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Reviews: Recordings & Concerts
If you’re looking for a rating system to guide you in exploring the multitude of musical options available to you, then you’ve come to the wrong place. How could I boil everything down to a number? However, if you want my completely biased take on new and old recordings, as well as recent concerts I’ve attended, then by all means, read on...
 Scrapomatic: Alligator Love Cry (2006, Scrapomatic/Landslide Records). Just when you thought that credible blues-identified music could be made only by musicians born before 1950 comes along a couple of guys who inhabit the label with a vengeance. Scrapomatic, the singer Mike Mattison and guitarist and vocalist Paul Olsen, began performing together in the mid-90s in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. This album—their second—delivers a convincing collection of mostly original songs that eschews the usual clichés, revealing younger musicians who have absorbed the blues idiom as a living, breathing form of expression capable of addressing contemporary concerns. Though when performing live the sound of the two is full and robust, the addition of other musicians on fiddle, drums, bass, tuba and trumpet on this recording add another dimension to the duo’s approach in concert. SCRAPOMATIC WEBSITE [2.1.07]
 Club D’Elf: Now I Understand (2006, Accurate). Remember those guitar-heavy vinyl albums that instructed one to crank up the volume for the full effect? Perhaps it’s my experience of seeing them perform in person, but this album—Boston-based Club D’Elf’s first studio recording and a project eight years in the making—really delivers the goods when you give your speakers a nudge. No, this is not heavy metal or punk rock—Mark Rivard, the bassist and leader of the group, pushes the ever-shifting assembly of musicians in a floating amalgam of jazz, rock, trance, and world music. Instruments ranging from tablas and oud take turns dancing with turntables, guitar and synthesizer; jazz/jam band man John Medeski mixes it up with master improviser Mat Maneri. The result is a groove that takes longer to describe than to jump into. Also recommended: Club d'Elf Live at the Lizard Lounge. CLUB D'ELF WEBSITE [2.1.07]
 Sara Tavares: Balancê (2006, World Connection) This delightful album does not take long to reveal its pleasures, there being little artifice in the production and arrangements of these self-penned songs. Tavares is a Portuguese woman of Cape Verdean descent, but her quietly energetic songs seem to draw upon Brazilian influences more than the obvious Cape Verdean morna and Portuguese fado. Her beautiful voice is another instrument in the mix— sometime using words, sometime not—that plays with the possibilities inherent in the rhythmic structure of each song. This her first album to be released in the U.S.—what if pop music here started to sound more like this? [1.31.07] AUDIO SAMPLES
 Aaron Neville: Bring It Home... The Soul Classics. (2006, Burgundy Records). Mr. Neville's new album gives us a collection of soul songs made popular in the 60s and early 70s—all them so comfortable and familiar that you'll find yourself lazily singing along with every one of them. Unfortunately, that's just what the singer does here, along with arrangements that add nothing to the originals. Duets with Mavis Staples and Chaka Khan do surprisingly little to raise the temperature, and the slick horn playing by Chris Botti and David Sanborn make this an instant elevator classic. What a waste of a voice. [12.27.06]
The Harry Smith Project: Anthology of Folk Music Revisited (2006, Shout)  We are reminded often in this box set that the original group of recordings released on Folkways Records as The Anthology of American Folk Music in 1952 had a tremendous impact on American music. That collection of songs, originally recorded at the end of the 20s and the beginning of the 30s, was a unique window on a then-not-too-distant past that seemed to belong to another century. In time, it became the bible for a generation, giving us the folk movement and throwing a light on a kind of blues not dependent on electricity—a country grandfather. The versions of songs the newcomers appropriated, and the tunes and lyrics they wrote based on their love of this music, often felt as organic as the originals from which they borrowed.
