Yearly Archives: 2013

---

PICK OF THE MONTH

---

Johann Sebastian Bach
Six Sonatas for Violin and Piano (2 discs)
Michelle Makarski; Keith Jarrett
ECM
2230/31

It’s a mark of Keith Jarrett’s tremendous musical intelligence that he is not only one of the foremost (if not the foremost) creators of freely-improvised music on the piano in the world, but that he is also an exceptionally fine interpreter on the piano of the music of Bach–a composer whose style is far more associated with painstaking harmonic logic and clockwork musical structure than with freewheeling creativity. In collaboration with violinist Michelle Makarski, he has made what I think may be the definitive recording of Bach’s six violin sonatas on modern instruments. Makarski plays with dancing, bell-toned joy, while Jarrett cedes the spotlight to her violin while simultaneously making every note count, creating a keyboard sound that is the auditory equivalent of a constantly-unfurling string of pearls. This being an ECM production made under the studio supervision of Manfred Eicher, the recorded sound is (as always) rich and spacious, which one might not expect to be the best choice for music of such an intimate nature. But it works perfectly, burnishing the sound of both instruments and creating a listening experience that is really quite unique for this repertoire. Strongly recommended to all libraries.

---

CLASSICAL

---

Robert Schumann
Carnaval
Canadian Brass
Opening Day
ODR 7438

This is a charming recording of two charming suites by Robert Schumann — Carnaval and the Kinderszenen. The pieces were arranged for the Canadian Brass sextet by members Chris Coletti and Brandon Ridenour; the arrangements are beautiful, and though I find the production to be a bit, well, brassy-sounding, the playing is warm and lovely throughout and the pieces themselves are light and inviting. Libraries supporting coursework in orchestration and arrangement should take particular note of this release.

---

Giacomo Puccini
Dyad Plays Puccini
Lou Caimano; Eric Olsen
Ringwood
8108959

I’m cheating a little bit by putting this in the Classical section, but since the musicians are wearing white tie and tails in the packaging photos I figure I’m justified. For this project, saxophonist Lou Caimano and pianist Eric Olsen (recording as Dyad) have taken arias from several popular Puccini operas and created jazz and jazz-like arrangements for them–they do swing (though decorously, in the absence of bass and drums) but they also show respect for the multifaceted beauty of the original melodies. Here’s another one that will be of particular interest to libraries supporting a curriculum in orchestration and arrangement.

---

Henry Purcell
Complete Music for Strings (reissue; 3 discs)
Musica Amphion / Pieter-Jan Belder
Brilliant Classics (dist. Naxos)
94619

Though he remains most deeply respected for his choral and theater compositions, Henry Purcell also wrote some very winning music for various combinations of stringed instruments: two sets of sonatas (a relatively new compositional form in the late 17th century) for violins, viola da gamba, and continuo, and a more old-fashioned set of 16 fantasias and two In nomines for viol consort. This very attractive three-disc set brings together previously-issued recordings of all of these works made by the Musica Amphion consort in 2006 and 2007, and can be confidently recommended to any library that would benefit from having all of these pieces in excellent performances in a convenient single package.

---

Leos Janacek; Bela Bartok; Zoltan Kodaly
A Folk Song Runs Through It
Andrew Rangell
Steinway & Sons (dist. Naxos)
30018

The Hungarian composers Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly were pioneers of folk-classical fusion, traveling all over their homelands to gather traditional tunes and songs, which they then incorporated into their compositions. Over in Czechoslovakia, Leos Janacek was drawing on similar themes (though not in such an ethnomusicological way). On this recording, the brilliant pianist Andrew Rangell brings works of all three composers together into this themed program, which opens with Janacek’s In the Mists and then presents folksong-based suites and sonatas by Bartok and Kodaly. As always, Rangell’s playing is an utter joy, and the program is very insightfully chosen.

---

Johann Sebastian Bach
The Orchestral Suites
La Petite Bande / Sigiswald Kuijken
Accent (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
ACC 24279

40 years after its founding, Sigiswald Kuijken’s La Petite Bande remains one of the most consistently impressive period-instrument ensembles in the world, regularly turning out spectacular recordings of music from the baroque and classical repertoires. As its name suggests, it operates with relatively few members, generally playing one instrument to a part, and that fact makes their recording of Bach’s magisterial orchestral suites quite interesting. Brisk tempos allow them to get through all six suites within the confines of a single disc, and their playing is sprightly and bright, bringing out all of the pleasure and structural beauty of the various dance movements. Most libraries will own multiple accounts of these works already, but this one is both good and unique enough to be worth acquiring even if you already own other period-instrument versions.

---

Jean Maillard
Missa Je suis désheritée & Motets
Marian Consort / Rory McCleery
Delphian (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
DCD34130
Rick’s Pick

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: “Despite being identified as one of the most important French composers of the sixteenth century… Maillard is a figure who remains shrouded in mystery and whose works have rarely been performed in modern times.” On the one hand, this is a depressingly common syndrome; on the other hand, it means we get the pleasure and excitement of recordings like this, that bring the neglected composer back into the public eye with performances of rare taste and elegance of works that are heart-stoppingly beautiful. An essential purchase for all early music collections.

---

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concertos nos. 24 & 27
Alessio Bax; Southbank Sinfonia / Simon Over
Signum Classics (dist. Naxos)
SIGCD321

Alessio Bax has said that the Mozart piano concertos “were the reason I fell in love the with piano,” and you can hear that love in every note he plays on this disc, which includes two of Mozart’s more disparate works: the sunny and straightforward concerto no. 27, and the much more tempestuous concerto no. 24. As a significant bonus, the album also includes Bax’s account of Mozart’s rarely-recorded solo variations on Sarti’s “Come un agnello” (K. 460). Bax is emerging as a major force in modern pianism, and this release is an impressive document of a young man very much on the rise.

---

JAZZ

---

Will Bernard
Just Like Downtown
Positone
PR8114
Rick’s Pick

I’ve been keeping half an eye on guitarist Will Bernard ever since his days in one of my favorite weirdo-jazz-funk groups, TJ Kirk (famous for its fezzes and for limiting its repertoire to tunes written by Thelonious Monk, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and James Brown). As a leader on this album Bernard goes for a more traditional sound, leading an organ trio augmented by saxophonist/clarinetist John Ellis. This format leads one to expect funkiness, and that’s what one gets, in spades. The program is a mix of Bernard originals, one rather unusual standard (Richard Rodgers’ “Bali Hai”) and a Led Zeppelin cover. The playing is sharp and tasteful throughout, and the group sounds like it’s been working the clubs together for years. Highly recommended.

---

Us3
The Third Way (Hand on the Torch Vol. II)
Us3.com
Us3CD006
Rick’s Pick

At the same time that the Blue Note label is releasing a deluxe reissue of the band’s platinum 1993 debut (Hand on the Torch), Us3 returns with its ninth studio album, one that harks back explicitly to the formula of the first: a three-member tag team of MCs in a variety of styles rapping over samples and reinterpretations of classic jazz recordings and muscled-up hip hop beats. The Third Way is a colorful and joyous celebration of the various strands of African-American musical tradition, drawing alternately on classic hip hop, reggae, Latin jazz, bebop, and big band sounds, and it’s a pure blast from start to finish.

---

Modern Jazz Quartet
Lost Tapes: Germany 1956 & 1958
Jazzhaus (dist. Naxos)
101731

I’m duty-bound to recommend this one to libraries, because it documents an important moment in the MJQ’s concert career: previously-unreleased collaborations with a couple of orchestral ensembles in Germany. The problem is that as a listening experience goes, this release kind of leaves me flat: the orchestral arrangements of “Django” and “Bluesology” strike me as forced and over-elaborate (a tendency that the MJQ struggled with at several points during its career). But there are brilliant moments here as well, and the album’s documentary value is undeniable. Also, you may find that you love the big arrangements.

---

Karolina Strassmayer & Drori Mondlak
Small Moments
Lilypad Music
LPM 622

This one took a while to grow on me, but I’m glad I gave it the chance—it recently helped me survive a brutally long transoceanic flight. Recording under the band name Klaro!, saxophonist Karolina Strassmayer and drummer Drori Mondlak lead a quartet that also includes guitarist Cary DeNigris and bassist Ingmar Heller on a program of original tunes that can get a bit discursive at times, but that never lose touch with the fundamentals. Strassmayer in particular is an exceptionally incisive and inventive player, and Mondlak supports her with rare taste and perceptivity. Give this one two or three listens and see if it doesn’t end up staying in your CD player for weeks on end.

---

George Cotsirilos Trio
Variations
Origin Arts
OA2 22104

Guitarist George Costirilos has two big things going for him: a warm, inviting tone, and the ability to lead a trio of unbelievable tightness in such a way that it sounds loose and cheerful rather than constricted. Well, maybe one other big thing as well: phenomenal melodic inventiveness. On this album he switches between electric and acoustic guitar and between originals and standards (with an emphasis on the former), gliding effortlessly between soulful blues-oriented passages and kaleidoscopic bebop lines and doing an admirable job of filling the open space provided by the trio format with lots and lots of very tasty music. Recommended to all jazz collections.

---

COUNTRY/FOLK

---

Various Artists
Live at Caffé Lena: Music from America’s Legendary Coffeehouse (1967-2013) (3 discs)
Tompkins Square
TSQ 2967
Rick’s Pick

Caffé Lena, in Saratoga Springs, NY, has been operating as a folk music venue for over 45 years now, and during that period has presented just about every folk artist that matters. Following a “treasure hunt” for archival recordings from the café’s history, some of which were located in people’s attics and basements, the Tompkins Square label compiled this three-disc anthology, and it’s truly amazing. Here (in surprisingly high-fidelity renderings) you’ll hear live performances by the likes of Sleepy John Estes, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Christine Lavin, Bill Staines, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and you’ll find a booklet with extensive liner notes and photographs. None of these recordings has ever been commercially released before. An essential purchase for all folk collections.

---

The Tillers
Hand on the Plow
Muddy Roots
No cat. no.

It’s an old story: punk rockers tire of the relentless sonic barrage, rediscover folk music, grow beards, and are born again as old-timey revivalists. But this Cincinnati trio didn’t stop there: they have created a sound that draws on a variety of influences (you’ll hear more than a hint of skiffle, jug-band, gospel, and Tin Pan Alley elemtnts on this album) and harks back explicitly to Depression-era union songs. The singing is authentically weedy, the playing tight and skillful enough but not airlessly so. Mike Oberst has developed a sort of customized clawhammer banjo style that works very nicely in this context.

---

Finnders & Youngberg
I Don’t Want Love You Won’t Give Until I Cry
Swingfingers
SF 002
Rick’s Pick

Try to ignore the inexcusably clunky title: you haven’t heard anything as gracefully eclectic and sweetly surprising as the sophomore release (an EP) from this Fort Collins, Colorado-based quintet. What will surprise you are the chord changes and other structural curiosities that lurk beneath the straight-ahead surfaces of the band’s modern acoustic country songs, and that gracefully blend bluegrass and country elements into a uniquely personal style that draws on countless antecedents but owes its essence to none of them. Every song here is original, both literally and figuratively. I only wish the program were three times as long. Strongly recommended to all library collections.

---

Various Artists
Memories of That Old Country Church
Rebel
8008

If your collection could use a good, budget-priced historical overview of bluegrass gospel music, then look no further than this anthology from the Rebel label. The lineup reads like a who’s-who of bluegrass music from its earliest days to the present time, with contributions from Ralph Stanley, Jim & Jesse, Larry Sparks, J.D. Crowe & the New South, the Lilly Brothers, and Mac Wiseman, among others. Some of these recordings will be familiar to fans of the genre, but others are more obscure, and the mix of new and old styles is both enjoyable and instructive.

---

Melody Walker & Jacob Groopman
We Made It Home
Maker/Mender
MM002
Rick’s Pick

When they aren’t touring with their progressive bluegrass band Front Country, Melody Walker and Jacob Groopman are at home writing songs that push at the boundaries of modern acoustic country music, brother-duet traditionalism, and gospel. Their voices are full-bodied and soulful, their subject matter subtly daring, their instrumental chops unimpeachable, and their overall sound simultaneously backward-looking and progressive. Guest pickers come and go throughout the program, but producer Laurie Lewis wisely keeps the sound spare and focused on Walker and Groopman’s own playing and singing. The Louvin Brothers-style cover version of “Graceland” and their raw, modal arrangement of “Sweet Sunny South” are both tons of fun. Highly recommended.

---

ROCK/POP

---

RonKat Spearman
D.O.T.M.S.
Katdelic/D.I.A.
815597013827

If you miss the glory days of Parliament Funkadelic (and you know you do), then check out the latest from RonKat Spearman, a member of that band for ten years and an unabashed carrier of the Funkadelic torch in his own right. The album’s titular acronym stands for “Dancing on the Mothership,” a perfectly apt title for what this music sounds like: it’s heavy, funky, dense and swimming with sonic references to classic 1970s funk, disco, metal, Latin rock, and even traditional jazz. Spearman is a fine vocalist as well as a gifted multi-instrumentalist and arranger. Recommended.

---

Afrolicious
California Dreaming
Afrolicious Music
No cat. no.

If you’re looking for Afropop-style pan-cultural funk that also partakes of the Mothership feel but does so in a less riotous and rockish way than RonKat Spearman’s project, consider this tasty album from the San Francisco-based Afrolicious. This is the band’s debut full-length release, but it sounds like the work of a mature and well-seasoned ensemble: the grooves are tight but not airless, and they sway and bounce with both masterfully controlled energy and a seemingly effortless grace. Where Spearman draws on Funkadelic grease, Afrolicious goes for something more jazz-oriented—and the word on the street is that a remix album is coming out later this fall. I’ll definitely be watching out for that.

---

The Sounds
Weekend
Arnioki
5

This Swedish band has a sound that harks back nicely to the early days of post-punk guitar pop: listen to the Flock of Seagulls-style guitar work on “Take It the Wrong Way,” for example, and to “Hurt the Ones I Love,” which sounds kind of like a collaboration between Indochine and Blondie. I really enjoyed their last outing, but this one is even better, the sound more fully developed and the hooks sharper and more refined. Recommended.

---

Erasure
Snow Globe
Mute
1112179
Rick’s Pick

A Christmas album from Erasure? Yes. And it’s pretty much what you’d expect, in all the best ways: original songs that take full advantage of Vince Clarke’s synthpop genius and Andy Bell’s still-operatic voice alongside surprising arrangements of classic seasonal songs: a lovely and sprightly take on the Latin carol “Gaudete,” a charmingly blippy version of “The Christmas Song,” a heartbreakingly lovely rendition of “In the Bleak Midwinter.” There are hints of social protest in “Bells of Love” and “Blood on the Snow,” making Snow Globe an unusually complex Christmas album, but the pervasive hooks make it consistently accessible.

---

DJ EZ
Fabriclive 71
Fabric (dist. Forced Exposure)
142
Rick’s Pick

All too often, these Fabriclive DJ mixes end up being generic exercises in post-Detroit oonts-oonts-oonts that bore the pants off me within about three minutes. But this one is very different: DJ EZ is a master of the techno genre known as UK garage and its subgenre 2-step, which feature exceptionally tight, often swinging beats and chopped-up, soulful vocals; sometimes the beat falls into a four-on-the-floor thumpa-thumpa, but then he’ll tweak the time signature and break up the groove in a subtle way and turn it into something much funkier and sometimes almost pointillistic. This continuous-mix program features extracts from no fewer than 32 tracks, and if you recognize more than 10% of them you’re much more in tune with this scene than I am. Highly recommended.

---

Hot Head Show
Perfect
RBL Music
HHS 005

I confess that I’m a sucker for nerdy-smart math-rock bands with a sense of humor. Hot Head Show is all about twisted intricacy and aggressive whimsy; they’ll switch from headlong mathcore to spastic ska in the twitch of an eyelid, and their lyrics are the high school chess club’s idea of hilarious. (Unsurprisingly, they spent most of 2011 touring behind Primus.) Recommended if you like Sweep the Leg Johnny and/or the Ahleuchatistas. Or if, like me, you just get in a certain mood sometimes and need to indulge a secret jonesing for avant-pop perversity.

---

Lea Lea
Lea Lea
Wah Wah 45s
25
Rick’s Pick

Born to Trinidadian and Italian parents and raised in East London, Lea Lea grew up surrounded by a wild variety of music, and her debut album reflects that fact. She cut her teeth on jungle and drum & bass and gravitated towards hip hop and grime before hooking up with producer/drummer Jack Baker and traveling throughout Mexico and the US and absorbing the sights and sounds of cultures far removed from the London underground clubs. Upon their return, she wrote this album, and while you won’t hear any mariachi or country influences in the music (it’s very much an East-London-sounding affair), you’ll definitely hear reflections of her travels in the lyrics. The overall sound is tense, funky, and dark, and thoroughly wonderful. Highly recommended.

---

Allen Toussaint
Songbook
Rounder
1166191442

Allen Toussaint is one of those guys you probably haven’t heard of despite the fact that you hear his music on a regular basis. A New Orleans-bred singer, composer, and pianist, he’s written hits for the likes of Irma Thomas, Al Hirt, and Lee Dorsey, and you’ll still hear his music in advertising jingles, hip hop singles, and TV soundtracks. This disc (and accompanying DVD) documents a recent solo stand at Joe’s Pub in New York. It’s just Toussaint’s warm, friendly voice and his piano, on a list of songs that includes “Brickyard Blues,” “It’s Raining,” “St. James Infirmary,” and “Get Out of My Life, Woman.” Everything that he plays and sings fairly screams “New Orleans,” and it’s all a complete joy to hear.

---

WORLD/ETHNIC

---

Mark Ernestus Presents Jeri-Jeri
800% Ndagga
Ndagga (dist. Forced Exposure)
ND 006CD

While on a music-gathering trip to Senegal in 2011, German producer Mark Ernestus found himself unexpectedly in the studio with more than 20 of the country’s finest musicians, including members of a griot clan of sabar drummers and mbalax vocalists, some of whom have worked regularly as members of Baaba Maal and Youssou N’Dour’s bands. The music they created for this album is densely, swirlingly polyrhythmic, featuring ecstatic vocals and subtle layers of synthesizer and guitar underneath the talking drums and skittering snare and high hat.

---

Various Artists
The Brooklyn Rocksteady Soundtrack
Whatevski
DIP028
Rick’s Pick

The ska and rock steady revival that came of age in New York and Brooklyn 15 years ago continues to bubble along despite all the talk of ska being dead (again). For solid evidence, consider this collection of 20 new songs by Brooklyn artists working in the tradition of rock steady, a sound that flourished briefly in 1960s Jamaica as the galloping dance beats of skae were starting to slow and thicken into what would eventually become reggae around 1970. (It’s actually the soundtrack to a film that can be viewed for free online here.) Some of these artists (Crazy Baldhead, King Django, Victor Rice) will be familiar to listeners who have been keeping an eye on this scene over the years, but others will come as a pleasant surprise and merit further investigation. It’s a brilliant collection all around.

