Why?’s Eskimo Snow (Anticon) was recorded the same time their Alopecia album was made, and apparently it was meant to be released as two separate albums. You can consider them flip sides of the same coin, or just two albums done at the same time, but for you it means another collection of Why? songs to dig and get emotional with.
Their brand of anti-folk at times comes off like the kind of sentiment one doesn’t expect for a man to sing, but here it is, songs about self-reflection (“These Hands”), occasionally longing for days gone by (“Even The Good Wood Gone”), or the mysterious of a confusing world and live as one tries to understand ones purpose on this planet (“Eskimo Snow”). Or if it’s not anti-folk, it can be outsider country, or loner blues, but isn’t some of the best country music made by self-proclaimed outsiders and lonely bluesmen looking for a sip, scent, and song? In a track like “In The Shadows Of My Embrace”, Yoni Wolf sings with innocent openness “I conquered my own childhood silence and now the world is my lit confessional marquee/but it’d take a busload of high school soccer girls to wash those hospitals off me”, only for him to make more revelations that he knows he shouldn’t but “you got to yell something that you’ll never tell nobody”, and that is exactly what he has done on Eskimo Snow and the many albums and singles he has released over the years. It may be as effective as confessing your secrets to a wall or tree, and at least under the guise of Why? there are many walls and trees to bump into in one’s life.
The Hidden Cameras are a group created by the master known as Joel Gibb, and immediately I sense you are going “well damn, a master? Who is this Gibb kid?” Well for one, I don’t know if he’s a kid, and most likely not. Most likely he is not related to the famous Gibb brothers of Barry, Maurice, Robin, and Andy, even though one of the songs here (“He Falls To Me”) sounds like an incredible tribute to The Bee Gees pre-1972. So what makes him a master?
Origin: Orphan (arts & crafts) is perfect ear candy for fans of psychedelic and power pop, complete with layers of vocals, wrong-yet-somehow-right placement of echo and reverb, and nonsense lyrics that somehow still sounds good in the context of the song. I’m talking specifically about “In The NA”, where the title is repeated in every line by line and we never really know what exactly is in the NA or what may be going in or out of the NA, but it doesn’t matter: you are spellbound by what the NA may or may not be and that’s fine. It reminds me of the kind of pop music one was willing to give a shot in the 60’s and 70’s, as if The Partridge Family and The Cowsills were given ludes by the guys in the Bay City Rollers or something equally bizarre. It doesn’t sound like an album that was released in 2009, but by looking at the pop music that came before us, it allows us to see and hear the formulas that worked, revealing that this is very much about the future. Or maybe that good music is simply timeless, and this will no doubt be timeless 40 years down the line.
Then to add confusion into the mix, there’s a song here that sounds like The Thompson Twins. Is that when the ludes kicked in? I have no idea, but whatever worked must’ve been good, and I’d like for it to be breaded onto my chicken.
Not having any idea who or what this was, I looked at the cover and did something that I normally don’t do and something I always tell my readers not to do either; I attempted to judge things by the cover. Yeah, that’s not exactly good. The cover of Sarah Corman’s Happy Little Tune looked like it could be an indie pop album, with the singer in a dress appearing to be dancing and spinning. Could it be like Lisa Loeb? Melissa Etheridge? No idea. The back cover photo of her had the top of her head cut-off but it looked like it could’ve been taken with a cell phone or maybe she was in a photo booth. Inside of the digipak showed her with her musician friends, and it looked spirited. To me, it looked like it would be welcoming, so I put the CD in.
I really liked the music, musicianship, and arrangements on this album, especially how The Beatles‘ “Honey Pie”, Fleetwood Mac’s “Never Going Back Again”, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”, and a song from the Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory soundtrack, “Pure Imagination”, are played. Unfortunately, what turned me off was her voice. She sounded like Lois from Family Guy, and I am a huge fan of the actress/comedienne who plays Lois. But imagine Lois combined with Johnny Mathis and you get a sense of what Corman sounds like here. I did like her original compositions (she has three here) and I would like to hear them performed by others. I was going to type out the word “unfortunate”, but maybe that’s inappropriate. Corman is just not to my liking, but she does have incredible potential to contribute material for the 21st century songbook.
Trying to find the perfect Christmas CD for grandma, but the mass heap of music out there makes you confused? Check out Sylvia Bennett’s It’s Christmas Time (Out Of Sight), a pleasant 10-song collection featuring seven holiday classics and three brand new originals, two of them co-written by Bennett herself.
