This Is Book’s Music

Okay, obviously they were not separated at birth, but these are the covers for their debut albums coming out next week. I’ll leave it up to you to debate on which one looks more womanly.

In case Lambert’s photo is making you wonder “I’ve seen someone who looked like that before”, then here.

(You can pre-order the albums through CD Universe by clicking the following links:
Adam Lambert-For Your Entertainment
Susan Boyle-I Dreamed A Dream)

It’s funny how some Beatles fans thought that their recent remastered box sets and The Beatles Rock Band video game had something to do with the death of Michael Jackson, as a means for someone to cash in. MJ would have cashed in regardless, and yet people want to create a scenario that only exists in their mind. I say this because arguably, the same can be said for a new Jackson 5 compillation called I Want You Back! Unreleased Masters (Motown/Universal).

But let’s get to the real deal. The Motown catalog is worth A LOT, and its owners, Universal, have been going out of their way to exploit it. No, that’s not a harsh way of saying it, that’s a word that you can find in any and all record contracts. Motown released an incredible series of karaoke discs where fans were not only able to sing over the original instrumentals, but it became a great pool of music for producers to sample from, and DJ’s to get creative and make some incredible mixes. There are many Motown-related remix projects in Japan, and the Motown Remixed compilations from a few years ago tapped into the catalog where hip-hop and electronic-based producers got a chance to reconstruct cherished gems.

I would consider I Want You Back! Unreleased Masters to be less about raiding the vaults to cash in, but merely a continuation of what they’ve been doing for years, which is giving fans new ways of hearing the familiar. You’ll hear “TV tracks” that were meant for television appearances, or alternate tracks where you’ll hear a different vocal track or different backing. The alternate versions of “ABC”, “Never Can Say Goodbye”, and “”Dancing Machine” are incredible, although the mix of “ABC” might shock a few people because the vocals are completely different and it’s a song that’s ingrained in our minds. If anything, it reveals a demo-like quality to these songs that most people never heard or associated with the Jackson 5, whose music has always been about creating perfection in our minds. If anything, these alternate versions show that they were kids and young men, five brothers, just having fun without knowledge of the business that they were involved in. When you hear Michael Jackson ask his brothers to spell out the alphabet, it’s a bit more innocent than hearing him say “shake it baby, shake it” in the well known version. For a brief moment, we can imagine them still in Gary, Indiana just kicking it on the corner.

I Want You Back! Unreleased Masters simply offers a different twist of the J5 perspective the world has loved for 40 years. It has the hits, forgotten album tracks, and if there’s any track that might show a few revelations, it’s “Buttercup”. The song was written specifically for the group by Stevie Wonder in 1973 and very much sounds like the album Wonder released that year, Innervisions, and Michael sounds incredible, offering a confidence that he found himself growing in for the rest of the decade until he broke out with Off The Wall. The song was scheduled for release but was called back, and upon hearing it, you’ll find out why it could have been one of the best songs of the decade, period. That’s not me throwing hype just because this is the Jackson 5, it’s an incredible injustice because the song is that good, and because Michael was not able to know what fans thought of it. If there is justice, perhaps a younger generation of fans will take this song and turn it into their own.

With luck, maybe Motown will turn Unreleased Masters into a new reissue series.

To say that the four gentleman on this album are legends would be the cliche that everyone waits for at the beginning of an album review, and that is “an understatement”. In hip-hop circles you might say “in hip-hop, there are no legends” but a jazz cat will stand up and say “sit your ass down done, so we can teach you a lesson or two.” James Moody is one of those cats who at the age of 84 has seen music and trends come and go, but like a fine wine he is still with us.

4A (IPO) brings together Moody (tenor saxophone), Lewis Nash (drums), Todd Coolman (bass), and Kenny Barron, names you have no doubt seen on hundreds of not thousands of jazz records and CD’s. What you hear on this album is artistry and sheer talent, the kind of talent you will never be able to hear in this form again once they pass on. Every note, every improvisational moment, every nod and acknowledgment can be heard in tracks like “Secret Love”, “Stablemates”, “‘Round Midnight”, and “Bye Bye Blackbird”, a closing track that you’ll find yourself locked into. This is showmanship, this is elegance, this is great, this is jazz. They play together as if they were still in their early 20’s, perhaps much of today’s youth should listen to this and realize this is the music of their elders that they need to consume and take as their own before the stereotype of this being “old man music” grows. This is not “old man music”, this is jazz, and this is James Moody, one of the last of jazz’s primary elders still doing his thing.

Pianist Mark Moultrup plays hard and intense in the opening track on Dar Cho (self-released) in a song called “When There Was Now”, and it sounds like he’s playing frantically at a pace which requires him to catch up with any given “now” at any given moment. It reminds me of something I would listen to on Flying Dutchman or something. Add to the mix the bass work of Rodney Whitaker and drummer George Fludas and you have one hell of a sound that you want to hear over and over in as many ways as possible.

This is what Moultrup and friends do throughout this album, playing be-bop, hard bop, and just an intense type of bop that is addictive. Even his vocals in a track like “What About” is pleasant to hear, and I say this as someone who will flip to the next track (if not the next CD) to hear something else. He’s a bit like George Benson at times. John Wojciechowski’s playing of the flute and saxophone are also most welcome here, especially in “Good Will In The Wind”, which takes things back to the mid-70’s and commits to rocking in that funky fashion faluki. “Avant Garlic” could fit on some Saturday night NPR jazz program, and hearing these guys would move me to see them live.

Upon hearing Bach To The Blues (Big Bang), David Leonhardt’s approach here reminds me of what so many other jazz musicians have done by creating a bridge between jazz and classical music. The intro to Bach’s “Prelude In G Major” sounds like something from the Dave Brubeck vaults, and then about 90 seconds in, it decides to settle into a Friday evening groove and one wishes it would last forever.

What this offers fans is a chance to hear their favorite classical works expanded not only into jazz, but just expanded as a whole. Classical music, by design, has to stay by the book, no room for improvisation unless you’re avant-garde. When you hear Leonhardt (piano) and his trio (Alvester Garnett on drums and Matthew Parrish on bass) get into it together, one can tell that this is years/decades of experience being put forth, and it sounds great. I feel fans will think this album is great too.