---

Various Artists
Lula Lounge: Essential Tracks, Vol. 1
Lula Lounge
LLR2-1201
Rick’s Pick

If you’ve ever visited Toronto at any time other than high summer, you might have a hard time believing that these hot, humid, deeply tropical dance grooves were produced in or anywhere near that city. But Toronto’s Lula Lounge club really is a destination for lovers of Caribbean and Latin American dance music, and this wonderful disc is the soundtrack of that venue—a place that serves not only as a dance club but also as a dance studio and a gathering place for the Latino diaspora in its many forms. But the chief value of this album isn’t documentary or ethnological—it’s as an utterly brilliant party album.

---

Various Artists
Italie: Polyphonies des Quatres Provinces
Disques VDE-Gallo (dist. Albany)
VDE CD-1358

The traditional polyphonic singing of Northern Italy is locally known as canto fermo (“song without rhythm”). This is an all-male tradition; female groups were also once common, but for some reason have now disappeared, and the singing generally takes place when friends gather in someone’s cellar or in a bar. As its name suggests, this is music that unfolds without rhythmic pulse, but with rich and powerful harmony. This recording was made in the field by amateur singers, and the sound quality is very good; the singing is rough-edged but expert, and the disc includes a brief video documentary. The whole package should be of great interest to libraries with a collecting interest in ethnomusicology.

---

Talisman
I-Surrection
Sugar Shack/Bristol Archive
FOD097
Rick’s Pick

Having gotten international attention with the reissue of their 1984 debut Takin’ the Strain, the Bristol reggae band Talisman have re-formed and recorded an album of brand-new material—and bless them, to listen to it you’d never know that 30 years have passed since their first recordings. Their sound is tight, dry, slow, and dread, the lyrical themes strictly roots-and-culture, the vocals as rich and strong as ever, and the grooves positively elephantine. And every track comes with a dub version. Any library with a reggae collection, however selective, would be wise to pick this one up.

---

PICK OF THE MONTH

---

Linda Thompson
Won’t Be Long Now
Pettifer Music (dist. Redeye)
CD PET 1001

“New album from Linda Thompson” is really all the review this album needs. A bit of background: in the 1970s, she was half of Richard & Linda Thompson, a duo that featured the mind-bogglingly adept guitar playing and songwriting of Richard and the aching, crystal-clear singing of Linda. (Richard’s harmony vocals were useful, but he was utterly outclassed by Linda as a lead singer). After their harrowing split around 1980, Linda did some solo work and then found herself physically unable to sing for almost 20 years. Her return has been gradual but welcome, and this album may be her best solo effort yet. It benefits from the presence of family members including Teddy Thompson (the brilliant son of her marriage to Richard and an accomplished solo artist) and even Richard himself, playing guitar on “Love’s for Babies and Fools.” Linda’s voice hardly betrays the decades or the period of disuse it suffered in the late 1980s and 1990 — it’s still a thing of clear and plainspoken beauty. No folk or folk-rock collection should be without this disc.

---

CLASSICAL

---

Felix Mendelssohn; Robert Schumann; Ludwig Van Beethoven
Violin Concertos; Romances
Rachel Barton Pine; Göttinger Symphonie Orchester / Christoph-Mathias Mueller
Cedille (dist. Naxos)
CDR 90000 144
Rick’s Pick

This is a typically sparkling and brilliantly colorful performance from violinist Rachel Barton Pine, the fourth in her ongoing series of recordings drawing on the German romantic violin repertoire. Honestly, there’s not much to say here–except that I’m not sure there’s a violinst anywhere right now with a deeper and more joyful sense for this music, the Mendelssohn in particular. This album is a pure pleasure.

---

Ludwig Van Beethoven
Complete Works for Cello and Piano (2 discs)
Colin Carr; Thomas Sauer
MSR Classics (dist. Albany)
MS 1486

The temptation when playing Beethoven (especially on modern instruments, with their heavier internal bracing and steel strings) is to confuse richness with density, and intensity with ponderousness. It is one of the best things about this recording that neither cellist Colin Carr nor pianist Thomas Sauer makes that mistake: this complete collection of Beethoven’s sonatas and thematic variations for the two instruments reveals all the richness and intensity of Beethoven’s music without imposing any ponderous density on it. The gorgeous, dark-hued tone of Carr’s instrument is particularly noteworthy.

---

Various Composers
Libera Nos: The Cry of the Oppressed
Contrapunctus / Owen Rees
Signum Classics (dist. Naxos)
Rick’s Pick

I have listened to this disc over and over since receiving a review copy a month or so ago, and it still slays me every time. It consists of English, Portuguese, and Flemish pieces from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, all of them drawing on Biblical lamentations over the fate of Jerusalem–but using them as a veiled commentary on the plight of Catholics in England and of the Portguese under Spanish rule. The putative overarching theme is oppression, but the feeling is less angry and defiant that powerfully, gently, and heartbreakingly mournful. Owen Rees and Contrapunctus have created one of the most ravishingly lovely recordings I’ve heard in a year.

---

Johann Sebastian Bach
Unaccompanied Suites Performed on Double Bass
Jory Herman
(self-released)
No cat. no.
Rick’s Pick

Although I’m a bass player myself, I rarely find myself drawn to recordings for the solo bass. I’ve also (true-confession time) never been a huge fan of Bach’s unaccompanied suites for solo cello, despite their status as a landmark of the baroque repertoire. So I was taken by surprise when this fantastic account of those suites, played on double bass, grabbed me by the collar and refused to let go. Herman’s tone is rich, full, and sweet (even in the higher positions), his intonation is excellent, and he plays with genuine emotional investment. He clearly loves these pieces and will convince you to love them as well, if (like me) you didn’t already. Recommended to all classical library collections.

---

Antonio Vivaldi
Concerti da camera (reissue; 4 discs)
Il Giardino Armonico
Teldec/Das Alte Werk (dist. Naxos)
2564 64662-0

This four-disc set contains the entirely of Vivaldi’s Opus 10 chamber concertos, along with a handful of sonatas and sonatinas, numbering 24 works in all. All were recorded and previously released between 1990 and 1992. The playing by Il Giardino Armonico (on period instruments) is thrillingly energetic and admirably skillful, but I was brought up short immediately by the dry, brittle, and sometimes harsh sonic qualities of these recordings, particularly those on the first two discs. This set represents a good value for money and will be very useful for reference purposes, but it doesn’t give as much listening pleasure as it could have with more careful production.

---

Various Composers
Cantus
Kuniko
Linn (dist. Naxos)
CKD 432

Having previously made a splash with her marimba arrangements of works by Steve Reich, Kuniko goes back to the minimalist well to create this shimmeringly lovely program of works by Reich, Arvo Pärt, and Hywel Davies arranged for various combinations of marimba, vibraphone, crotales, and bells. Some of the choices are surprising (seriously, a marimba-and-vibes arrangement of Fratres?) but they all work wonderfully. Any library that supports a percussion program should jump at the chance to acquire this example of masterful transcription for mallet keyboards.

---

Various Composers
The Golden Age of the Cornett (reissue; 2 discs)
Le Concert Brisé / William Dongois
Accent (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
ACC 24261

The cornett (not to be confused with the cornet, though it’s a precursor of the trumpet) was a very popular instrument in 17th-century Italy, in both ceremonial and more intimate musical settings. This two-disc set brings together two very different cornett-focused recordings: one (recorded in 2005) of chamber settings of traditional melodies along with sacred and secular pieces by the likes of Palestrina, de Rore, and Rognoni. Here the cornett is accompanied by keyboards or lute. The second disc (from 2003) is a collection of vocal and instrumental pieces associated with St. Mark’s Basilica at the time of Monteverdi; each of the pieces features the cornett more or less prominently. Though the pairing of these two discs is a little bit odd, the playing and singing are wonderful throughout–William Dongois is a cornettist of rare skill–and the set offers a wonderful listening experience.

---

Franz Joseph Haydn; Josef Myslivecek
[Cello Concertos]
Wendy Warner; Camerata Chicago / Drostan Hall
Cedille (dist. Naxos)
CDR 90000 142

I know, I know — another recording of Haydn’s cello concertos in C and D, ho hum. But wait: who’s that Myslivecek guy? As it turns out, he was a friend of the Mozart family and an influence on the young Wolfgang himself, and remains a criminally overlooked figure of the classical period (partly due to his tragically early death). The C major concerto featured here is a transcription of one of his violin concertos, and it’s wonderful–as is the playing of cellist Wendy Warner and the Camerata Chicago, all on modern instruments.

---

Nicholas Ludford; John Mason
Missa Inclina cor meum; Ave fuit prima salus
Blue Heron / Scott Metcalfe
Blue Heron
BHCD1004
Rick’s Pick

This is the third installment in a projected five-disc series that will bring selections from the Peterhouse partbooks (the largest and most important source of English music surviving from the period before the death of Henry VIII) to modern listeners for the first time. As was the case for the previous two volumes, this disc represents world-premiere recordings of the featured works: a parody Mass by Nicholas Ludford, a restored version of the obscure John Mason’s Ave prima fuit salus, and a selection of Sarum plainchant. The Mason piece in particular is rather strange and quite wonderful, and the Blue Heron choir’s sound is sumptuously rich as always. An essential purchase for all early music and choral collections.

---

JAZZ

---

Majik Malik
Tranz Denied
Bee Jazz (dist. Naxos)
BEE 061

I’ve listened to a lot of weird jazz in my lifetime, so you should take it seriously when I tell you that this is some of the weirdest jazz I’ve ever listened to. It’s not the weirdest music I’ve ever heard, not by a long shot. But as jazz goes, this stuff is seriously out there. And for the most part, that’s a compliment: vocalist/flutist/keyboardist Majik Malik invited a fine turntablist, a laptop/electronics player, a saxophonist, a drummer, and a couple of guest vocalists to help him out with this project, and at its best the sounds are completely new despite incorporating aspects of jazz, minimalism, and electro. At its worst the music is unfocused and boring–but that happens rarely on this strange and impressive album.

---

Preservation Hall Jazz Band
That’s It!
Sony Legacy
88883715212

If you’re looking for standard-issue rollicking New Orleans jazz (a reasonable expectation from America’s longest-standing exponent of the genre), then you’ll get what you’re after on this latest release from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. But if you’d like to hear something a little bit different–a samba here, a tango there–then you’ll get that as well. This is largely due to the fact that That’s It! is the first album of all-original material the PHJB has ever released, which I suppose makes this album “important.” Importance aside, it’s also tons of good fun–not that we’d expect anything less, of course.

---

Billy Cobham
Compass Point (2 discs)
Purple Pyramid/Cleopatra
CLP 0515

Drummer Billy Cobham has been a bright star in the jazz firmament since his work in the 1960s with Miles Davis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He’s a pioneer of the jazz-fusion style, and it’s in that mode that he was working during the 1997 live performance documented on these two discs. Leading a quartet that included keyboardist Gary Husband, bassist Stefan Rademacher, and guitarist Carl Orr, Cobham goes off in all kinds of discursive directions–modal, bluesy, rockish, occasionally boppy and swinging. Drummers will be paying close attention to his tone, which is spectacular, but there’s plenty of tasty playing from the others as well. Very nice stuff.

---

Ahmad Jamal
Saturday Morning: La Buissonne Studio Sessions
Jazz Village (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
JV 570027

Ahmad Jamal. What can one say about this guy? Active on the jazz scene for 65 years now (65 years), he was cited as the source of “all my inspiration” by Miles Davis. At 83 years of age, he still plays with the energy, nimbleness, and sharp intelligence of a brilliant 25-year-old. And whether he’s playing standards or originals, he makes every tune his own. Here he leads a quartet that includes bassist Reginald Veal, drummer Herlin Riley, and percussionist Manolo Badrena through a program of lush and at times somewhat abstract numbers, most of which are originals. Some of them push the boundaries of jazz and edge into the realm of 19th-century impressionism. Every library supporting a jazz program should own a copy of this album.

---

Kellye Gray
And, They Call Us Cowboys: The Texas Music Project
GRR8
GRR80006

And now for something completely different: straight-ahead and fusion arrangements of classic country, pop, and soul songs by Texan (mostly) songwriters. The tracklist might give you pause: “In the Ghetto,” “Dang Me,” “Only the Lonely”? And as you might expect, the results are a bit uneven. The skittery soul-funk arrangement of “In the Ghetto” seems in somewhat poor taste, but “Help Me Make It Through the Night” went down better than expected, and Gray’s gently torchy take on Townes Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You” is perfect. Unevenness is what happens when you take chances, and we need more–not less–chance-taking in jazz.

---

Bryan Shaw and the Hot Shots
The Bluebird of Happiness
Arbors Jazz (dist. Allegro)
ARCD19434

OK, OK. Having just said in the review above that we need more chance-taking in jazz, I’m now recommending a disc of solid, sweet, swinging, pre-bop hot jazz that has nothing to do with experimentation or chance-taking of any kind. So sue me. The fact is that we can also use more of this on the jazz scene today: more purely joyful, powerfully swinging, unabashedly melodic and unassumingly virtuosic jazz that makes no apologies for its old-fashioned style. (What can I say, I contain multitudes.) Trumpeter Bryan Shaw is both a brilliant player and a brilliant bandleader, and the septet he leads on this album is second to none when it comes to traditional jazz. Highly recommended.

---

Will Lee
Love, Gratitude and Other Distractions
Sinning Saint Ltd.
SSL017

Bassist Will Lee is a familiar face to late-night TV viewers (he plays for David Letterman’s band) and, as one of the most in-demand session players in America, a god to his fellow bassists. It’ s been 20 years since he released a solo album, and he racked up lots of IOUs in the meantime–hence the cameos here by such luminaries as Chuck Loeb, Steve Gadd, Bob James, and Billy Gibbons. The long wait may also account for the fact that some of these songs sound charmingly dated: you’ll hear hints of Steely Dan (“Miss Understanding”) and the Police (“Shahara”), for example. But there are also fully modern and sometimes surprising sounds here, and everything is very enjoyable. Most of the songs feature Lee on vocals as well as bass. Recommended.

---

Mike Jones
Plays Well with Others
Capri
74126
Rick’s Pick

If you’ve attended a Penn and Teller show in Las Vegas, then you’ve heard Mike Jones before — he plays piano during the intro segments (with Penn on bass). But listening to him in a less distracting environment is a revelation: his chops are astounding. He plays in a way that seems to combine Oscar Peterson with Robert Schumann, swinging mightily while using the entire keyboard lushly and melodically. Bassist Mike Gurrola and drummer Jeff Hamilton provide powerful rhythmic support. This is an unusually rich and satisfying piano trio album.

---

COUNTRY/FOLK

---

Ken & Brad Kolodner
Skipping Rocks
Fenchurch Music
07
Rick’s Pick

Slyly subtitled “Original and Traditional Appalachian Old-time Music,” this father-son duo project is both technically impressive and musically tasteful, a lovely exploration of both tradition and creativity (and of a warm musical relationship). Ken Kolodner is a fiddler and hammered-dulcimer player who has long been a fixture on the East coast folk scene; his son is a gifted young clawhammer banjo player and fiddler. Joined by several guest accompanists (including guitar virtuoso Robin Bullock), they play a winning program of familiar fiddle tunes (“Falls of Richmond,” “Billy in the Lowground,” “Lost Indian,” etc.) and old-timey original compositions. There’s not a lot of rip-roaring dance fare here; even the uptempo tunes are delivered with a certain restraint in a style that puts more focus on the tunes themselves than on the undeniable skill of the players. Highly recommended to all folk collections.

---

Alice Gerrard
Bittersweet
Spruce and Maple Music
SMM 1008
Rick’s Pick

For her first solo album in ten years, folk legend Alice Gerrard has delivers a first: a program made up entirely of original compositions. And they’re gems, most of them sad and quiet and gently, richly gorgeous. Their beauty is enhanced by the slightly fragile nature of Gerrard’s gracefully aging voice, which is highlighted beautifully by the production work of Laurie Lewis and by the skillfully self-effacing assistance of A-list pickers like Bryan Sutton, Todd Phillips, Stuart Duncan and Rob Ickes. Brilliant and beautiful.

---

Chris Jones & the Night Drivers
Lonely Comes Easy
Rebel
REB-CD-1847

Chris Jones and crew return to the Rebel records stable with another top-notch collection of neotraditional bluegrass songs. Lots of originals, several nicely-chosen standards and traditional numbers, and everything is performed in the quartet’s trademark style: tight and no-frills, the focus staying solidly on Jones’ baritone lead vocals. One thing that makes this group a bit unusual is that voice: whereas the bluegrass norm for lead singers is high-pitched and sharp-toned, Jones fairly croons, with no loss of lonesome effect. Best title: “Swine Flu in Union County.” (It’s an instrumental.)

---

The James Connolly Songs of Freedom Band
Songs of Freedom
PM Press (dist. by IPG)
PMA 017-2

In 1907, Irish nationalist James Connolly published Songs of Freedom, a collection of revolutionary lyrics he had written, without musical notation or tune suggestions. In 1919 a concert was held in celebration of his legacy, and a souvenir program was produced with tune indications, and another songbook based on that concert was subsequently published. This disc is released to accompany a reissue of those three publications inside a single cover and with explanatory matter added. On the disc itself the songs are well played and somewhat amateurishly sung by a group of thirteen musicians; the album’s value is more historic than aesthetic, but its historical significance is substantial, and some of the songs really do sound great.

---

ROCK/POP

---

Mike Doughty
Circles Super Bon Bon
Snack Bar (dist. Megaforce)
(No cat. no.)
Rick’s Pick

As a longstanding fan of Soul Coughing, I was dismayed when they split up acrimoniously–so acrimoniously, in fact, that frontman Mike Doughty refused to play Soul Coughing songs during his subsequent solo performances. Now he’s relented, and this Kickstarter-funded project finds him reinterpreting such classic material as “Super Bon Bon,” “Monster Man,” and “Mr. Bitterness.” I wasn’t sure how much I’d like these stripped-down versions, but they’re wonderful–less willfully weird than the originals tended to be, but generally no less funky, and the words-for-words’-sake flow of his singsong delivery is as enthralling as it ever was. Highly recommended to all pop collections.

---

DJ Schwa
Lay It Down
Beef
BEEFCD006

Not quite ready to let go of summer yet? Then pull your lounge chair up next to the pool (pay no attention to the fallen leaves floating on the water), snuggle up in that sweater, plug in your earbuds, and drift away on this mixtape of downtempo, chillout, house, and broken-beat tracks courtesy of DJ Schwa. The label is Czech and most of the artists featured here will be unfamiliar to American audiences, but it doesn’t matter: whether it’s the midtempo house bump of Sarp Yilmaz’s “Simple Words” or the slippery hip hop of Shades of Gray’s “Illusions (Lurob Remix),” the solid but relaxed grooves on offer here all speak an international language. (As of this writing the physical CD is not yet commercially available from US retailers, but it can be downloaded from Amazon US or ordered physically from Amazon UK at the link above.)