The music is adult contemporary pop and the standards are of course performed faithful to how people know them. They include “Winter Wonderland”, “Silent Night”, “Silver Bells”, and “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”. The originals will hopefully become standards in the years to come, including the album opener “A Rainbow Christmas”, along with “Wrap You Up For Christmas” and “Christmas Lights”. If you are a fan of The Carpenters‘ Christmas albums, you will definitely enjoy this disc, and it doesn’t go overboard with anything you or your grandmother do not want to hear.
A recent episode of Unsung on TV One made people realize the many ups and downs singer Melba Moore has had in her career. With the help of Shanachie Records, she has teamed up with Phil Perry for an album that puts her back into the spotlight once again. The Gift Of Love has them doing primarily covers with a small hint of original tunes from Perry, and the album opens with a personal favorite, a cover of Sounds Of Blackness‘ “Optimistic”. They show how great they are, and how great they are together, on a song that still works 20 years after the fact.
Another great performance of them is their cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Weakness”, which he wrote and recorded for The Woman In Red soundtrack. It’s a nice ballad that will definitely be some nice mood music for those special moments. Also here are two Ashford & Simpson compositons made famous by Marvin Gaye & Terri Terrell, “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing” and “You’re All I Need To Get By”.
If there’s a song that stands out as something exceptional, it would have to be “We’ll Be Together, Then”, written by Dwayne C. Palmer. In this song, Moore takes the lead and while the background vocals are shared by three people, there’s a primary male vocal that stands out in this song. It’s credited to Vonquest but I’m not sure if it’s Gary Vonquest. Nonetheless, he and the arrangement from Palmer is exceptional, very reminiscent of Howard Hewett and Tony! Toni! Tone!-era Raphael Saadiq and in better times, this would be promoted with a classy video and a push that would make this a hit single. Moore’s performance sounds like some of Patti LaBelle’s best, but in truth it’s one of Moore’s best and you can now hear why she has moved people in the last 40 years.
If there’s one downside, it’s the smooth jazz approach to some (read “some”) of the songs, where everything is synthesized and computerized, songs that would have sounded a lot better if it sounded less plastic and more down to Earth. The songs that do work on this album, they should have done more like that. Nonetheless, it is a Gift that will keep on giving, and one must give thanks to The Gift Of Love that they have chosen to share. Perry as always is in fine form with his vocals, and perhaps it will get more people to explore their collective catalogs, especially Moore. With luck, it will also bring more work her way too.
The idea of how one should “expect the unexpected” is maybe a played out cliche, and one that I admit to using a lot to describe songs or albums by bands that offer a bit of adventure. In this case, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey are a jazz group who are adventurous, but fans have come to expect that adventure in everything that they do. If that’s a nicer way of saying “expect the unexpected”, so be it. On their brand new One Day In Brooklyn (Kinnara/The Royal Potato Family) the group have expanded for a moment to a quartet, adding Chris Combs on lap steel to add new twists to their always-changing approach to music.
Let’s get The Beatles reference out of the way, because there is one here. The new album features a well-arranged rendition of “Julia”, expanded from the song’s original 2:54 length to an incredible 7 minutes, where it at times sounds like those luxurious George Shearing-type albums from the early 60’s. Brian Haas has always been brilliant on the piano, but here he just takes the emotion and sentiment of the song and brings it home. But then the group wants to open the door to their “home” and start exploring.
“Country Girl” has the group mixing up jazz with a nod to country with the help of Combs and his lap steel guitar, but at one point the lap steel goes into a completely different direction and it sounds like a Mellotron. Psychedelic prog rock jazz? I don’t know, but the moment in the song when it makes that shift, it’s exciting to hear and feel but… is that the unexpected or simply expecting the “anything goes” attitude of this group? Their renditions of Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Imam” and Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s “The Black & Crazy Blues/A Laugh For Rory (For Joel Dorn)” (from Kirk’s The Inflated Tear album) are moving and will definitely appeal to fans of these two great jazz journeyman, for Haas, Josh Raymer (drums), and Matt Hayes (bass) have been a part of this exploration too, now joined by Combs.
It’s being promoted as an EP, but at 35 minutes this is legally a full length LP. But if the JFJO continue to make music like this, the format is of course important. For years the group have often been compared to modern jazz trios, but these guys are in their own league, their fans have known this for years. If the music on this is meant to represent One Day In Brooklyn, I think it would be a beautiful place to live in and be inspired to create.
Why?’s Eskimo Snow (Anticon) was recorded the same time their Alopecia album was made, and apparently it was meant to be released as two separate albums. You can consider them flip sides of the same coin, or just two albums done at the same time, but for you it means another collection of Why? songs to dig and get emotional with.