This box set—and the performances it documents—are intended to give us a picture of Harry Smith, the man behind the Anthology. It consists of two CDs of recordings from five concerts produced in London, New York and Los Angeles in 1999 and 2001; a DVD of a number of these same performances; and a movie that integrates performances, interviews, photography and bits of the subject’s films. This “project” celebrates Smith's tremendous achievement (the Anthology) and attempts to fill us in on his lesser known pursuits: ethnographical studies and collections—a major focus being Native Americans; experimental filmmaking; the recording of Beat poetry, and the making of paintings, some of them based on the exact transcription of jazz tunes.
In the past, Hal Wilner’s tributes have relied upon unlikely combinations of musicians, resulting in unusual treatments of music that force us to reexamine what we think we know about the object of his attention. This box is no exception. One example of this approach when it works is the version by Sun Ra & His Arkestra of “Pink Elephants on Parade” on Stay Awake, his tribute to music from vintage Disney films. An album of remixes by different DJs of Charlie Parker recordings was less successful, I think, due to the fact that there appeared to be little familiarity or sympathy with the original music on the part of of the participants.
That is the key to the success of this particular collection—engagement with the material. Where other generations practically adopted the Anthology as a member of the family—so deeply did they absorb the sounds and lyrics of the original set of recordings—here many of the musicians turn in somewhat perfunctory performances. Is it that they are too in awe of the material to find a way to inhabit the songs? Is it because the simple elegance of the originals prevents them from seeing new ways to develop the music? Is it that contemporary musicians find it difficult to revisit a world where blues and folk progressions ruled the day?
There are a number of performances that do stand out: The celtic feeling “Sail Away Ladies” by Van Dyke Parks with the Mondrian String Quartet. The old-sounding-but-of-the-moment “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground” by Bob Neuwirth with Eliza McCarthy. The version of “Dry Bones” by Roswell Rudd and Sonic Youth that makes it clear that Greil Marcus’ “Old, Weird America” never really disappeared. The anguished “Butcher’s Boy” by Elvis Costello. The animated “Coo Coo Bird” by Richard Thompson with Eliza McCarthy that would be at home on one of this former Fairport Covention guitarist's albums. The ethereal “Oh Death, Where Is Thy Sting?” by Eric Mingus and Gary Lucas.
Unfortunately, by establishing such a central connection to the original Anthology, one can’t help but compare the Harry Smith Project to the Smithsonian’s 1997 CD reissue, the lauded contemporary version of the classic. The new box falls down in a few critical areas. First, it fails to list every musician on each of the songs (Was that Van Dyke Parks with the Mondrian String Quartet backing up David Thomas? Bill Frisell behind Elvis Costello?) Second, the packaging makes use of a poorly designed CD holder inside the box—I couldn’t get the jewel boxes back in after I took them out. (Did they really save that much by skimping on the thickness of the board and the dies for the cuts?)
All in all, this uneven collection suffers from the same thing that makes for some wonderful moments—its reach. The group of performers that Wilner has assembled is certainly an A-list of musicians, but what if he had taken a few more risks as he has in the past? (Tony Trishka on Wierd Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus is a good example). It might have made for more sparks than some of the tepid readings we actually got.
In all fairness, I realize that this is a document of a series of events. That is very different than creating a recording that delivers the entire work. As "consumers" of recordings, we do not have the benefit of sharing the experience—both visually and aurally—of an event over time with a large group. There is the “electricity“ of performers connecting with an audience that is virtually impossible to reproduce on a recording. However, I have not been made to feel like I really missed something essential.
I have mostly commented on the music—both on the CDs and DVDs. But as I mentioned before, there is also a documentary on Harry Smith. I have not yet finished watching it, and so will not comment here. However, I will say that some of the commentary in the movie seems to be so unabashedly enthusiastic as to be offputting to someone not familiar with the man. I’m a fan, so I’ll accept it.
I really wanted to like this—ever since I checked out the original Anthology of American Folk Music from a library in the 60s, I have been fascinated the music and its effect on the music I grew up with. I’m just not convinced that I've "learned" anything except that a lot of people like the original and respect the man behind it. [12.28.06]
Copyright 2008 Robert B. Levers
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