---

Elvis Costello and the Roots
Wise Up Ghost
Blue Note
B001874802
Rick’s Pick

Elvis Costello, as we all know, has always had a thing for less-than-obvious collaborations: Burt Bacharach, the Brodsky Quartet, Allen Toussaint, etc. And more often than not, he makes them work. This one, with ?uestlove and his hip-hop collective The Roots, works better than most–which is to say that it’s brilliant. Elvis sounds completely at home nestled in these funky grooves, and the grooves themselves are warm and crunchy and perfect. The songs are disciplined, the rewrite of “Pills and Soap” is startlingly fine, and everyone just sounds as if they’re having the time of their lives. You will too.

---

Various Artists
Trevor Jackson Presents Metal Dance 2: Industrial/New Wave/EBM Classics & Rarities 79-88 (2 discs)
Strut/!K7 (dist. Redeye)
STRUT107CD

Heaven help me, but I’m a sucker for this stuff: the boxy machine beats, the Casiotone arpeggios, the grumpy Teutonic (and pseudo-Teutonic) sprechgesange. There’s just something about early industrial music that makes me happy to be alive and not living in an Orwellian dystopia (no matter what they may think at Fox News or Pacifica Radio). The second installment in Trevor Jackson’s curated series of vintage electro anti-pop includes early recordings by Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Test Dept, and a bunch of much more obscure artists as well. Recommended.

---

Banco de Gaia
Ollopa: Apollo Remixed
Disco Gecko (dist. Allegro)
GKOCD013

Toby Marks, who records under the name Banco de Gaia, released an album earlier this year called Apollo. I thought it was pretty good, but not really noteworthy. This remix album, though, is (as remix albums often are) much more interesting. It includes  funkier and muscled-up versions of Marks’ original tracks by the likes of Gaudi, Eat Static, Desert Dwellers, and the always-reliable Kaya Project. You’ll hear elements of Balkan brass, dancehall reggae, and downtempo styles, with hints of dubstep and techno along the way. And the bass is often strong enough to loosen your fillings. Very nice.

---

WORLD/ETHNIC

---

Kayhan Kalhor; Erdal Erzincan
Kula Kulluk Yakisir Mi
ECM
2181

Kayhan Kalhor is a virtuoso of the kamancheh, a bowed instrument that looks and sounds a lot like the rebab (and the Chinese erhu, for that matter). Erdal Erzincan is an equally adept player of the baglama, a lutelike instrument also known as the saz. This disc is a live recording of the duo playing a mixed set of improvised, composed, and traditional pieces for the two instruments, all of them modal and reedy and at times thrillingly elaborate–at other times they are quietly contemplative. Strongly recommended to all collections with an interest in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern music.

---

Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma
A Playlist without Borders
Sony Masterworks
88883 71092 2

The Silk Road Ensemble is dedicated to “breaking boundaries of ethnicity and era.” And while there is no shortage of pan-ethnic-fusion groups out there creating well-intentioned but often woolly-minded mashups out of incompatible musical traditions, this one is more hardheaded than most. Pianist Vijay Iyer contributes a spiky eight-part suite; violinist Colin writes a feature for the Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor (see previous review), and the program ends with an uncharacteristically whimsical piece by perennial Downtown bad boy John Zorn. This is not your hippie aunt’s “world-music fusion,” and you won’t be able to buy a copy in Starbucks.

---

Cigdem Aslan
Mortissa
Asphalt Tango
CD-ATR 4313

It’s safe to say that while Greece and Turkey are nestled together cozily in geographical terms, there has been nothing cozy about their post-Ottoman diplomatic history. Despite their fractious recent relations, though, the people of those countries remain somewhat united by rebetiko, a vernacular music style sometimes characterized as “Aegean blues.” On this album, Turkish singer Cigdem Aslan shares a program of songs in both the rebetiko and smyrniac styles, all of them characterized by spiky tonalities, sweet-and-sour melodies, and Aslan’s clear, incisive vocals.

---

The Green
Hawai’i ’13
Easy Star
ES-1039
Rick’s Pick

Despite its enormous distance from the reggae homeland of the Caribbean (and its notable lack of Jamaican immigrants), Hawaii has been host to a thriving reggae scene for decades. But no Hawaiian band has yet created as mature and richly-developed sound as that of The Green. This is only their third album, but they sound like they’ve been doing this since the 1970s–not only are they tight, but they move together nimbly and their sound is warm and sweet. And they have their own take on the “roots and culture” tradition, singing not only about love and romance but also about issues relevant to their islands and the challenges they face there. Highly recommended.

---

Bombay Dub Orchestra
Tales from the Grand Bazaar
Six Degrees
LC-19739
Rick’s Pick

With each release from this British duo, you find yourself wondering where the accent is going to be this time: on the “dub” or on the “orchestra”? And every time the answer is kind of the same: both. Yes, their music involves lots of South Asian-style orchestral strings; yes, their music involves reggae-inflected beats and basslines and there will be lots of dubwise space in the mix. This time out the reggae bona fides are a bit stronger than usual, thanks to the presence of legendary drums-and-bass duo Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. There are also some great vocal cameos by the likes of Ujwal Nagar and Tanja Tzar (the latter from Macedonia, bringing yet another level of cultural complexity to the mix). Like all Bombay Dub Orchestra albums, this one is a must.

---

PICK OF THE MONTH

---

Ken Peplowski
Maybe September
Capri
74125-2

Like the Brabant Ensemble (see below) and John Brown’s Body, clarinetist/saxophonist Ken Peplowski is almost guaranteed a Rick’s Pick designation in CD HotList every time he releases an album — not because I’m a slavish fan, but simply because the quality of his releases is so consistently high. And here he goes again, with yet another world-class program of standards (“All Alone by the Telephone,” “Main Stem”) and surprises (some Poulenc, some Harry Nilsson) delivered in a quartet format with brilliant sidemen and an air of relaxed but complete virtuosity — just listen to the seemingly endless bag of melody from which he draws four minutes of variations on “Fool Such As I.” I’m prepared to say that Peplowski is the best and most consistently rewarding jazz clarinetist on the scene today (and in the very top rank of tenor men, where he has a lot more competition). This disc is a must for all jazz collections.

---

CLASSICAL

---

Cipriano de Rore
Missa doulce mémoire; Missa a note negre
Brabant Ensemble / Stephen Rice
Hyperion (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
CDA67913
Rick’s Pick

Once again, the Brabant Ensemble comes out with a definitive account of two masterworks of Franco-Flemish choral music. Although Cipriano de Rore is known more for his madrigals than his sacred music, he wrote quite a bit of the latter and was particularly stylistically indebted to Josquin des Prez. You’ll hear that influence here in this program of two Masses and three motets, and the singing is everything we’ve come to expect from this ensemble: a rich and creamy blend in service to an intensely devotional tone. Like everything else the Brabants have recorded, this one is strongly recommended to all classical collections.

---

Charles Ives
String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2 (reissue)
Newton Classics (dist. Naxos)
8802197
Rick’s Pick

A classic performance of a classic pairing, this 1967 recording finds the Julliard String Quartet (at the height of its considerable powers) performing two foundational works of the modern canon: the two string quartets of Charles Ives. These two pieces can almost be taken as microcosmic: the first finds him working (almost playing, actually) with themes drawn from the religious hymns on which he grew up. Hints of the acerbic tone and expansive structural experimentation of his later music are present, but this work is largely conventional and tonal. The second quartet is far more bristly and programmatic, with movements aptly titled “Discussions,” “Arguments,” and “The Call of the Mountains.” Not since William Billings in the 18th century had a composer so beautifully and startlingly captured the fractious, rough-hewn appeal of the American character in music, or subjected that character to such gimlet-eyed scrutiny. This is an essential recording for all library collections.

---

Various Composers
Baroque Legacy: Bach and His Contemporaries Performed on Double Bass
Jeremy McCoy and Friends
MSR Classics (dist. Albany)
MS 1440

There’s a reason why most people groan at the prospect of listening to solo music for the double bass: it’s because in order to be heard clearly in an ensemble setting, you have to play it up in the high positions, where its tone is least attractive. Bassist Jeremy McCoy says nuts to that. On this lovely collection of baroque sonatas by Bach, Handel, Couperin and others, he spends a lot of time playing down where the bass sounds best, and his continuo accompanists (playing various combinations of chamber organ, harpsichord, and strings) temper their own dynamics to make him more clearly audible. The result is a startlingly beautiful and highly unusual listening experience.

---

Felix Mendelssohn
Symphony No. 4 “Italian”; Symphony No. 5 “Reformation” (reissue)
Boston Symphony Orchestra / Charles Munch
United Classics (dist. Naxos)
T2CD2013009
Rick’s Pick

Generally speaking, I’m a really hard sell when it comes to “historical” recordings. Yes, yes, Leopold Stokowski and Otto Klemperer were geniuses, but I’m sorry: recordings from the 1930s and 1940s sound like crap, and it’s not like we don’t have top-notch conductors making much better-sounding recordings of the same repertoire today. So the fact that I’m strongly recommending these mid-1950s recordings by Charles Munch with the BSO suggests that they really are something special. Can you tell that they’re old? Well, yes. But the sound is warm and detailed enough to let the performances sparkle and pop, and they do. Rarely have a conductor and an orchestra been so beautifully matched as Munch and the BSO were, and their shared joy in these masterful compositions is positively infectious.

---

Guillaume Costeley
Mignonne allons voir si la Rose
Ludus Modalis / Bruno Boterf
Ramée (dist. Naxos)
RAM 1301

Subtitled “Spiritual and Amorous Songs in Renaissance France,” this album brings together 27 chansons published in 1570 by the rarely-recorded organist, poet, and composer Guillaume Costeley. As the album’s subtitle suggests, these songs cover a surprisingly broad topical spectrum — everything from the plainly devotional “J’ayme mon Dieu” and “Seigneur Dieu, ta pitié” to other, earthier ones that range in tone from romantic (the title song) to outright scatological (“Grosse garce noire et tendre”). The singing of Ludus Modalis is generally sweet-toned and lovely, though they coarsen their sound in accordance with the subject matter as needed. Recommended.

---

Franz Schubert
Complete Piano Sonatas Played on Period Instruments (reissue; 9 discs)
Paul Badura-Skoda
Arcana/Outhere (dist. Naxos)
A 364
Rick’s Pick

This nine-disc box set brings together recordings made in the early- to mid-1990s by the great Schubert specialist Paul Badura-Skoda, all of them using early-19th-century fortepianos from the artist’s personal collection. Those who normally turn up the nose at the fortepiano’s relatively constricted dynamic range and constrained tone will want to give these fabulous recordings a listen: under Badura-Skoda’s fingers, the four instruments used here practically dance and sing. Schubert’s music, like Beethoven’s, heralds both the end of the classical period and the birth of the romantic — but unlike Beethoven’s, Schubert’s music faces the new musical era with more bittersweet melancholy than rage, and his piano sonatas remain some of the most gently heartbreaking music of his century. Very highly recommended to all classical collections.

---

Various Composers
Basically Bull: Keyboard Works of John Bull & Others
Alan Feinberg
Steinway & Sons
30019

There’s nothing particularly unusual about playing baroque music on a modern piano — but music of the English Renaissance? That’s pretty bold. Much of this music was written for the virginal, a keyboard instrument whose expressive range was even more limited than that of the later harpsichord, so for Alan Feinberg to interpret them on a grand piano is to undertake a certain amount of artistic risk: will he be able to make tasteful use of the modern piano’s wider capabilities without undermining the essential character of the music? The answer is yes. Feinberg makes judicious and highly musical use of dynamics and rubato, revealing new aspects of these pieces by Bull, William Byrd, Thomas Tomkins, and others, but shows deep respect for the conventions of the period as well. Recommended to all keyboard collections.

---

Friedrich Kuhlau
Grandes Sonates
Les Fidelles
Fra Bernardo (dist. Naxos)
fb 1209102

These are lovely period-instrument performances of three “grand sonatas” composed by the celebrated flutist and pianist Friedrich Kuhlau — a nicely-chosen program, as it turns out, one that shows the composer at both his most ponderously pre-romantic (the op. 83 selection) and his most cheerfully late-classical (op. 69). Fortepianist Linda Nicholson and transverse flutist Charles Zebley both play with vigor and charm, and this disc is particularly recommended (along with the Schubert title reviewed above) to collections that may be lacking in period-instrument recordings of the romantic repertoire.

---

JAZZ

---

Ali Ryerson Jazz Flute Big Band
Game Changer
Capri
74124-2

Confession time: while I love jazz flute, big band recordings are generally kind of a hard sell for me — I really tend to prefer tight-and-nimble to dense-and-bombastic (and bombast is a nearly irresistible temptation for most big-band arrangers). But I was intrigued by this project: a big band made up entirely of flutes, plus rhythm section and several excellent guest soloists, including Holly Hofmann and Hubert Laws. The results are consistently interesting, and while they haven’t completely converted me to the concept, I can confidently recommend this disc to any library supporting a jazz program and especially to any educator with an interest in jazz orchestration.

---

Joe Magnarelli
Live at Smalls
Smalls Live (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
SL-0034

Trumpeter Joe Magnarelli has a style that I have struggled to characterize while listening to this album. At first I would have said his playing was “intellectual,” but now I think I’d use the term “arch.” Which is not a criticism; he swings strongly (helped out by a rhythm section that includes Mulgrew Miller on piano), and writes really well. But it often seems like he’s commenting on the tune as much as playing it, which gives his solos on these very long tracks a certain distant but bracing quality. This is very good stuff, in a rather unusual way.

---

Mike McGinnis + 9
Road * Trip (CD available on October 8)
RKM
014

If you had asked me what I thought of a jazz “concerto for clarinet and combo,” I’d have said “no, thanks.” Jazz-classical fusion almost never works, in my opinion and experience. So I approached the first half of this album with real trepidation, and was very happily surprised. Here’s why it works: it doesn’t try to be jazz-classical fusion. Instead, it’s straight-up jazz, but structured in a concerto form. Bill Smith’s composition is tight but swinging, and Mike McGinnis’s clarinet is a thing of dancing joy. The second half of the program is the title composition, also written in a three-movement format — not quite as brilliant as Smith’s piece, but very enjoyable and expertly played.

---

Jah Wobble & Bill Sharpe
Kingdom of Fitzrovia
Storyville (dist. Allegro)
101 4279

Here’s something from out of left field: bassist Jah Wobble, one of the founding fathers of post-punk pan-ethnic avant-gardism (PiL, Invaders of the Heart), teaming up with keyboardist Bill Sharpe (Shakatak) to create an album of 1970s-style jazz fusion in the tradition of Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters. And it’s not bad at all. Guests include trumpeter Sean Corby, guitarist Fridrik Karlsson, and drummer Marc Layton-Bennett, and the tunes are all as smoothly swinging and spacily discursive as you’d expect–with lots of comforting Fender Rhodes piano to create just the right early-70s mood. Pretty cool.

---

Fred Hersch and Julian Lage
Free Flying
Palmetto
PM2168
Rick’s Pick

Just about any project led by Fred Hersch is likely to get a Rick’s Pick designation, because Hersch is perhaps the most brilliant and insightful jazz pianist currently working. But this live duet recording with guitarist Julian Lage is particularly special, because Lage is every bit Hersch’s equal as both an instrumental technician and a musical thinker. Listen to Lage’s witty and perfectly apposite comping on “Down Home” (Hersch’s lovely tribute to guitarist Bill Frisell), and then listen to how Hersch complements and supports Lage’s sensitive rendition of the opening chorus on “Heartland.” This is an unusually deep and lovely album.

---

Dave Holland
Prism
Dare2 (dist. Redeye)
DR2-007
Rick’s Pick

Opening with a funk-rocker written by guitarist Kevin Eubanks, the latest outing from bassist and bandleader Dave Holland finds him striking out in a very new direction: one characterized by rockish guitar and blues- and funk-derived grooves, though also exploring quiet and contemplative directions and even hints of gospel. This quartet sounds like it’s been playing together for years, executing precision rhythmic switches at a moment’s notice but swinging loosely and powerfully when called upon to do so. The result is that rarest of jazz projects: an album that sounds simultaneously timeless and thrillingly new. A must for all jazz collections.

---

COUNTRY/FOLK

---

Katie McNally
Flourish
Self-released
No cat. no.

Katie McNally is a young fiddler with a very mature sound. Currently one of the leading Celtic fiddlers in her native New England, her studies and playing have taken her to Scotland and led her to tour North America supporting Galician piper Carlos Nuñez. Her first solo album is simultaneously a celebration of Scottish fiddling tradition and a gentle expansion of it, her arrangements and original compositions nestling comfortably together and her palpable joy in playing them utterly contagious. Recommended to all folk collections.

---

Various Artists
The Big E: A Salute to Steel Guitarist Buddy Emmons
MPI/Warner
535494-2
Rick’s Pick

There was a time when the phrase “steel guitarist” would not have had to be appended to the name “Buddy Emmons” for every country music fan to know exactly what this album is all about. No single figure has contributed so much to both the design and the playing technique of this difficult and iconic instrument, or has been a part of so many popular and important recordings in his chosen genre. The Big E features tribute performances by fellow steel players Greg Leisz, Dan Dugmore, and Mike Johnson, among others, as well as appearances by A-list singers Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill and more — and the history provided in the liner notes is priceless. No country music collection should be without this informative and delightful album.

---

Big Country Bluegrass
Memories of the Past
Rebel
REB-CD-1848

Sneer at smoothness all you want, but there’s something uniquely thrilling about a bluegrass album that features seamlessly tight harmony singing and virtuosic solos taken at headlong tempi. Big Country Bluegrass offers plenty of both, though they generally keep the tempo tasteful and what catches the ear is more often the note choices (banjoist Lynwood Lunsford is particularly fun to listen to) than the complexity of the arrangements and the picking. The real joy of this album is the group’s vocal blend, which is colorful and brilliant.

---

Old Buck
Old Buck
Tin Halo Music
THMCD-1013
Rick’s Pick

Old Buck is a string band, and they play old-time music, but calling them an old-time string band doesn’t quite work for some reason. Maybe it’s because they also play Hank Williams. Maybe it’s the more bluegrassy (despite the clawhammer banjo) feel of their take on “False Hearted Lover’s Blues.” Nomenclature doesn’t matter, though; what matter are the reedy beauty of the vocals, the wonderful tunes both familiar and obscure, and the irrepressible joy of the playing. This is an exceptionally fine album.

---

Mandolin Orange
This Side of Jordan
Yep Roc (dist. Redeye)
YEP-2338

I made the mistake of listening to this while running early one morning. That really didn’t work. But if you’re at home on a rainy afternoon, or driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway looking at the leaves, or contemplating a failed romance, then this collection of moody acoustic folk-pop will give you the perfect soundtrack. Andrew Martin and Emily Frantz play and sing new original songs that sound like classic country laments, and they harmonize like angels. Very nice stuff.

