X (Jazzland) Rating: NNN The Norwegian jazz scene is becoming known for cutting-edge experimentation that blurs the boundaries between avant-garde jazz and club music. This stuff is a far cry from the token noodling-over-house-beats formula so prevalent in the dance scene — these are real musicians improvising, using some elements of dance music but twisting them into something that couldn’t be described as anything but jazz. On this release, drummer/pianist/vocalist Audun Kleive leads a five-piece band that includes synths, electric piano, trumpet and live sampling. Very forward-thinking, although some of it does verge on the dreaded jazz-funk fusion territory.BB
BRAD MEHLDAU Largo (Warner) Rating: NNN
Not so much a pop gamble as a chance to wind up jazz purists even further, pianist Brad Mehldau’s fifth disc ditches his typically arch posturing in favour of a peek through his record collection. Dear Prudence, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Wave and all three movements of Radiohead’s Paranoid Android are tackled with varying degrees of success, but it’s in his original compositions that Mehldau really stretches out. Pop producer Jon Brion gets the most out of the pianist’s unusual arrangements, spicing up the tracks with his usual assortment of vintage organs, vibes and percussion while Mehldau, for once, stands back and gives his tunes the freedom they deserve. It’s hard to call Largo jazz, but it’s hard not to as well. It’s a gamble, but Mehldau’s talented enough to just about pull it off.MG
GILLES PETERSON Desert Island Mix (Journeys by DJ) Rating: NNNN It’s impossible to talk about the jazz dance scene and the concept of eclectic DJing without mentioning UK DJ Gilles Peterson. Peterson specializes in connecting the dots between vintage jazz and contemporary dance music and has been a huge influence since the days of acid jazz. This mix was originally released in 1997 but has been out of print for some time. Now re-released due to popular demand, it still sounds fresh. Moving through jazz dance classics to house and drum ‘n’ bass, Peterson creates a cohesive sound and a smooth mix despite the lack of turntable trickery.BB
Bud Powell The Definitive Bud Powell (Blue Note/Verve) Rating: NNNN
The problem with so many “definitive” best-ofs is that they aren’t definitive at all. Record label politics often mean that crucial elements of an artist’s back-catalogue can’t appear. The Definitive Bud Powell isn’t absolutely complete, but for a budget collection it is an excellent introduction to the pianist’s furious lyricism, in part because of the unusual collaboration between Verve and Blue Note. Featuring 13 Powell classics and informative liner notes by his biographer, the collection focuses mostly on his driving trio work with Max Roach and Curly Russell, but it also includes larger ensembles and some solo sets. The energy in these tracks is incredible, with Powell and crew knocking out in three minutes what many groups would take 10 to work through. Essential.MG
THE QUINTET Jazz At Massey Hall (Debut) Rating: NNN
Arguably the most famous jazz concert ever, the once-in-a-lifetime jam on May 15, 1953, featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach was one of those rare larger-than-life events. Five giants came together to roar through standards like Salt Peanuts, A Night In Tunisia and Perdido, with Parker playing a plastic horn and Massey Hall half full because of the Rocky Marciano/Jersey Joe Walcott fight. The playing is elastic and exuberant, but this 20-bit remastering job can’t hide the fact that Mingus was a better bassist than engineer. Even cleaned up, the sound here is barely above bootleg quality. More troubling is that there are no new liner notes to put the concert into context almost 50 years after the fact. Surely a classic album deserves classic treatment.MG
Jimmy smith The Definitive Jimmy Smith (Blue Note/Verve) Rating: Nnn
It’s about time that rival jazz operations Blue Note and Verve realized there was too much money to be made not to collaborate on projects like the promising Definitive co-op compilation series, which aims to draw on both labels’ catalogue holdings to create more comprehensive reissues — in theory anyway. The Definitive Jimmy Smith disc focuses on the Hammond heavyweight’s straight-ahead blues and gospel grinders — The Sermon, Midnight Special, Night Train, etc — and appears to be aimed at the trad-jazz beards. Dropping in a couple of Smith’s dance-floor stormers could’ve broadened the disc’s youth appeal dramatically, but repackaging and reselling the same music to the same target audience is evidently easier and more cost-effective than tapping a younger crowd.TP
SPRING HEEL JACK AMaSSED (Thirsty Ear) Rating: NNN
Encouraged by their first intriguing fusion of free jazz and electronic beats, London DJs Spring Heel Jack try again with an even wider crowd. AMaSSED features Han Bennink, Evan Parker, Matthew Shipp, Ed Coxon, Spiritualized’s Jason Spaceman and others improvising over brooding beats, with the recordings then cut to ribbons by Spring Heel Jack. The playing itself is predictably explosive, but it’s in the production that this record comes together, with the DJs playing Teo Macero and trying to build something coherent. When the fusion works, it’s exhilarating, pushing jazz and electronic music in different directions. After a while, though, much of AMaSSED sounds like an experiment, deliberate and plodding rather than a natural jam — precisely what Spring Heel Jack seem to be trying to avoid.MG
DAVID S. WARE QUARTET Freedom Suite (AUM Fidelity) Rating: NNNN
It’s unclear whether David S. Ware had the idea to re-record Sonny Rollins’s Freedom Suite classic before September 11, but there’s a decidedly patriotic feel to the record, from the red, white and blue cover on down. But Ware keeps his politics to himself on record, in favour of tight group interplay. After years of blowing his brains out, the volatile Ware has mellowed, and now, with his quartet of William Parker, Matthew Shipp and Guillermo E. Brown, his blowtorch touch has been tempered in favour of a more sympathetic and dynamic approach. Shipp, as usual, threatens to steal the show with his raking solos, but the real star here is Rollins’s original material. For a group built around defiantly kicking the music forward, Ware’s Quartet sound like they’re having a hell of a time living in the past for once.MG