---

ROCK/POP

---

Don Dixon
High & Filthy & Borderline
D.A.R./Lava Head
016

As a producer, Don Dixon’s fingerprints are all over some of the best indie pop records of the 1980s (REM, the Smithereens, etc.). As a solo artist, he has recorded for a variety of respected independent labels and made some of the most wry, incisive, and tuneful pop music of the past two decades. This self-released album has a spare and stripped-down feel despite the presence of horn sections, occasional choir samples, and other sonic miscellany, because Dixon is a powerfully disciplined songwriter: he can experiment without ever losing focus on the song and its structure. He is, in short, a pro, as well as a sharp-eyed observer and a gifted multi-instrumentalist.

---

Darkstar
News from Nowhere
Warp (dist. Redeye)
225
Rick’s Pick

It’s a seriously good thing that the music on this album is as effortlessly enjoyable as it is, because the packaging is a complete pain in the butt. The only useful information (artist and title) is printed on the spine; otherwise, there’s lots of cutesy artwork but nothing else: no tracklisting, no artist credits, nothing. The music is wonderful: dreamy, mostly instrumental (when a voice appears it is often unintelligible, which works fine), texturally complex and melodically simple. The album is a sumptuously lovely listen, but prepare to deal with an angry cataloger if you purchase it for the library collection.

---

Alpha Rev
Bloom
Kirtland
KR-71

This Austin-based quartet’s third album is a dense, churning, sometimes disturbing, but ultimately deeply lovely collection of songs that veer from anthemic guitar rock (“Lexington”) to horror-movie spaghetti-western soundtrack (“Lonely Man”) while exploring and interrogating the theme of loss from multiple angles. Songs like “Sing Loud” and “Highways” might remind you of the American Music Club at their soaringly beautiful best, only without the cynicism. This is one of those albums that nicely rewards repeated listens.

---

Telonius
Inter Face
Gomma (dist. Forced Exposure)
185

Dance music is one of those genres in which the line separating boring from interesting can be extremely thin. A little break in the glossy surface, a subtle disruption of the oonts-oonts-oonts groove, a sly manipulation of the vocal hook — any of these can turn an otherwise rote dancefloor exercise into something more subversive and captivating. German DJ Telonius excels at that kind of subversion. Inter Face finds him delivering the four-on-the-floor goods for those who wish to shake their booties, but also offering brain food to anyone who wants to listen more carefully–check out the artfully messed-up vocals on “Now” and the understated, grumbling beat on “I Make You Man.” This is good stuff.

---

Bent Shapes
Feels Weird
Father/Daughter (dist. Redeye)
FD011

Following in the tradition of great punk and post-punk power trios like the Dollyrots and the Minutemen, Bent Shapes (formerly known as Girlfriends) deliver a set of deceptively ramshackle-sounding songs that are actually a lot tighter than they want you to suspect. Ben Potrykus has a charmingly (but, again, deceptively) plainspoken voice that hides its real refinement, and bassist Supriya Gunda supplies sweet backing harmonies and occasional leads under all the guitar clatter. File this one under Bubblegum Pop for the Thinking Hipster.

---

WORLD/ETHNIC

---

Skatalites
Walk with Me
Moondust
MD-CD 001

The Skatalites are the longest-lived ska group in history–largely because they were, arguably, the first ska band in history (established in 1964), and they’re still going strong. Sure, most of the band’s founding members have passed away, but drummer Lloyd Knibb is as solid as ever, and saxophonist Lester “Ska” Sterling remains a paragon of jazzy-skanking fluency. On their latest album they continue to deliver the bouncy, galloping grooves that have given them a worldwide cult audience for nearly 50 years. Highly recommended.

---

Debashish Bhattacharya
Madeira: If Music Could Intoxicate
Tridev Music
PDB-CD-001

Debashish Bhattacharya is not only a virtuoso player of various stringed instruments, but also an instrument inventor, whose design variations on the slide guitar have made him something of a legend in Indian classical and world-music circles. On this solo album he is joined by his brother Subhasis on tabla and (spectacularly) by his teenaged daughter Anandi, whose dumbfoundingly beautiful singing makes the album’s last two tracks more than worth the price of the whole album. This is not Indian classical music of the purest variety, but rather a blend of classical and raga-based contemporary compositions.

---

Atropolis
Transitions
Cumba Mela
001
Rick’s Pick

Listening to this very fun and bouncy set of ethno-electronica, you may be surprised to learn that it’s the project of a lifelong New Yorker named Adam Partridge: what it sounds like is a cumbia and moombahton compilation remixed by Massive Attack. And yes, that’s a compliment: as I’ve said before, I have no patience with musical purists, and this music is deeply, richly, ecstatically impure. You’ll hear everything from dubstep to Afro-Colombian house in these grooves, and all kinds of singing and rapping in a variety of languages. Fun, fun, fun.

---

Rocker-T
Hurban Warrior of Peace: Part Roots
Luvinnit Productions
LIPLP001

Formerly a pillar of the New York City ska-and-reggae scene, Rocker-T has now relocated to the Bay Area and hooked up with a whole new cast of collaborators — including, on his latest album, Joan Baez, who duets with him on “The Way Life Should Be.” Other guests on this very fine album include the great neo-roots singer Gappy Ranks, legendary DJ Ranking Joe, and Rocker-T’s New York colleague King Django. As always, he offers a varied program of roots and dancehall grooves in support of strictly positive and conscious lyrics. Recommended to all reggae collections.

---

Brian Prunka
Nashaz
Ziryab
No cat. no.

Brian Prunka is normally a jazz guitarist, but a chance encounter with an Egyptian cab driver led him to begin obsessively learning about Arabic music and to learn how to play the oud (a fretless lute indigenous to the region). Eventually he put together a group of jazz and Arabic players and created this program of tunes that blend the two traditions together. The music is fascinating, though most listeners will probably strain to hear the jazz elements in the mix (despite the presence of alto saxophone and trumpet). The playing is excellent throughout.

---

10 Ft. Ganja Plant
Skycatcher (CD available September 24)
ROIR
RUSCD 8325
Rick’s Pick

I’ve been recommending 10 Ft. Ganja Plant’s albums consistently over the past 14 years, and always for the same reason: there is no American band so faithfully and skillfully carrying the banner of 1970s-style roots reggae. As always, there are no musician credits on Skycatcher; while it’s an open secret that the band consists largely of musicians from John Brown’s Body (and the voice of former JBB frontman Kevin Kinsella is immediately recognizable), there are always anonymous guest musicians involved as well. In any case, this one is yet another triumph of reggae revivalism from what is arguably the best band working in that mode today.

---

PICK OF THE MONTH

---

Various Composers
Various Performers
Archiv Produktion 1947-2013 (55 discs)
Deutsche Grammophon
DGG B001833572

For a more in-depth treatment of this landmark release, see the July issue of Music Media Monthly, where I dedicated my Sound Recordings column to a review of this stunning 55-disc box set. Here I’ll simply say that the Archiv Produktion box set is like a treasure chest for those who love the music of the medieval, Renaissance, baroque, classical, and early romantic periods. As one might expect, there is a little bit of overlap with DG’s previous All-Baroque Box, but not enough to undermine this one’s value. It is particularly noteworthy that several of the earliest titles included in the box—among them an account of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos by the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under August Wenzinger from the 1950s—have never before been released on CD. All are packaged in cardboard sleeves that replicate the original LP cover art; detailed liner notes are provided in a thick booklet.

---

CLASSICAL

---

Dobrinka Tabakova
String Paths
Various Performers
ECM New Series
2239

This recording consists of five works for strings by the Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova. The most impressive is the absolutely stunning Concerto for Cello and Strings, a work of alternately powerful and ethereal beauty and tremendous emotional immediacy. The chamber works are also excellent; only the Suite in Old Style disappoints, its “old style” communicated by means of diatonic and rhythmic clichés. Overall, though, this is a very impressive album and a marvelous listening experience.

---

Franz Schubert
Complete Works for Fortepiano Trio (2 discs)
Jan Vermeulen; Christine Busch; France Springuel
Etcetera (dist. Allegro)
KTC 1495
Rick’s Pick

For years now, fortepianist Jen Vermeulen has been working his way through the Schubert canon, and the latest installment is this heart-stoppingly beautiful account of the complete works for fortepiano, violin, and cello. Joined by violinist Christine Busch and cellist France Springuel (also playing on early-19th-century instruments), Vermeulen delivers warm, engaging performances of these four pieces, four of them titled as trios and one as a nocturne. The playing on the scherzo and allegro movements is consistently excellent, but the ensemble really shines on the slow movements, which are burnished to a golden glow of bittersweet emotion. Very highly recommended to all classical collections.

---

Georg Frideric Händel; Alessandro Scarlatti
Dixit Dominus
Choir of the Queen’s College, Oxford; The Brook Street Band / Owen Rees
Avie (dist. Allegro)
AV2274

This is a great pairing: Händel’s and Scarlatti’s settings of the always-popular “Dixit Dominus” psalm text. Both composers were working in Rome around 1707, when Händel’s setting was composed, and although it is unknown for certain whether they met during this period, the similarities between their two approaches are striking. The performances on this recording are superb, and the program includes an early, chamber version of one of Scarlatti’s concerti grossi, inserted as a pleasant interlude between the two choral works.

---

Various Composers
The Phoenix Rising
Stile Antico
Harmonia Mundi
HMU 807572

The title of this album is a little bit puzzling until you read the liner notes, which explain that 2013 marks the centenary of the Carnegie Trust, which funded the 1922 inauguration of the Tudor Church Music Edition—a series of publications that made available for the first time in centuries some of the landmark English choral compositions of the 16th century. It included important works by William Byrd, John Taverner, Thomas Tallis, Orlando Gibbons, and others, many of which have now become the core repertoire for performers of English early music. In celebration of this centenary, the creamy-toned Stile Antico ensemble performs Byrd’s five-voice Mass, Taverner’s O splendor gloriae, and other gems in a generously-packed program.

---

Alexandre Guilmant; Jacques Nicolas Lemmens
L’Harmonium de Lemmens et de Guilmant
Joris Verdin
Gallo (dist. Albany)
1328

The harmonium is also known as a pump organ, and chances are good you’ve come across one in the home of an elderly relative: often ornately crafted of wood and driven by air pumped with the feet, these instruments were very popular in 19th-century Europe and America. The harmonium fell out of favor around the turn of the 20th century, and while recordings like this one (the third volume in an ongoing series) are fascinating at a certain level, they also show why the instrument lost popularity when newer and more compact instruments were invented. The harmonium’s sound is rather thin and insubstantial, more like an accordion than an organ, and the music composed for it tended to be on the lightweight side. This disc is recommended to libraries with a collecting interest in historical keyboards.

---

Caspar Kummer
Chamber Music for Winds
Italian Classical Consort / Luigi Magistrelli
Brilliant Classics (dist. Naxos)
94472

Caspar Kummer is one of those (sadly, many) figures of the early Romantic era who have been effectively forgotten, despite the quality—and, in many cases, quantity—of their output. On this disc we have six world-premiere recordings of his chamber works for various combinations of flute, clarinet, bassoon, and piano, all played on modern instruments by the Italian Classical Consort (led by clarinetist Luigi Magistrelli). Their playing is light and graceful and the pieces themselves are a delight and something of a revelation. Here’s hoping for more to come to light from this unjustly neglected composer.

---

Johann Ladislaus Dussek
Grand Sonata for Flute, Violoncello and Piano
Walter Auer; Albena Danailova; et al.
Camerata
CMCD-28262
Rick’s Pick

Johann Ladislaus Dussek was yet another of those great composers of the classical era who is doomed forever to be lost in the towering shadows of Mozart and Haydn. But excellent recordings of his music continue to emerge, particularly recently, and among the most attractive of them is this program of three chamber works: an E-flat major quartet for violin, viola, cello and piano (op. 56); a quintet for violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano (op. 41); and the title piece. All are played beautifully (on modern instruments) by a mixed ensemble of Japanese and European musicians; this disc is a complete delight in every way.

---

Prospero Cauciello
Trii e Duetti per flauti, mandolini e basso continuo
Tesoro Harmonico
Tactus (dist. Allegro)

I’ll close the Classical section with this charming recording of chamber works for flutes, mandolin, and continuo by the obscure Italian composer Prospero Cauciello. Cauciello himself apparently played all three instruments (two of them well enough to have been a member of the orchestra of the Teatro San Carlo and also designated “First Flutist to the King of Poland”). Although relatively little is known about the man and his life, a good number of his works were published and have been preserved; the eight trios and duets are all presented here in world-premiere recordings, on period instruments. Recommended to all early-music collections.

---

JAZZ

---

Paolo Fresu Debil Quartet
Desertico
Tá/Bonsai (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
OTA 1025
Rick’s Pick

Here’s another one that I just keep listening to over and over again. Trumpeter/composer Paolo Fresu leads a guitar-bass-drums rhythm section in a highly unusual but deeply beautiful set of jazz tunes that draw on everything from Brazilian rhythms to Jon Hassell-esque abstraction, alternately swinging, swaying, and floating. Fresu’s trumpet is sometimes electronically altered and the band’s sound is sometimes free and apparently unstructured, but there is never a moment when the result is less than sumptuously gorgeous. I’m not sure I would have led the program with an arrangement of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” but even that relatively slight tune ends up being a very rewarding listen.

---

Mark Masters Ensemble
Everything You Did
Capri
74123-2

As someone who is generally a big fan of the confines of harmonic structure, I found the liner notes to this collection of jazz arrangements of Steely Dan songs (“the premise of this recording is to free Becker and Fagen’s music from the earthly confines… of harmonic structure”) a bit off-putting. But I cued up the disc anyway, and danged if it didn’t worm its way into my whole afternoon. The fact is that the arrangements are brilliant, as is the playing (contributing musicians include Peter Erskine and Oliver Lake), and the improvisations are interesting and creative without ever getting forbiddingly “out.” Recommended to all jazz collections.

---

Scott Hamilton
Swedish Ballads… And More
Charleston Square
CSR-421-2
Rick’s Pick

An approach similar to the one described above is used on this recording, but with a much different result. Here, tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton collaborated with pianist Jan Lundgreen to create a program of straight-ahead jazz arrangements of traditional Swedish folksongs like “Dear Old Stockholm” and “Min Soldat,” alongside jazz compositions with Swedish roots and associations (Ole Lind’s “Swing in F,” Jan Johansson’s “Bluesioktaver”). Whether you recognize the Scandinavian elements or not, this is an absolutely wonderful album of straight-ahead quartet jazz led by one of the finest living tenor players. A must for jazz collections.

---

Sidney Bechet & Mezz Mezzrow
The King Jazz Records Story (5 discs)
Storyville (dist. Allegro)
108888611

Clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow had an idiosyncratically narrow view of jazz: though he worked at the height of the bebop era, he felt that “real” jazz was blues-based and pre-swing. Hence his submersion in the world of traditional, New Orleans-style jazz, his longstanding collaboration with Sidney Bechet, and his establishment of the King Jazz label, the entire output of which is documented on this five-disc set. Mezzrow himself was not a great clarinetist, but the music preserved here is sometimes priceless and includes vocal blues performances by Joseph Pleasant as well as solo piano recordings and lots of tasty septet work by Mezzrow’s and Bechet’s ensemble. This set may not be an essential purchase for every music library, but it should definitely be considered for serious jazz collections.

---

Jim Black Alasnoaxis
Antiheroes
Winter & Winter (dist. Allegro)
910 202-2

On this strange and rather lovely dreamscape of an album, drummer Jim Black leads a quartet of saxophone, guitar, bass, and drums through a somewhat abstract but consistently engaging set of original compositions. Rarely does the music swing, and when it grooves it does so with a sort of loose softness. Mostly it floats, or rumbles, or cascades, or percolates. The end result is a jazz album that sounds distinctly new and modern but rarely jagged and forbidding. Recommended.

---

COUNTRY/FOLK

---

Quercus
Quercus
ECM
B0018267-02
Rick’s Pick

The temptation, of course, is to see this as a June Tabor album–after all, both saxophonist Iain Ballamy and pianist Huw Warren have been accompanists on her solo work in the past. But start listening and you’ll realize that Quercus really is a trio, not a soloist-with-sidemen. Some of the songs are traditional and quite familiar (“As I Roved Out,” “Lassie Lie Near Me”) but others are new or new-ish, and all (except one instrumental track) treat the three members equally, giving Tabor a space in which to sing and the instrumentalists time to improvise. The result is a dreamy landscape in which flowers bloom, waves crest, and birds call. Even by Tabor’s very high standards, this is a spectacular album.

---

John Kirkpatrick Band
The Complete John Kirkpatrick Band
Fledg’ling (dist. Forced Exposure)
FLED3091
Rick’s Pick

Those who have been aware of accordionist John Kirkpatrick’s many contributions to the world of traditional and semi-traditional English dance music may be surprised (as I was) to learn that the entire recorded output of his celebrated band can fit on two CDs. And one of them is a live album! But that’s good news as well, since it makes it very easy to own everything they recorded: rollicking Morris dance tunes, music-hall-sounding songs, a Sting cover, and some charming oddities—the startlingly rockish “49003/55005,” the whimsical and wry “Welcome to Hell,” etc. A must-own for any library with a collecting interest in British music.

---

Emerald Rae
If Only I Could Fly
Green Jewel Music
No cat. no.
Rick’s Pick

This Kickstarter-funded debut album reveals something highly unusual: a truly unique voice in the singer-songwriter world. Emerald Rae is a championship fiddler, a crwth player (look it up; very cool), and a very accomplished songwriter. She is also a gifted and tasteful producer, knowing when to multitrack her vocals and how to mic her feet for maximum percussive impact, and holy cow can she write a fiddle tune (“Fire Fly” sounds simple but isn’t). This is one of the most exciting debut albums I’ve heard so far this year.

---

Don Rich and the Buckaroos
That Fiddlin’ Man
Omnivore
OVCD-66

Don Rich is best known to country music aficionados as a big part of what made Buck Owens such a powerful exponent of the Bakersfield Sound. A brilliant guitarist and harmony singer, it turns out that Rich was also a gifted fiddler who was an occasionally featured soloist on Owens’ albums and live shows. That Fiddlin’ Man is a compilation of Rich features culled from previous Owens recordings; for this reissue it is doubled in size with the addition of ten bonus tracks. Two kinds of library will be interested in this resurrected curiosity: those with a comprehensive collecting interest in country music (due to Don Rich’s often-overlooked importance to that music’s history), and those with a generalist bent who just want a fun and enjoyable collection of fiddle-led country instrumentals.

---

Della Mae
This World Oft Can Be
Rounder
11661-9135-2

As with so many bluegrass albums these days, this isn’t really a bluegrass album — it’s a modern country album made with bluegrass instrumentation. And there is, by no means, anything wrong with that; a great album is a great album. The five women who make up Della Mae gathered to Boston from a wide variety of musical backgrounds and locations, and together make music that draws on country traditions but is not at all constrained by them. On original fare like “Paper Prince,” a lively but determined-sounding waltz, the group shows its unwillingness to be bound by tradition; when they deliver a straight and heartbroken song like “Ain’t No Ash Will Burn,” they show that they aren’t afraid of tradition either. That’s a fine pair of attributes.

---

ROCK/POP

---

Cas Haley
La Si Dah
Easy Star
ES 1038

This record came as a result of Cas Haley asking himself the following question: “If I died tomorrow, and my kids had only one musical statement through which to know me, what would I want that record to be?” The answer turns out to be much more than a single musical statement: it includes several instrumental tracks, a small handful of reggae numbers, a creditable version of “Got My Mojo Workin'”, and a cover of the Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now?” along with lots of tightly-written, often soul-inflected pop songs. Haley’s voice remains a beautiful wonder: high-pitched and clear as a mountain spring, and his spare, stripped-down arrangements are wonderful.

---

Home Body
In Real Life
Feeding Tube (dist. Forced Exposure)
FTR 102
Rick’s Pick

This one will get marketed as electro-pop, and that’s an easy mistake to make: after all, Eric Hnatow provides (almost) all of the music via a battery of Korg keyboards and Haley Morgan’s voice has the kind of gulpy, chirpy quality that listeners in their mid-40s will recognize from their adolescence in the 1980s. But it’s still a mistake: this music may be accessible and fun, but it’s also dark, quirky, and often structurally weird—the songs’ tunefulness make it easy to miss that last point. Morgan’s voice has a startlingly broad tonal and emotional range; she sounds a bit like a less psychotic Björk. In other words, definitely electro but not exacty pop. Overall, this is a very impressive and slightly unsettling debut.

---

Alison Moyet
the minutes
Cooking Vinyl/Metropolis
876

You remember Alison Moyet — originally half of the duo Yaz with former Depeche Mode mastermind Vince Clarke, then a constantly-charting solo artist in the 1980s. After a six-year layoff, she’s back with a deeply impressive piece of mature songcraft, a collection of songs that acknowledge and even celebrate the challenges of moving firmly into middle age without sacrificing the refined pop sensibility that has been at the center of her sound since day one. Next time you hear someone say that popular music is a young person’s game, don’t respond by calling up a YouTube clip from the latest Rolling Stones farewell tour–play them this album instead.

---

Various Artists
Air Texture, Vol. III (2 discs)
Air Texture
Rick’s Pick

To my mind, what distinguishes high-quality ambient music from New Age music pretty much boils down to two words: density and possibility. Whereas New Age music typically tells you what to feel and what (if anything) to think, really good ambient music both rewards close attention (should you choose to approach it that way) and implies musical possibilities that you haven’t considered. This two-disc set, the third in a series of compilations, provides an excellent example of high-quality ambient music—though it doesn’t bill itself that way. The label describes this as “experimental music,” which is fair enough, though the fact is that all of it is both pleasant and accessible in the manner of the best ambient music. Disc 1 (more techno-inflected) is put together by Deadbeat, disc 2 (more abstract and “classical”) by DJ Olive, and featured artists include Raz Mesinai, Pole, Pauline Oliveiros, and Oren Ambarchi. Very highly recommended.

---

Fat Freddy’s Drop
Blackbird
The Drop/!K7 (dist. Redeye)
DRP019CD

As time goes on, the New Zealand ensemble Fat Freddy’s Drop makes music that gets smoother, heavier, and more soulful every year. On Blackbird you hear the group continuing to digest its multifarious influences into something uniquelt theirs: the vocals are supple and partcularly soully, while the instrumental grooves sway effortless between funk, reggae, and R&B flavors—there are lots of great horn charts, and there’s always this sort of indefinable uniqueness lurking at the edges of the sound that I’m happy to attribute to the band’s New Zealand heritage. Recommended.

---

WORLD/ETHNIC

---

Baudouin de Jaer
Compositions for Geomungo and Gayageum (reissue; 2 discs)
Sub Rosa (dist. Forced Exposure)
SR 373

This two-disc set is a reissue of the 2012 release Gayageum Sanjo with new packaging and a second disc of pieces written for a related instrument, the geomungo. The composer is a Belgian musician who has written these pieces for a Korean instrument; the music represents an fascinating blend of European and Asian inflections, rhythms, and tonalities—while de Jaer clearly knows his way around traditional Korean music, he just as clearly does not consider himself bound by it. This is a highly unusual and very beautiful recording.

---

Yellowman
Young, Gifted & Yellow (3 discs)
17 North Parade/VP
VP5003

As both an orphan and an albino of African descent, Winston Foster faced pretty severe obstacles growing up in Jamaica in the 1960s and 1970s. His fateful decision was to embrace his unusual appearance and embark on a music career, dubbing himself Yellowman and becoming one of the most successful and influential DJs (which we in the U.S. would call “rappers”) of the early dancehall period. He has remained active for more than three decades, and this two-disc retrospective provides an excellent overview of his work. Though Yellowman is well known for his “slack” (i.e. sexually explicit) toasting, there is very little of that in evidence on this collection, which focuses on such classic and radio-friendly fare as “Who Can Make the Dance Ram,” “Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt,” and “Night Flight” (his appropriation of John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane”). The package also includes a DVD of his 1988 performance at the Reggae Sunsplash festival.

---

Van-Anh Vanessa Vo
Three-Mountain Pass
Innova (dist. Naxos)
866

Van-Anh Vanessa Vo is a virtuoso of a Vietnamese instrument called the danTranh, a zither with movable bridges that closely resembles the Japanese koto. Its strings are plucked with the right hand but articulated with the left, which pushes and bends the strings to achieve the instrument’s characteristic sliding and wailing effects. On this album, Vo offers her own arrangements of traditional Vietnamese melodies as well as original compositions, an arrangement of one of Erik Satie’s “Gnossiennes,” and a wonderful collaboration with the Kronos Quartet.

---

Baluji Shrivastav
The Art of the Indian Dilruba
ARC Music (dist. Naxos)
EUCD 2446

Blind from infancy, multi-instrumentalist Baluji Shrivastav has, incredibly, become a virtuoso on no fewer than five classical Indian instruments virtually on his own, with no guru and minimal formal instruction. Here he performs five ragas on the dilruba, a bowed and fretted instrument that looks something like the offspring of a union between a sarangi and a sitar. He is accompanied by various combinations of tabla, tanpura, and swarmandal (an autoharp-like zither). This instrument is less well documented on Western recordings than many others, which makes this album of potentially great interest to world music collections.

---

Dub Addiction
Meets Kampuchea Rockers Uptown
Metal Postcard (dist. Allegro)
MP53
Rick’s Pick

Dub Addiction is (get this) a multi-ethnic reggae-electro collective based in Phnom Pen, Cambodia. And while they don’t incorporate much in the way of recognizably Southeast Asian musical influences into their music, they do toast in a variety of different languages (most of which I’m embarrassed to say I don’t recognize) and build bone-shaking grooves out of raw materials that include roots and dancehall reggae, funk, jungle, metal, and dub. I listen to a lot of reggae-derived weirdness (a lot), and I’ve never heard anything like this. Brilliant.

---

PICK OF THE MONTH

---

Benjamin Broening
Trembling Air
eighth blackbird
Bridge (dist. Albany)
9384

Electro-acoustic music has come a long way since it burst onto the avant-garde scene in the 1960s, a period notable for music that consisted of humans and machines playing next to, but not necessarily “with,” each other: clarinets squeaking and string players tapping and rasping to the accompaniment of analog synthesizers emitting bleeps and bloops and sine waves (sometimes, it must be said, to genuinely thrilling effect). In today’s classical electro-acoustic music, the human-machine interaction is often much more sophisticated, and the results more subtly exciting. The music of Benjamin Broening is a case in point. This disc brings together seven works for varying combinations of acoustic instruments and electronics, some of them relatively spare in texture (such as the eerily lovely “Dark Wood” for cello and electronics) and others more lushly orchestrated. Some are also more emotionally accessible (consider the coruscatingly gorgeous “like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment,” which opens the program) and others more challenging (like the equally beautiful but more abstract and athletic “Trembling air,” for solo flute). This is music that seems to be thinking deeply about something—about things that are troubling but also about topics that are joyful and promising. The playing of eighth blackbird, one of America’s most consistently interesting new-music chamber ensembles, is exceptional throughout. Highly recommended to all library collections.

---

CLASSICAL

---

Various Composers
Exile’s Café
Lara Downes
Steinway & Sons
30016

The concept that unites these 21 brief works is a brilliant one: each was written by a composer who was a more-or-less unwilling emigrant from his homeland but found musical inspiration in his place of exile. Some of the fare is relatively predictable (folk tunes set by Bartók, a section from William Grant Still’s Africa suite, a tango by Stravinsky) but there is also a world-premiere recording of a piano miniature by the young New York composer Mohammed Fairouz and four out of a set of six preludes by the peripatetic Paul Bowles. Lara Downes plays with an exceptional sensitivity to the bittersweet nature of these pieces. Recommended.

---

Various Composers
Codex Tarasconi diminuito
Ensemble I Fedeli
Passacaille (dist. Allegro)
983

Dating from the late 16th century, the Codex Tarasconi consists mostly of madrigals and chansons written in Italian, French, and Latin for between four and seven voices; following what scholars believe was common practice at the time, however, the ensemble I Fedeli plays these works on cornett, dulcian, shawm, sackbut and organ. The pieces are by such A-list composers as Palestrina, De Monte, Willaert, and Lassus, and provide a lovely and interesting window on music at the court of Parma in the late 1500s.

---

Various Composers
Icelandic Violin Duos
Duo Landon
MSR Classics (dist. Albany)
MS 1449
Rick’s Pick

At first blush, an album of violin duos by Icelandic composers may sound like a pretty narrow program of music. But these pieces (all of which represent world-premiere recordings) are strikingly varied in tone and style: some of them dance, some of them keen and wail, some of them soar, and the harmonies are sometimes spiky and astringent and sometimes sweet and close. Duo Landon (violinists Hlíf Sigurjónsdottir and Martin Frewer) play brilliantly and sensitively throughout.

---

Various Composers
Close to Home: Music of American Composers
Michael Rowlett; Stacy Rodgers
Albany
TROY1385

Clarinetist Michael Rowlett has gathered for this disc a stylistically-varied program of pieces for clarinet and piano by American composers: sonatas by Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland, a gently lovely nocturne by Jeanne Singer, a sonatina by Valerie Coleman, and (most interestingly) the whimsical Rrowzer by Eric Mandat — along with Steve Reich’s always-exciting New York Counterpoint for multi-tracked clarinets, one of the most impressive works from that composer’s middle period. Very nice material, and beautifully played.

---

Firminus Caron
Masses & Chansons (3 discs)
The Sound and the Fury
Fra Bernardo (dist. Naxos)
Fb 1207302
Rick’s Pick

This unusual and really quite wonderful package brings together five masses and seven chansons by the 15th-century composer Firminus Caron. Never heard of him? Neither have most people; most of his music was apparently lost or destroyed during the French revolution of 1789. But his popularity can be inferred from the fact that so much of his work was preserved in Italian copies, on which most of these performances are based. The ensemble The Sound and the Fury sings them with a spare intensity that works beautifully. Very highly recommended to all early music collections.

---

Various Composers
An English Fancy
Trio Settecento
Cedille (dist. Naxos)
CDR 90000 135

When you mention the baroque period, most people immediately think of Germany first (thanks to Bach) and Italy second (thanks to Vivaldi) and probably France third (Rameau, Couperin). But even though, stylistically speaking, England absorbed more than it contributed to the music of the period, it nevertheless gave the world top-notch baroque music of its own by the likes of Matthew Locke, William Lawes, and (most of all) Henry Purcell. All of those composers are represented on this delightful selection of suites and airs for violin, viola da gamba, and keyboard. The Trio Settecento (featuring violinist Rachel Barton Pine) has released a series of geographically-themed baroque collections over the past few years, and this is one of the best of them.

---

Various Composers
Minimal Harp (reissue)
Floraleda Sacchi
Decca
476 3172

Despite the album title, few of the composers represented on this album are part of what we would normally consider the Minimalist movement; however, what unites the pieces is a sense of (as Sacchi puts it) the “elimination of all that is unnecessary.” Thus, Lou Harrison’s raga-inflected “Jahla,” John Cage’s semi-aleatory “A Room” and “In a Landscape,” and Henry Cowell’s surprisingly diatonic “The Tides of Manaunaun” rub shoulders with more obvious candidates by the likes of Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt. Several of these are world-premiere recordings for the harp. The program is thoughtfully organized and Sacchi’s playing is a joy, as always.

---

Various Composers
Sound Magic
Female Chamber Choir with the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts – Plovdiv
Gega (dist. Albany)
GD 365

About 20 years ago the world outside of the Balkans suddenly discovered the entrancing sound of Bulgarian folksong as rendered by female choirs—some readers may recall the very popular Mystère des Voix Bulgares series on Nonesuch. This disc is a bit different, though: the music is mostly classical (by both Bulgarian and foreign composers, notably including Béla Bartók and Gabriel Fauré), and the choir’s vocal tone is much more conventionally classical as well; there is orchestral accompaniment on several tracks. The mix of folk and art songs is very winning, and the singing is consistently excellent.

---

JAZZ

---

Doug Sertl
Beautiful Friendship
Doug Sertl Music/Providence
No cat. no.

I love the sound of jazz trombone, and I also love the sound of the organ trio (Hammond B3 organ, guitar, drums). Getting to hear both in tandem is somewhat unusual, and that makes Doug Sertl’s latest album as a leader even more fun that it would normally be. His trombone style is clean and elegant, technically accomplished without being show-offy. And he picked a great program of standards for this album, including “Groovin’ High” (bear in mind how hard it is to play bop at tempo on a slide instrument), “The Nearness of You,” and “I Hear a Rhapsody.” The band plays with a buoyant sense of swing that is a consistent delight. Recommended to all jazz collections.

---

Chip Stephens Trio
Relevancy
Capri
74120-2

What I like about pianist Chip Stephens is the same thing I like about Lennie Tristano (not that they sound that much alike): there’s a sense of rigor about his lines, a constant balance being struck between swinging ebullience and hard-nosed logic. As someone who likes it best when beauty emerges from structure, I’m very drawn to this kind of jazz playing. I love the occasional hints of melodic spikiness that come through in his solos, his exceptional sense of time, and the whole trio’s powerful sense of swing. Any library with an interest in straight-ahead jazz should jump at the chance to add this disc to its collection.

---

George Shearing & Don Thompson
George Shearing at Home
Jazzknight
JKR001

Here’s what always happens: a jazz legend dies, and all of a sudden long-lost recordings turn up, some of them brilliant. These revelations are always bittersweet, but the jazz world is often the richer for them, and this example is a case in point. This recording was made in early 1983 in (as the title indicates) the home of pianist George Shearing; they are quiet and contemplative but nevertheless often powerfully swinging renditions of standards on which Shearing is accompanied only by bassist Don Thompson. Their rapport is strong and Shearing plays with assurance and wit; the sound quality is warm and intimate. This is probably not an essential purchase for every library, but comprehensive jazz collections will certainly want to add it.

---

Bill Frisell
Big Sur
Okeh
88883 71738 2
Rick’s Pick

Bill Frisell’s music stopped having any consistent or fundamental connection to jazz years ago—instead, it has become something much richer, much more personal, and much more broadly connected to American music generally. It has also become much more formally composed: this album is unapologetically programmatic, consisting of quintet pieces (guitar, viola, violin, cello, drums) that evoke the beauty of Northern California’s coastal mountains. They also draw deeply on influences that have informed his work over the past couple of decades: country music, 20th-century American classical music, jazz, rock, blues, and hints of Stephen Foster. In the hands of a lesser talent, the result would be a well-intentioned mess. But Bill Frisell is a genius, and the music is consistently, heart-tuggingly beautiful.

---

Django Festival Allstars
Live at Birdland & More!
Three’s a Crowd
TCR 5001

I’m not sure there’s a jazz musician other than Django Reinhardt who is so fully identified with a single subgenre of jazz, and who continues to inspire so many slavish stylistic acolytes 60 years after his death. That’s not a criticism of guitarist/violinist Dorado Schmidt and his group of Djangoites; thank heaven there are still musicians willing to carry the banner of Gypsy jazz, with its headlong tempos and joyful virtuosity. This live festival recording captures all the joy of that music, and both the playing and the sound quality are excellent.

---

COUNTRY/FOLK

---

Various Artists
Turn Me Loose: Outsiders of Old-Time Music
Tompkins Square
TSQ 2899

If the cover photo of California fiddler Fred Laam apparently playing his instrument in a strange overhand style (it’s possible that he’s tuning up, though if so his technique seems hardly less idiosyncratic) doesn’t convince you that this is an album of outside-the-box old-time music, then the tuba that accompanies the Texas fiddle tune “Wagoner” on the first track certainly will. To be clear: this is not “outsider music” in the sense that we usually mean when we talk about “outsider art.” The early-20th-century recordings gathered here don’t represent music made by particularly marginal segments of society, but rather music that “challenges the stereotypes” of the genre: you’ll hear accordions and pianos and weird vocal effects, and sometimes you’ll wonder what the musicians were thinking and in some cases you’ll wonder why more people didn’t do it that way. Overall, a fascinating and enjoyable document.

---

Fletcher Bright & Bill Evans
Fine Times at Fletcher’s House
Native & Fine
906-10

Subtitled “Fiddle and Banjo Music from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee,” this very fine album documents a living-room recording session between legendary fiddler Fletcher Bright and celebrated banjo picker and scholar Bill Evans. There’s something elementally satisfying about the sound of a fiddle and banjo playing together as an otherwise unaccompanied duo – and when the players are this skilled, this deeply-versed in the repertoire, and this tasteful, the result is even more thrilling. Evans keeps the focus on Bright, taking solos from time to time (his exquisitely tasteful melodic breaks on the “St. Anne’s” set are especially lovely) but mostly letting Bright’s fiddle take the lead. The sound quality is excellent, and the playing is world-class.

---

Bruce Molsky
If It Ain’t Here When I Get Back
Tree Frog Music
TF 1301
Rick’s Pick

There’s just something about Bruce Molsky I can’t quite put my finger on. No, that’s not true — I know what it is. It’s jealousy. Not only is he one of the most emotionally direct and technically gifted fiddlers currently playing, but he’s also a brilliant guitarist, an equally brilliant and multifaceted clawhammer banjo player, and a singer who can break your heart—not because his voice is unusually powerful or sweet, but because it’s perfectly matched to his instrumental skills. He also has an amazing repertoire of old-time fiddle tunes from just about everywhere, classic blues, and other surprises from around the western hemisphere. You’ll hear some of everything on this typically brilliant solo album.

---

Genticorum
Enregistré Live!
Les Productions du Moulin
PDM003
Rick’s Pick

I’ve said it before in this space and I’ll say it again: there is something uniquely engaing about Québecois folk music—the crooked rhythms, the gently heartbreaking sad-sweet melodies, the call-and-response unison singing alternating with sudden efflorescences of rich harmony, the curious intersection of Celtic, French, and North American stylistic elements. I can’t get enough of it, and Genticorum is one of the two or three finest purveyors of this music currently working. This is a very fine live recording that benefits from the added energy of the concert setting; the playing is tight, energetic and joyful. Highly recommended.

---

Sarah Alden
Fists of Violets
Self-released
No cat. no.

From the cover art, you might expect this to be an album of fiddle tunes. But no: although fiddles are involved (and banjos and guitars), there are also drums and brass and piano and some beatboxing and, um, “toys.” There’s a version of “Ida Red” and a Hoagy Carmichael tune and a Jarrell/Cockerham fiddle tune, and Sarah Alden sings in an open-throated style that may make you fall in love with her. This is a highly unusual and thoroughly impressive album that rocks, dances, and swings.

---

ROCK/POP

---

Celer
Viewpoint
Murmur
mmr – 17
Rick’s Pick

I’m about ready to formally declare that the title of Best Ambient Artist of the Decade should go to Will Long, who records under the name Celer. (For the first five years of its existence, Celer was actually a duo that also included Danielle Baquet-Long.) Long’s latest album consists of a single, 78-minute-long track putatively divided into 26 individually-titled “movements” — but the divisions between them are inaudible and undetectable. The music floats like a delicous mist in which simple chords undulate without progressing; once in a while the mood turns weird and foreboding, but then the sun comes out again and everything is peace and light. The great challenge for an ambient-music artist is to make music that is quiet and evocative without tipping over into New Age gloppiness; how Long does this is kind of a mystery, but he surely does.

---

Friedman & Liebezeit
Secret Rhythms 5
Nonplace (dist. Groove Attack)
NON35

One thing I love about Jaki Liebezeit and Burnt Friedman’s Secret Rhythms series is how rhythmically interesting the music manages to be without being in the least bit funky. To some degree the duo achieved this paradoxical non-funkiness by the fairly obvious strategy of structuring everything in highly irregular time signatures (if you can dance in 11/8, then this is the party album for you). The music is clean and spare but colorful, in part thanks to Liebezeit’s highly idiosyncratic approach to drumming (he uses an array of unusual and homemade percussion instruments rather than a conventional drum kit) but also simply thanks to the duo’s deep and carefully-cultivated musicality.

---

Paul Gabriel
What’s the Chance…
Blue Duchess/Shining Stone
SSCD003

The best single word I can think of to characterize this album is “rollicking.” Whether he’s delivering a slow, churning Chicago blues burner or a 1940s-style jump number, guitarist and singer Paul Gabriel invests everything he sings and plays with a joyful but controlled energy. This album was produced by New England blues legend Duke Robillard (whom Gabriel has known for decades and for whom his band has played numerous opening sets), and it includes appearances by the Roomful of Blues horn section and features particularly tasty Hammond organ work by Larry “Buzzy” Fallstrom as well as lots of brilliant guitar work by both Gabriel and Robillard. And best of all, the songs—some of which sound like classic material of 50 years ago—are all originals. Highly recommended.

---

Berserk!
Berserk!
Rare Noise
31

This is a deeply weird and ultimately quite enjoyable album, for those with adventurous ears. It marks the first collaboration between bassist Lorenzo Feliciati and “vocalist-multi-instrumentalist-sonic-provocateur” Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, and its music draws alternatingly (and sometimes simultaneously) on jazz, industrial, rock, techno, and avant-garde influences, switching styles and textures unpredictably and sometimes startlingly. The best thing you can say about the (mostly spoken) vocals is that they’re largely incomprehensible and therefore work mostly as another layer of instrumentation. The overall mood is dark and vaguely threatening, but the sudden moments of fun are worth the wait.

---

Mr. Bird
Bird Bird Bird
Vital Force/Psychonavigation
VF001

Steve Bird (recording as Mr. Bird) is a UK native who moved to Lisbon, Portugal several years ago. From his new perch (get it?) he runs or co-runs several record labels and has made a name for himself as a musical collaborator and remixer; with Bird Bird Bird he offers up a very tasty assortment of funky instrumentals, with a handful of vocals thrown in for fun and one full-on song, featuring vocalist Adria Nicole. This is mostly laid-back, head-nodding instrumental hip hop with plenty of wry samples and pleasant, undemandingly funky beats. Recommended.

---

WORLD/ETHNIC

---

Various Artists
Golden Afrique: The Great Days of Rumba Congolaise and Early Soukous (2 discs)
Network (dist. Naxos)
NW233702
Rick’s Pick

While I was listening to this one at home, my wife turned to me and said “Seriously, what’s the difference between this and mariachi music?” – and she had a good point. Unless you’ve spent a lot of time listening to West African music you could be forgiven for mistaking much of the music in this collection for Cuban rumba or even Norteño music: the harmony singing, the rolling rhythms, the layers of horns all carry flavors that evoke Central and South America as much as Africa. But that’s all part of the fun, and this densely packed and lovingly annotated collection of recordings (covering the years 1956 to 1982) provides an excellent introduction to a rich musical history. Highly recommended to all library collections.

---

Various Artists
Daora: Underground Sounds of Urban Brasil (2 discs)
Mais um Discos (dist. Forced Exposure)
MAIS 016
Rick’s Pick

Here’s the thing: Brazil does some things better than any other country, and the combination of breezily effortless tunefulness and multilayered rhythmic complexity is one of them. Another one is the gleeful appropriation and reinvention of other countries’ apparently proprietary musical traditions—hence the consistent brilliance of Brazilian “Hip Hop, Beats, Afro & Dub” (that’s taken from the package) and the great pleasure provided by this two-disc compilation of the same. You’ll find tracks by artists like Curumin, Abayomy Afrobeat Orquestra, and Metá Metá, and you’ll hear everything from electro-funk to hip hop to fractured samba to uncategorizable mash-ups of all those things. Brilliant.

---

Cornell Campbell Meets Soothsayers
Nothing Can Stop Us
Strut (dist. Redeye)
103
Rick’s Pick

Cornell Campbell
New Scroll
Zion High
ZHP009
Rick’s Pick

Of all the great falsetto singers during roots reggae’s heyday – and there were many, from Johnny Clarke to Junior Murvin to Cedric Mytton – none had the grace and the pure tonal lusciousness of Cornell Campbell. And amazingly, he’s still with us, his voice maybe a tiny bit grainier (the man is 68 years old, after all) but no less sweet and lovely. These two albums both emerged in early 2013: the first is a collaboration with the very fine Soothsayers ensemble and finds Campbell working in both old- and new-school modes, singing over deeply rootsy and somewhat modern, jazzier rhythms. The tunes are all smoky, slow, and richly dense in texture; the whole album is a joy to hear. The same is true of New Scroll, a solo production featuring nine new original compositions with four dub mixes. On this one Campbell stays solidly in roots-and-culture mode, promising to “Weed Out Vampires” and encouraging all to “Seek Jah Love.” This being traditional roots reggae, you of course have the odd moment of misogyny (“Evil Woman”), but fans of the genre will have long ago learned how to use the <skip> button for stuff like that. The rhythms and horn charts are strictly old school, the songs mostly top-notch. And that voice. Man. As long as Cornell Campbell is still around, no one needs to worry about the death of old-school reggae music.

---

Owiny Sigoma Band
Power Punch!
Brownswood
BWOOD096CDP

Power Punch! is a deeply misleading title for this album, which gently pokes more that it punches and burbles more than it bellows. The London/Nairobi Owiny Sigoma Band generates hypnotic, repetitive grooves using a multitextured blend of traditional acoustic instruments and digital beats, creating a fusion of Kenyan nyatiti and Luo music and contemporary electronica. Lyrics are occasionally in English but generally in what I assume to be Swahili; the mood is consistently energetic but laid-back at the same time. Nice stuff.

---

Lord Mouse and the Kalypso Katz
Go Calypsonian
Pranha (dist. !K7)
CD-PIR2752

Like roots reggae music, calypso long ago faded in popularity in its Caribbean home and eventually found a new one in Berlin. That’s where you’ll find the seventeen-member Lord Mouse and the Kalypso Katz playing in bars and dance halls, singing original and vintage calypso songs in both English and, um, Russian (their bass player is a Russian who brought with him a wonderful Soviet-era cartoon song). Their sound is very traditional, but the political and social topics are as up-to-date as modern calypso songs should be. Lord Mouse’s voice is rich and chesty, and his singing style is suitably bold and brash.

---

PICK OF THE MONTH

---

Stefano Scodanibbio
Reinventions
Quartetto Prometeo
ECM New Series
2072

One of the great pleasures of music reviewing comes during the tantalizing moments as you’re cuing up a new recording, and wondering whether this one is going to be a disappointment, an experience of life-changing beauty, or something in between. Usually it’s something in between, but in a disproportionately high number of cases, experiences of life-changing beauty come courtesy of the ECM label. This is one of them. Composer Stefano Scodanibbio has taken three sections from Bach’s Art of Fugue, a suite of Spanish pieces for guitar, and a selection of Mexican melodies (all written by other composers) and arranged them for string quartet—but these aren’t simple transcriptions. Instead, he has truly “reinvented” them in a style that is distinctly his own, one that features droning, open harmonies, unexpected irruptions of pizzicato and sul ponticello bowing, and lots and lots of glistening harmonics. At times the music has a static and floating feel, and then suddenly there will be a burst of quicksilver plucked passages or an unexpected minute of romantic lyricism. By turns restful, eerie, startling, and heart-stoppingly beautiful, this disc is the most emotionally rich and rewarding one I’ve reviewed so far this year, and I recommend it strongly to all library collections.

---

CLASSICAL

---

Adalbert Gyrowetz
3 String Quartets
Pleyel Quartett Köln
CPO (dist. Naxos)
777 770-2
Rick’s Pick

This disc gets a “Rick’s Pick” in part because of the gorgeous playing by the always-reliable Pleyel Quartet, but mostly because it helps to revive the name of one of Bohemia’s most unjustly forgotten geniuses. Gyrowetz had a peripatetic career, settling at various times in Brno, Paris, and London, and he treasured his friendship with Franz Joseph Haydn (despite the fact that he had, several times, to convince the public that his compositions were really his, and not Haydn’s). Gyrowetz’s string quartets are examples of the high-classical Viennese style at its best, and they are beautifully showcased on this disc.

---

Alexander Agricola
Colours in the Dark: The Instrumental Music of Alexander Agricola
Ensemble Leones / Marc Lewon
Christophorus (dist. Qualiton)
CHR 77368

The 15^th-century Belgian composer Alexander Agricola cultivated an air of mystery about himself and his music; although he worked during a period when the rules of polyphonic writing were being firmly settled by his contemporaries Josquin and de la Rue, Agricola’s approach to compositional structure seems open-ended and almost playful. The music on this disc is organized like a recital, combining instrumental pieces with songs for tenor (performed by Fabrice Fitch), and it will be very useful to anyone studying the music of this time and place. The liner notes are detailed and interesting.

---

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; Arnold Schoenberg
Souvenir de Florence; Verklärte Nacht
Emerson String Quartet; Paul Neubauer; Colin Carr
Sony Classical
547060

This disc is being marketed under the title Journeys, but for our purposes here it seemed more useful to indicate the compositions included on the program. In any case, a new recording by the Emersons is always worthy of notice, and this one is particularly unusual: a rare (for this group) Tchaikovsky recording, and their first-ever account of a work by Schoenberg. The pairing is also interesting: the Russian composer’s wildly colorful and dynamic string sextet alongside Schoenberg’s first major composition, the emotionally gripping Verklärte Nacht. The latter is a hallmark work of late Romanticism and something of a swan song for early twentieth-century tonality. The Emersons (and their two guests) play both powerfully and tastefully, as always.

---

Georg Friedrich Händel
Arrangements for Guitar
Robert Gruca
MSR Classics (dist. Albany)
MS 1417

This lovely disc presents three chamber works of Händel—a recorder sonata and the harpsichord suites nos. 8 and 7—arranged for guitar by David Russell and William Kanensinger. Robert Gruca (who contributed the arrangement of one movement from the suite no. 8) plays with a firm but delicate touch, nicely communicating both the rhythmic vitality and the countrapuntal virtuosity of Händel’s writing, as well as the French influences in the suite no. 7. The arrangements themselves will be of particular interest to any library supporting a program in guitar pedagogy.

---

Various Composers
Violin Lullabies
Rachel Barton Pine; Matthew Hagle
Cedille (dist. Naxos)
CDR 90000 139

The program’s theme is straightforward: 25 brief pieces for violin and piano by 25 different composers, each piece quiet and gentle and suitable for lulling a child to sleep. It opens, inevitably, with Brahms’ “Wiegenlied” (the ubiquitous melody popularly known as “Brahms’ Lullaby”), but then heads off into parts less well-known: world-premier recordings of brief lullabies by Vladimir Rebikov and Camillo Sivori, a lovely Scots-flavored piece by Ludwig Schwab, Ravel’s “Lullaby on the name ‘Gabriel Fauré’.” Those familiar with Rachel Barton Pine’s playing will be unsurprised by her sweet, rich tone or by her unfailing sense of idiom. Very, very nice.

---

Johann Sebastian Bach
St. John Passion (2 discs)
Polyphony; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment / Stephen Layton
Hyperion (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
CDA 67901/2
Rick’s Pick

What do you get when you put one of the finest early-music choirs currently working in the studio with one of the best period-instrument orchestras, and give them soloists like tenor Ian Bostridge, bass Neal Davies, and soprano Carolyn Sampson to work with? You get a definitive recording of one of the  towering masterworks of the baroque period and an essential purchase for any classical collection.

---

David Tudor
The Art of David Tudor (1963-1992) (7 discs)
New World (dist. Albany)
80737-2
Rick’s Pick

This seven-disc set documents David Tudor’s evolution as both a composer and a performer over the course of three decades, a period during which he was one of John Cage’s most trusted collaborators (and suffered somewhat from working so long in Cage’s shadow) but also a highly productive composer in his own right. This set should be considered essential for any library with a collecting interest in 20^th-century music; it includes complete recordings of six works that originally had excerpts in Music for Merce (1952-2009) as well as two extended recordings of Rainforest IV (with Composers Inside Electronics) and a performance of Christan Wolff’s For 1, 2 or 3 People.

---

Jean Richafort et al.
Requiem: Tributes to Josquin Desprez
The King’s Singers
Signum Classics (dist. Qualiton)
326

Josquin Desprez was one of the most influential composers of the Renaissance, and his influence continued to be powerful for centuries after his death. One indication of his impact is the documented reaction of other composers upon his death. This program centers on a tribute funeral Mass written by Jean Richafort (who may have been a pupil of Josquin) and also includes settings of the poem Musae Jovis written in Josquin’s honor by Benedictus Appenzeller and Nicolas Gombert, Hieronymus Vinders’ O mors inevitabilis, and several other brief pieces. It ends with Josquin’s own Nymphes, nappés. The King’s Singer give the music spare and solemn performances worthy of the subject matter. Highly recommended.

---

JAZZ

---

Eliane Elias
I Thought About You: A Tribute to Chet Baker
Concord Jazz
CJA-34191-02

Informed listeners will come to this album with certain expectations: first, that in putting together the program as a tribute to the late trumpeter and singer Chet Baker, Eliane Elias will imbue the songs with Baker’s trademark “cool” style (dry, low-key, medium-tempo). Second, that she will be happily unable to keep from also imbuing at least some of them with her own trademark style, which (like her native Brazil) is more hot than cool. Both expectations are borne out, though nothing really catches fire here, nor should it—even when she infuses these quiet standards with some bossa nova flavor (note in particular “Embraceable You”) they retain the dry and restrained tone that was Baker’s hallmark. All in all, it’s a very enjoyable album.

---

Médéric Collignon & le Jus de Bocse
A la recherche du Roi Frippé
Just Looking (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
JLP03

“Oh, good,” I hear you thinking. “Electro-jazz covers of prog rock songs by King Crimson. Oh, with a string section? Awesome. Just what I needed. Not.” But don’t be too hasty. First of all, as prog-rock goes, King Crimson’s music has always been more disciplined and interesting than that of most of the competition; second, the music composed for the group (mostly by its guitarist and sole consistent member, Robert Fripp) is rich and strange enough to yield many different intepretations without losing its integrity. On this album, trumpeter Médéric Collignon leads a bassist, keyboardist, drummer, and string section through a wild and varied selection of pieces from across Crimson’s nearly five-decade history, and the result is often brilliant, occasionally a bit gloppy, and always interesting.

---

Frank Wess
Magic 101
IPO (dist. Allegro)
IPOC1023
Rick’s Pick

Man alive. Frank Wess is 91 years old, and still plays like a 25-year-old—albeit a 25-year-old with the taste and experience of a 91-year-old. Sadly, he plays no flute on this quartet date, but his tenor saxophone is like a bottomless jar from which flows an endless stream of honey. Four standards, a couple of less-famous classics (including Duke Ellington’s “All Too Soon”), and one original make up a program delivered with swing, power, and dignity, and makes for what is clearly going to go down as one of the four or five best jazz albums of 2013.

---

Oscar Pettiford
Lost Tapes: Germany 1958/1959
Jazz Haus (dist. Naxos)
101719
Rick’s Pick

I keep being knocked out by these Jazz Haus reissues—partly because they’re often not even reissues, but instead are new releases of overlooked or previously unknown live and studio recordings originally made in Europe. This one is a perfect example: eleven studio tracks and five live recordings made by bassist and cellist Oscar Pettiford with varying sidemen (mostly Germans) during the two years he spent in Europe before his tragic death in a car accident. Opening with a lovely trumpet-and-bass rendition of “But Not for Me,” the disc presents an almost all-standards program that is often quiet and contemplative and consistently gorgeous. The sounds quality is excellent, the playing exquisite. Highly recommended to all jazz collections.

---

Deborah Latz
Fig Tree
June Moon
JMP 3 0304

OK, I have to confess that I was initially put off by Deborah Latz’s (to my taste) excessively free reinterpretation of “Blue Skies,” with its gentle funk beat and improvisationally reconstituted melody. But she started winning me over on the scat section (especially with its cute little bossa nova flourishes), and by the time I got to her rendition of “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” I was noticing something else: the bell-like clarity of her voice and her impeccably reliable intonation. At which point I decided she can do pretty much whatever she wants with the melody and it will be okay with me.

---

COUNTRY/FOLK

---

Charlie Poole with the Highlanders
Complete Paramount & Brunswick Recordings, 1929
Tompkins Square (dist. Fontana)
TSQ 2875

In 1929, Charlie Poole and his band the North Carolina Ramblers were hugely popular in the South, where they were regularly selling records in the hundreds of thousands. But friction between Poole and his producer at Columbia Records led him to seek other opportunities (using different band names in order to avoid legal problems). In May of that year he went to New York and recorded twelve sides for the Paramount and Brunswick labels, among them a four-part narrative titled “A Trip to New York” that blended spoken-word vignettes with popular and thematically-chosen fiddle tunes. But the most interesting track here is the band’s rendition of “Flop-eared Mule,” on which Poole’s three-finger banjo picking points toward the bluegrass style that would come to maturity in his native state fifteen years later. This is a valuable document, strongly recommended to all academic country collections.

---

Red Tail Ring
The Heart’s Swift Foot
Earth Work
EW8503
Rick’s Pick

Despite the fact that both the band name and the album title seem like they were created by a random-word generator, the latest from this Michigan-based duo is remarkably focused and consistent. Their sound is informed by old-time music (clawhammer banjo, fiddle, guitar) but there is very little substantively old-timey about it: instead, it’s brooding, carefully crafted singer-songwriter fare presented in the modal melodies and astringent open harmonies of old-time music. At times (notice in particular the darkly beautiful “A Clearing in the Wild”) they sound like Richard and Linda Thompson in acoustic mode; at others they explicitly evoke tragic mountain balladry. Their playing is exquisitely tasteful, and their voices blend like oil and vinegar. This is one of the most beautiful albums I’ve heard so far this year.

---

Dailey & Vincent
Brothers of the Highway
Rounder
11661-9141-2

I first encountered Jamie Dailey when he was singing lead for Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, his crystal-clear high tenor voice soaring over the group’s trademark lush harmonies and giving everything the luster of sunshine. Now he works in tandem with bassist Darrin Vincent and a bevy of all-star sidemen (including, on this album, hotshot guitarist Bryan Sutton and fiddler/mandolinist Andy Leftwich), and delivering the kind of high-octane, joyful, virtuosic bluegrass that I never get tired of. The program offers everything it should: a Bill Monroe number, a Louvin Brothers number, some trad-minded modern tunes, and plenty of jaw-droppingly fleet-fingered picking. Excellent.

---

Hot Club of Cowtown
Rendezvous in Rhythm
Gold Strike (dist. Proper)
GS004
Rick’s Pick

Although their name explicitly evokes the Paris band led by Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli in the 1930s, the Hot Club of Cowtown has never delved deeply into the Gypsy-jazz style, instead working mostly in the hot jazz and Western swing genres. On this album they get Gypsy with a vengeance, delivering such Reinhardt classics as “Minor Swing” and “Douce Ambiance” along with American Songbook selections (“I’m in the Mood for Love,” “I’m Confessin'”) and even a Russian folk tune (“Darke Eyes”). As always, the playing is both technically amazing and tasteful, as are the vocals from guitarist Whit Smith and fiddler Elana James. I’m pretty sure I own every Hot Club record made, and after hearing this one you’ll wish you did too.

---

Joy Dunlop
Faileasan
Sradag Music
SRM004

Hailing from Argyll, Scotland, Joy Dunlop is a celebrated singer (Gaelic Singer of the Year in 2010 and 2011) and something of a public face for traditional song in her native country. Faileasan (“reflections”) is a deeply Argyll-centric recording, featuring songs, musicians, and photographs from the area; naturally, it was recorded and produced in Argyll as well. The arrangements are spare, clean, and lovely, as is Dunlop’s voice.

---

ROCK/POP

---

Various Artists
This Ain’t Chicago: The Underground Sound of UK House & Acid 1987-1991 (2 discs)
Strut (dist. Redeye)
085

Compiled by DJ Richard Sen, this two-disc collection offers a nice window into the early days of England’s dance music scene. Nor does “England” mean only London in this context: artists and labels represented here come from as far afield as Manchester and the West Midlands, as well as Essex and (of course) London. What today’s club denizens may find most interesting about this music is how richly textured and melodic it tends to be—the concept of minimal techno and microhouse had yet to emerge, and even when the beats are steady and repetitive there is usually lots of other stuff going on, making most of these tracks almost as much fun for listening as for dancing. If you (or your patrons) have fond memories of artists like Julie Stapleton, Static, and Paul Rutherford, then you’ll want to pick this one up.

---

Irma Thomas
In Between Tears (reissue)
Alive Natural Sound (dist. Redeye)
0145-2

Given that it features one of her bigger hits (“Wish Someone Would Care”) it’s surprising that this Swamp Dogg-produced album, originally released in 1973, hasn’t been reissued before now. It finds the New Orleans soul great at the top of her form, delivering sassy kiss-offs like “She’ll Never Be Your Wife” and “You’re the Dog (I Do the Barking Myself)” with unquestionable authority (sample line: “So you’d better come home and take care of these kids”). As a bonus, this reissue includes both sides of the “We Won’t Be in Your Way Anymore” single, another of her more significant hits. Recommended.

---

Global Noize
Sly Reimagined: the Music of Sly and the Family Stone
Zoho (dist. Allegro)
ZM 201308

This album is a labor of love on the part of producer, composer, and keyboardist Jason Mile, who pulled together an all-star cast of helpers (including turntablist DJ Logic, singers Nona Hendryx and Roberta Flack, guitarist Will Bernard, and many others) to pay tribute to the weird but undeniable genius of Sly Stone and his groundbreaking funk-soul band. The result is a gloriously enjoyable recasting of brilliant songs like “It’s a Family Affair,” “Stand!,” and “Thank You for Talking to Me Africa,” all of them drawing equally on elements of jazz, vintage funk, hip hop, and nu soul. Maybe not essential for every collection, but highly recommended.

---

The Orange Peels
Sun Moon
Mystery Lawn Music/Minty Fresh (dist. Redeye)
MLM010

Pop music gets harder to classify every day, and really, there’s nothing wrong with that. One press release I’ve seen for the latest from this Northern California quartet characterizes their music as being based in “post-rock, indie-pop and nouveau psychedelia,” and if that’s helpful to you, then your antennae are more finely tuned than mine. Here’s what it sounds like to me: splashy, messy, echoey, hook-laden rock music that could have been made in 1968 except for the well-miked drums. And yes, that’s adds up to a compliment.

---

Barn Owl
V
Thrill Jockey (dist. Redeye)
THRILL 321

I’m still an unrepentant fan of ambient music, and the duo of Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras (both of whom play various combinations of guitar and synthesizers) makes the kind of weird, spacey, pretty-yet-kind-of-creepy ambient music that really turns my crank. “Ambient” might not be a characterization they’d actually agree with – others have referred to their music as “doom dub” and “devotional darkness” – but the fact is that this is mood music, though for a rather unsettled mood. Just try it. Your grumpier patrons are sure to be intrigued.

---

WORLD/ETHNIC

---

Bob Marley & the Wailers
Kaya (deluxe reissue, 2 discs)
Tuff Gong/Island
B0018106-02

Bob Marley took some heat when this album came out in 1978: “too bland,” the critics said. “Too bouncy.” Well, you know what? The critics could go jump in a lake. Kaya included classic tracks like “Easy Skanking,” “Satisfy My Soul,” and the unapologetically horticultural title track, and the Wailers have never sounded tighter or heavier than they do here. This two-disc reissue includes both a bonus dub track and a fine (if rather dodgily recorded) live set from Rotterdam during the Kaya tour, so any library that owns the original issue should seriously consider replacing it with this one.

---

Ravi Shankar
Living Room Sessions Part 2
East Meets West Music
EMWM1009

Less than a year before he died in late 2012, the famed sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar made a series of recordings in the living room or his home in Encinitas, California. They are intimate recordings (using the traditional accompaniment of tanpura and tabla) that hardly betray his advanced age—91 at the time. While those who have followed his career closely will probably notice a little bit of slowing, there is still no apparent limit to his musical imagination and he plays with notable grace and invention. The second volume in this series of “living room sessions” finds him playing a set of three ragas, all of them lovely.

---

Jussi Reijonen
Un
Unmusic
UNCD01

Blending jazz with the musical traditions of the Middle East and Africa is a path fraught with peril: step too far to one side and you end up with a mess of Orientalist kitsch; too far to the other and you end up in a quicksand of overearnest multi-culti platitude. But if you hit the balance just right, you can create a fusion that draws on the best of both worlds to create something entirely new. Guitarist and oud player Jussi Reijonen does that here, to some degree, but also takes pleasure in bouncing back and forth, alternating astringent modal passages with jazzier sections—and also creating entirely new sounds, such as the desert-meets-the-Delta bluesiness of his take on John Coltrane’s “Naima.” Fascinating stuff.

---

John Brown’s Body
Kings and Queens
Easy Star
ES-1037
Rick’s Pick

America’s finest reggae band returns with the much-anticipated follow-up to its 2008 release Amplify, and it’s predictably excellent. As has been the case ever since Elliott Martin took over as the group’s frontman, the John Brown’s Body sound is dense, rich, and swirling with color, and the songs are deliriously hooky. Where most American reggae artists bend over backwards to sound like they’re from Jamaica, John Brown’s Body have created a sound all their own, and it’s gorgeous.

---

La Yegros
Viene de Mi
ZZK (dist. Forced Exposure)
017

Regarded in her native region as the First Lady of cumbia, the young Argentinian singer Ya Negros (formerly of De La Guarda) makes her debut with this very fine album, which offers a blend of chamamé sounds from the Argentinian jungles, reggae, cumbia, and subtle elements of techno and electronica. Her voice is reedy and sweet, the music joyful, dark, and bouncy by turns. Recommended to all world music collections.

---

PICK OF THE MONTH

---

Bob Wilber & Glenn Zottola
The Bechet Legacy: Birch Hall Concerts Live (2 discs)
Inner City & Classic Jazz
2700047
Rick’s Pick

The musical legacy of Sidney Bechet can be summed up in one word: joy. Any lover of traditional New Orleans jazz speaks his name with reverence. A contemporary of Louis Armstrong and a pioneer on his instrument (the soprano saxophone, though he started out as a clarinetist), Bechet was both a primally important exponent of traditional jazz and one of the early shapers of Latin jazz. This budget-priced two-disc set documents a tribute concert played in 1981 by saxophonist Bob Wilber and trumpeter Glenn Zottola, leading a sextet that also included pianist Mark Shane and the great drummer Butch Miles. They play a program that includes compositions by Bechet, Armstrong, and Duke Ellington and that conveys the joy of Bechet’s playing with a sense of effortless grace and truly powerful swing. Wilber is especially impressive on both soprano sax and clarinet, but the album shines brightest during the ensemble sections, the band working together as tightly but freely as if they were connected by elastic bands. The recording quality is generally good, but unfortunately the mic placement leaves something to be desired; guitarist Mike Peters plays several very fine chord solos that are nearly inaudible. But even with the minor sonic flaws, this set is a must-own for any jazz collection.

---

CLASSICAL

---

Various Composers
Erasmus Van Rotterdam: Praise of Folly
La Capella Reial de Catalunya; Hesperion XXI / Jordi Savall
Alia Vox (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
9895 A/F

Known as the “Prince of Humanists,” Erasmus of Rotterdam was a forward-thinking Catholic priest and intellectual who preached religious tolerance at a time when it was dangerous to do so, and was also a hugely popular author in 16th-century Europe. This loving and beautiful (if slightly unwieldy) tribute to Erasmus’ writing and thought consists of a thick hardback book into which are inserted six CDs containing both vocal and instrumental music from the period, along with readings from Erasmus’ various publications. There is actually only three discs’ worth of audio content here: the first three discs alternate music and readings, while the second set of three contains the music without the readings. (I couldn’t find anything in the accompanying materials to confirm or debunk this impression, but I get the impression that the music is all compiled from earlier Savall recordings.) There are extensive notes about Erasmus and his work, and the texts of all the readings are provided in seven languages. For some libraries this set may be too much of a good thing, but there’s no questioning the quality of the content.

---

Peter Fribbins
The Moving Finger Writes
Various Performers
Guild (dist. Albany)
GMCD 7381

This disc presents a nice variety of small- and large-scale works by the British composer Peter Fribbins: a string quartet (performed admirably by the Chilingirian Quartet), a Haydn homage for solo piano, a piano concerto, and a set of two fantasias for viola and piano. Fribbins is a modernist, but one unafraid of expressive immediacy, and the piano concerto in particular owes much to the Romantics. But my favorite piece is the pair of fantasias, one of them based on a Welsh folk tune and the other on a song from Hungary: their stark and astringent melodies and understated intensity are particularly attractive. The performances are all excellent.

---

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach; Ludwig Van Beethoven
[Works for Piano]
Cameron Watson
MSR Classics (dist. Albany)
MS 1409
Rick’s Pick

With this album, pianist Cameron Watson has put together a recital program that makes an argument. The argument is that “a subliminal affinity is present in the line from [C.P.E.] Bach through Haydn and then to Beethoven.” If I were more of a musicologist I would probably perceive that line more clearly; instead, what I hear is transitional music by Bach juxtaposed with fully romantic sonatas by Beethoven. It’s a gorgeous program (and brilliantly played) regardless of the musicological argument, and thus equally recommendable as an attractive addition to any piano collection and a potentially strong support to academic programs.

---

Mabrianus de Orto; Josquin Desprez
Musique à la Chapelle Sixtine autour de 1490
Cut Circle / Jesse Rodin
Musique en Wallonie (dist. Allegro)
MEW 1265-1266
Rick’s Pick

Though universally considered one of the most towering figures in Renaissance music, Josquin Desprez is also one of the most mysterious, a composer about whose life little is known and many of whose works are attributed to him only tentatively. One thing we know for certain: he both sang and composed as a member of the Sistine Chapel choir in the late 1400s, and did so alongside several other composers whose work is virtually unknown today. These included Gaspar van Weerbeke, Bertrandus Vaqueras, and Mabrianus de Orto. This ravishing two-disc set brings together world-premiere recordings of Masses and other liturgical pieces by these contemporaries along with several undisputed Josquin works (including the L’homme armé and Fortuna desperata Masses) in a beautiful, jewel-case-sized hardbound book. The performances by Cut Circle are excellent. Highly recommended to all early music collections.

---

Robert Carl
From Japan
Various Performers
New World (dist. Albany)
80732-2

The title of this collection of electro-acoustic chamber music says it all. Though Robert Carl is not himself from Japan, Japanese aesthetic principles (including the suspension of time, a concern for the perfection of individual sounds, and the expressive use of silence) deeply inform all of these pieces, most of which are written for combinations of fixed electronic media and wind instruments (including the shakuhachi, an end-blown bamboo flute). I found all of the works both involving and enjoyable, with the slight exception of the rather aimless-sounding “Brown Velvet” for bassoon and live electronics. Recommended overall.

---

Various Composers
Neapolitan Flute Concertos II
Carlo Ipata; Auser Musici
Hyperion (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
CDA 67884

“Volume 2”? How did I miss volume 1? Obviously I wasn’t paying close enough attention (it came out three years ago), and now I kind of regret it, because this program of late baroque and early classical flute concertos from 18th-century Naples, all played exquisitely on period instruments by flutist Carlo Ipata and the Auser Musici ensemble, is a complete delight. The five works presented here are by five different composers, all of them fairly obscure: David Perez, Antonio Palella, Carlo Cecere, Francesco Papa, and the very obscure Geraso (whose full name remains unknown). This is a very fine recording and one that should be acquired by all library collections with an interest in flute repertoire, early music, or both.

---

Francisco Guerrero
Requiem (reissue)
Orchestra of the Renaissance / Richard Cheetham; Michael Noone
Glossa Cabinet (dist. Qualiton)
GCD C81402
Rick’s Pick

Here’s my problem with Mozart’s Requiem Mass: too bombastic. Yes, it’s a work of genius, but it seems to me that a Requiem ought to be less about the composer’s genius and more about the issue at hand: death and the prospect of eternal life. So I gravitate more towards funeral masses by the likes of De La Rue and Ockeghem – and, most assuredly, Francisco Guerrero, one of the greatest composers of Spain’s Golden Age. This brilliant recording, originally issued about 13 years ago, imagines how the music might have been presented in 1599 at the composer’s own death, with interstitial plainchant and shawm-and-sackbut accompaniment. The all-male choir has a hushed but tonally rich sound, and the recording is a triumph all around. If you didn’t pick up the original release, snap up this reissue.

---

Mozart/Hummel
7 Piano Concertos; Symphony no. 40 (reissue; 4 discs)
Fumiko Shiraga; Henrik Wiese; Peter Clemente; Tibor Bényi
BIS (dist. Qualiton)
BIS-9043

In the early 19th century, it was common practice for a composer to pay homage to another by rearranging his music, usually from large-scale to chamber settings. Hence this tribute by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (a piano virtuoso and accomplished composer in his own right), who published a set of Mozart piano concertos arranged for piano, flute, violin, and cello. These arrangements have been somewhat controversial, and for that reason alone would deserve a place in an academic collection—but they are also beautifully performed here (on modern instruments) and for this reissue the original releases have been conveniently boxed and attractively priced. The program also includes a quartet arrangement of one of Mozart’s “Great G Minor” Symphony. Recommended.

---

Johann Gottlieb Janitsch
Berliner Quartette (reissue)
Il Gardellino
Accent (dist. Qualiton)
ACC 24262
Rick’s Pick

Johann Gottlieb Janitsch was a double bass player in the Berlin court of King Friedrich II, who was himself a musician and composer and a legendary patron of the arts. The quartets on this recording were written for a weekly musical gathering intended to give the court musicians a chance to play music that pushed them a bit beyond the very conservative tastes of the king, and those who listen carefully will hear innovative and unusual scoring and forward-thinking melodic elements at play beneath the refined and decorous North German, high-baroque veneer. The period-instrument performances are excellent. Highly recommended to all classical collections.

---

JAZZ

---

Virginia Mayhew Quartet
Mary Lou Williams: The Next 100 Years
Renma Recordings
6402CD

Tenor saxophonist and composer Virginia Mayhew put together this loving and tonally sharp-edged tribute in celebration of the 100th birthday of Mary Lou Williams, a great (and underappreciated) jazz pianist and composer. Leading a quartet of guitar, bass, and drums, she surveys a compact but stylistically wide-ranging selection of Williams compositions, including an entry from the Zodiac Suite, a couple of waltzes, and the languorously swinging “What’s Your Story, Morning Glory?”. At the end of the program are two Mayhew originals dedicated to Williams, one of which is a blues-based romp in 5/4. Not everything succeeds perfectly—”Medi I” goes nowhere slowly—but most of the tunes are excellent and Mayhew’s rich, robust tone is a pleasure throughout.

---

Noah Preminger
Haymaker
Palmetto
21632
Rick’s Pick

I keep listening to this album and trying to identify what it is that makes it so compelling to me. This struggle is particularly frustrating because I’m supposed to be a music critic; identifying what it is that makes music appealing to me is my job. Nevertheless, there’s something special about the album that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s not Preminger’s saxophone technique, though he’s an impressive player; it’s not the arrangements, though they’re very nice. I think it’s his compositional style: he writes charts that have a deceptively loose sound but, upon close listening, are clearly very structured. It’s also guitarist Ben Monder, who sounds like some kind of glorious cross between Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny. But mostly, I think, it’s the tunes: hard-driving at times, ethereally floating at others, they are always grounded in melody and, even at their most discursive, are never self-indulgent. Highly recommended to all jazz collections.

---

Florian Weber
Biosphere
Enja (dist. Allegro)
9586
Rick’s Pick

Complexity is a vexed property in jazz. When it’s wielded for the purpose of showing off, it tends to do nothing for the listener. Sometimes its purpose is to keep the sidemen from getting bored—and that doesn’t tend to yield very listenable results either. But when it arises organically from a composer’s unusual mind, and when it’s wielded with good humor and in an attitude of tuneful generosity, the results can be stunning, and that’s exactly what pianist Florian Weber achieves on Biosphere. One tune is written in 7/8, another in 27/16; sometimes the melodies are jagged and abstract, sometimes the structural and rhythmic elements from from West Africa. And sometimes the tunes were originally written by Coldplay, or Eric Clapton, or Jamiroquai(!). What it all adds up to is a jazz album unlike any you’ve ever heard, one that is simultaneously challenging, exhilarating, and effortlessly enjoyable.

---

Natalie Cressman & Secret Garden
Unfolding
Cressman Music
5637932174

The very young trombonist, singer, and composer Natalie Cressman has delivered a jaw-droppingly mature and beautiful debut album with Unfolding, one that draws on her wide-ranging experience in such bands as the New York Hieroglyphics Ensemble (Peter Apfelbaum guests here), John Calloway’s Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble, and former Phish frontman Trey Anastasio’s backing band. She’s a very fine trombonist but an even better singer, and as a composer she displays a remarkable assurance and skill. She has all the hallmarks of someone who will only get better with time, which is pretty impressive when you consider how much time she has in front of her.

---

Jeff Berlin
Low Standards
Random Act
1011
Rick’s Pick

OK, make no mistake about it: this is a bass players’ album. Jeff Berlin is a world-renowned bass player, one to whom even Jaco Pastorius looked up (Pastorius is said to have considered Berlin a better soloist than he was), and who has played everything from straight-ahead jazz to fusion, prog rock, and country. On this album he is accompanied by bassist/pianist Richard Drexler (who regularly switches instruments in mid-track) and drummer Mike Clark on a set of jazz standards by the likes of Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, and Benny Golson. Those who aren’t particularly tuned in to the low end may be taken aback by the sound of a lead bass being supported by a bass-bass, but those who are able to get past the timbral strangeness of this album will be rewarded with one of the most exciting and tasteful jazz albums of the year. Highly recommended.

---

COUNTRY/FOLK

---

Merle Haggard
Complete ’60s Capitol Singles
Omnivore
OVCD-57
Rick’s Pick

Here’s another priceless collection from the Omnivore label, one that should draw the particular attention of libraries with a collecting interest in country music. It includes the 28 singles that Merle Haggard recorded for the Capitol label during the 1960s, which means that it includes both stone classics like “Swinging Doors,” “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down, and “I Threw Away the Rose,” and relatively slight songs like “Shade Tree Fix-it Man” and the slightly icky “The Girl Turned Ripe.” During this period Haggard’s sound was still deeply rooted in Bakersfield. Later he would hire hot-shot jazz guitarists and come to be associated with the Outlaw Country movement, but here he is a straight-up honky tonk hero with a sweet, crooning delivery and a meat-and-potatoes style. Brilliant and essential.

---

Dustbowl Revival
Carry Me Home
Secret Handshake
8101332

I have to confess to a certain amount of ambivalence about this one. On the one hand, I would never begrudge anyone the deep and abundant pleasures available to those who discover rural American music for the first time. On the other hand, it really does make me uncomfortable to hear white urban hipsters singing lines like “Who dat callin’?” and “I gots to go and meet my Maker” — there’s no question about this group’s good intentions, but the line between musical celebration and apparent racial parody gets frighteningly thin at such moments. Elsewhere, the band channels the Squirrel Nut Zippers on some country-jazz numbers and dabbles in jugband-bluegrass fusion (“Soldier’s Joy,” “New River Train”). There’s lots of fun and interesting experimentation going on here and lots of just plain fun—but also a few moments of squirm-inducing kitsch.

---

Rebecca Frazier
When We Fall
Compass (dist. Naxos)
4603
Rick’s Pick

The question “What is bluegrass music?” has become virtually impossible to answer anymore. For practical purposes, the answer now seems to be “Any music played with bluegrass instruments.” But it’s kind of a dumb question anyway, because really, who cares? What matters is whether music is good or not, and Rebecca Frazier’s particular version of bluegrass—chordally complex without being really jazzy, virtuosic without being headlong, soulfully tuneful without being soully—is very, very good. She writes great songs, she sings them beautifully, she plays lead guitar like Tony Rice (well, okay, not quite like Tony Rice, but she’s definitely a hot picker), and she leads her band skillfully. Notably, she has created an album that lovers of newgrass and acidgrass alike should be able to agree on—it really is brilliant.

---

Molly Venter & Eben Pariser
Goodnight Moonshine
Self-released
No cat. no.

Its name and the typographical decoration on the cover are a winking parody of the children’s book Goodnight Moon, and occasional hints of that wry humor peek out over the course of this bluesy, soul-inflected, countryish album that could probably be more accurately characterized as rootsy Americana pop. Even there, though, the category fits uneasily: “Gasoline” sounds like a song Richard & Linda Thompson would have written if they’d been funkier; “End of the World Blues” is a straight-up 12-bar blues shuffle; “Weeping Willow” can only be described as bluegrass-rock. The playing is consistently great, but Molly Venter’s smoky voice is what matters here. Very nice.

---

Steve Martin & Edie Brickell
Love Has Come for You
Rounder
6191502
Rick’s Pick

Steve Martin is an excellent and multifaceted banjo player known primarily for being a world-class talent in other creative areas; Edie Brickell is a singer and songwriter forever doomed to be underrated because her one big hit song was about not wanting to get too deep. Put them together and you get something quietly spectacular: modern songer-songwriter fare accompanied tastefully by bluegrass and old-timey instrumental arrangements (and the occasional grungy electric guitar or swell of orchestral strings) that draw deeply on tradition without being ruled by it. This is hooky, open-hearted, and unassumingly virtuosic music that will leave you wishing the album was much longer than its 37 minutes.

---

ROCK/POP

---

Various Artists
Change the Beat: The Celluloid Records Story 1979-1987 (2 discs)
Strut/Celluloid
STRUT102
Rick’ Pick

It’s possible that I’m extra-susceptible to the charms of this set because so much of the music it collects was originally released at a pivotal time in my young life, and the tracks by Massacre, Material, Deadline, and Timezone evoke fond memories. But it’s hard to imagine anyone with a taste for old-school hip hop (D.St, Futura 2000, the Last Poets), worldbeat (Manu Dibango, Touré Kunda) and weirdo avant-Euro-pop (Ferdinand, Sapho) being able to resist the strange and multifarious charms of this collection. Does it sound dated? Absolutely. Is it glorious? Yes, and it should be considered a must-own for any library documenting the history of pop music and hip hop.

---

Various Artists
Lord of the Mics IV
Lord of the Mics (dist. Forced Exposure)
LOTM 004CD

Hip hop wasted no time in migrating to the UK after it appeared in the US, but I would argue that the UK never produced a truly unique local variant on hip hop until the emergence of grime in East London about a decade ago. Typified by slow, off-kilter beats (which helped give birth to dubstep), with double-time rapping laid over the top, grime creates a delicious rhythmic tension that has been driving them crazy in the clubs for years now. This compilation is the latest in an ongoing series from the Lord of the Mics label, and features such stars of the current grime scene as P Money, Sox, and the brilliant Wiley.

---

Various Artists
Grime 2.0 (2 discs)
Big Dada (dist. Redeye)
CD-DADA-226
Rick’s Pick

Now, if you prefer your grime instrumental (which means a lot less cursing, but also a lot less charming Cockney speed-rap), then consider this brilliant two-disc compilation from the Big Dada label, home of the legendary Roots Manuva. Where Lord of the Mics IV is more oriented towards the gritty and stripped-down, this collection tends towards bigger and flashier sounds, and while human voices do appear regularly they are almost always used as samples, for rhythmic purposes. This is giant-robot-with-a-broken-leg music, some of it reductively repetitive, some of it startlingly complex, and all of it pretty awesome, in a deeply weird sort of way.

---

The Fabulous Thunderbirds
On the Verge
Severn (dist. City Hall)
0058

Let’s just get this out of the way up front: yes, it remains sad that the T-Birds lost original guitarist Jimmie Vaughan. But as long as the group is fronted by Kim Wilson, and as long as it continues to deliver tight, greasy, Texas-flavored blues and soul grooves as powerful as these, it will still be the Fabulous Thunderbirds. On the Verge, the band’s first formally-released album in eight years, is more soul than blues, harking back frequently to the sounds of Memphis and Muscle Shoals (notice in particular “Lovin’ Time,” a song that Dan Penn might have been proud to write) and avoiding guitar heroics in favor of an integrated ensemble sound that provides a perfect setting for Wilson’s plainspoken but soulful vocals. Great stuff.

---

Method of Defiance
Nahariama 4th Column
M.O.D. Technologies (dist. Redeye)
MOD0010

No one can put together a freak-out avant-soul-funk supergroup like Bill Laswell, the bassist and producer whose list of musical IOUs reads like a Who’s-Who of the experimental funk cosmos. His second album fronting Method of Defiance finds him woking with a somewhat different cast of characters: cornetist Graham Haynes, keyboardists Robert Burger and Bernie Worrell, percussionist (and longtime Laswell collaborator) Aiyb Deng, turntablist/producer DJ Krush, and others. Truth be told, this outfit isn’t nearly as avant-garde as many of Laswell’s other projects have been. Intergalactic funk, dub reggae, electric jazz, and uncategorizable beat-based craziness all fly in and out of the mix, but the music is never unapproachable or inscrutable. For longtime Laswell fans like me, this is thrilling—and I think newcomers will love it too.

---

Marsen Jules
Nostalgia
Oktaf
OKTAF04

Billed as “music inspired by Harold Budd,” these pieces of ambient music do indeed channel the sometimes dolorous, sometimes contemplatively joyful spirit of Budd’s best work. But whereas Budd’s sound almost always focused on the piano (sometimes with electronic adornments, and sometimes not), Jules’ compositions are all electronic. What make them sound Budd-ish are the relatively static harmonic movement and a particular style of chord voicing. At times I find the keyboard sounds to have a slightly cheesy, Casiotone edge to them (notice in particular “A Moment of Grace”), and the title track relies on a melodic idea that comes distractingly close to quoting George Gershwin’s “Summertime.” But overall, this is a very enjoyable album.

---

A Fragile Tomorrow
Be Nice Be Careful
Piewillie
No cat. no.

This Charleston, SC-based power pop band may not be a national name yet, but if they keep touring behind the likes of Matthew Sweet and the Bangles that will probably change. (On the other hand, does anyone under the age of 35 listen to Matthew Sweet or the Bangles these days? Never mind.) For their fourth album they went into the studio under the supervision of production heroes Mitch Easter and Ted Comerford, and if you listen carefully you’ll hear guest vocals by the likes of Don Dixon and Susan Cowsill in there as well. The songs are what you’d expect, and what they should be: tightly tuneful with gorgeous harmonies and wistful, sometimes biting lyrics, and lots of beautiful, cascading guitars. Recommended to all popular music collections.

---

Celer
Without Retrospect, the Morning
Glacial Movements
15

For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, I’ve been fascinated with ambient music ever since I first encountered Brian Eno in the early 1980s. But there’s “ambient” and there’s “seriously ambient,” and the output of the aptly-named Glacial Movements label typifies the latter: chords that float into view from a great distance, change shape like clouds for a few minutes, then recede again. In the case of Celer (a.k.a. Will Long), the clouds are particularly lovely and sometimes denser than they seem at first—but this is music for very specific tastes. Like mine.

---

Clockwork
B.O.A.T.S. (Based on a True Story)
Life and Death (dist. Forced Exposure)
LAD 009

By turns glitchy, funky, house-y, and soulful, the full-length debut album from Italian techno duo Clockwork is impressive on many levels. As with most of the best techno music, Clockwork’s tunes hide complex and multilayered elements of texture beneath a thin veneer of simplicity: listen to the microscopic elements dancing quietly beneath Chasing Kurt’s vocals on “Running Searching,” or the way that a subtle two-step-derived groove emerges from the bleeps and sneezy synthesized hi-hat sounds on “Prisms.” The album is full of that kind of thing, and nicely rewards both casual and careful listening. Though I’m not sure it’s that great for dancing.

---

WORLD/ETHNIC

---

Cesaria Evora
Mãe Carinhosa
Lusafrica (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
662502
Rick’s Pick

Cape Verde has given rise to a significant number of great singers, but perhaps none as beloved as the great Cesaria Evora, who died just a couple of years ago and is still mourned by lovers of Afro-Latin song. Mãe Carinhosa is a posthumous collection of tracks she recorded with her longtime producer and collaborator José da Silva, but which have never been released before. Here you will hear hints of fado (notice in particular the quietly intense “Dor di Sodade”) and a coladera or two (“Tchon da França”), but mostly variations on the morna style for which she was famous. This is melancholy and deeply affecting music, and Evora’s voice is a dark-hued wonder. Highly recommended.

---

Various Artists
Sound ‘n’ Pressure Story
Reggae Archive
RARC004CD
Rick’s Pick

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a young reggae fan named Anthony Cummins got together with several musician friends and wrote a steppers anthem called “Warn the Nation.” It was so well received that he ended up forming the Sound ‘n’ Pressure label and releasing it as a 12″ single (with versions), eventually following it up with several more similarly-configured releases, all of them featuring a warm digital roots sound and a strictly conscious lyrical focus. The label didn’t last long, and all of its output is now available on this one CD compilation from the wonderful Reggae Archives label. A must for all reggae collections and all lovers of modern roots and dub.

---

David Starfire
Ascend
Six Degrees
1132692

How many albums can you think of that feature both Natacha Atlas and Afrika Bambaataa? Not many, right? And those are only two of the guest stars on the latest release from electro-Asian producer/composer David Starfire. Also featured are DJ Cheb I Sabbah, rappers iCatching and Juakali, and the late sitarist Rik Sharaj, among many others. You’ll hear elements of bhangra, reggae, and hip hop scattered throughout the album, but the overall style can perhaps best be described as internationalist bass music: lots of squidgy synth lines, stagger-step beats, and juddering bass. Very nice.

---

Romain Virgo
The System
VP
1936

Hardcore reggae fans may feel that Romain Virgo’s second album opens unpromisingly, with the conscious but decidedly non-reggae, acoustic-based title track. But it shows off his considerable strengths as a singer and songwriter, all of which he then puts to use in a much more traditional reggae setting on the remainder of the album, which should solidify his status as the most exciting non-dancehall reggae artist to come out of Jamaica in nearly a decade. Great songs, great voice, solid (but maybe slightly slick) rhythms—very, very nice.

---

TOP PICK OF THE MONTH

---

Monoswezi
The Village
Riverboat (dist. World Music Network)
TUGCD1063

Does the prospect of “a collection of rearranged Zimbabwean traditional songs blended with a cool Nordic edge” sound less than promising to you? Well, don’t be scared: this is one of the most beautiful albums you’re likely to hear this year. This Afro-Norwegian ensemble is led by the golden-voiced Hope Masike, who also plays mbira, and it includes saxophone, double bass, and various kinds of percussion. The grooves are supple and gentle, the melodies soaring and glorious. A must-have for all world music collections.

---

CLASSICAL

---

Antonin Dvorák
Cypresses; String Quartet no. 13, op. 106
Cypress String Quartet
Avie (dist. Allegro)
AV2275
Rick’s Pick

This disc gets a Rick’s Pick for the first work on the program, the cycle of twelve brief pieces from which this excellent young ensemble took its name. Cypresses is an expression of romantic longing, whereas the String Quartet no. 13 is Dvorák’s expression of joy at returning home to his native Czechoslovakia after several years in the U.S. The quartet’s playing is exemplary throughout, but Cypresses is a piece to which I find myself returning over and over again, and the interpretation here is especially impressive.

---

John Adams
Fellow Traveler: The Complete String Quartet Works of John Adams
Attacca Quartet
Azica
ACD-71280

Although most famous for his operas, John Adams has written some marvelous chamber music as well, three examples of which are performed here with admirable energy and flair by the Attacca Quartet. In addition to his spiky and demanding String Quartet of 2008, the group also perform the more whimsical John’s Book of Alleged Dances and, more importantly, a world premier of Fellow Traveler, a brief piece written in tribute to Adams’ collaborator Peter Sellars—a work which has not only never before been recorded, but which is as yet unpublished. Recommended.

---

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Missa Ad coenam Agni
Brabant Ensemble / Stephen Rice
Hyperion (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
CDA 67978
Rick’s Pick

Even a giant like Palestrina is going to have some unexplored corners in his output, and that’s where Stephen Rice and his brilliant Brabant Ensemble found this gem of a program: both the marvelous Missa Ad coenam Agni and a selection of antiphons, motets, and Easter offertories. With this album, I am now prepared to say that no one—not the Westminster Cathedral Choir, and not even the mighty Tallis Scholars—are performing Palestrina with more heart-stopping loveliness than the Brabants are. Very highly recommended to all classical collections.

---

Ludwig Van Beethoven
Piano Concertos nos. 1 & 3
Leif Ove Andsnes; Mahler Chamber Orchestra
Sony Classical
88725420582
Rick’s Pick

Right now, I’m not sure there is anyone playing Beethoven better than the brilliant Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, and he has recently undertaken what he is calling the “Beethoven Journey”: a plan to play mostly Beethoven during the next four performance seasons and to record the five piano concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (Andsnes himself conducting from the keyboard). This disc is the first installment in that series of recordings, which is ascheduled to be completed in fall of 2014, and it’s a very auspicious start. Andsnes has a delicacy of touch that nevertheless fully communicates the fire and passion of Beethoven’s compositional voice, and the orchestra supports him beautifully. This series is already shaping up to be a must-own.

---

William Lawes
The Harp Consorts (reissue)
Maxine Eilander; Les Voix Humaines
ATMA Classique (dist. Naxos)
ACD2 2372

The combination of harp and viola da gamba is an unusually winning one, and this recording of consort pieces by the great 17th-century English composer William Lawes is very attractive indeed. Interestingly, the consort sets are organized by key on the program, and all are written for a “mixed consort”of harp, viol, theorbed lute, and violin; the disc also includes a duet for harp and guitar. All are played beautifully.

---

Krzysztof Penderecki; Witold Lutoslawski
String Quartets
Royal String Quartet
Hyperion (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
CDA 67943

Penderecki’s first two string quartets are both “important” and impressive, both as catalogues of extended string technique (circa the 1960s) and as examples of the “sonorist” school of composition. His third, written in 2008, is something else entirely: more than twice as long as either of its predecessors, it also draws on the language of Romanticism as much as on mid-century modernism. And then there’s the Lutoslawski quartet. It dates from the mid-1960s as well, but to my ear it displays all of the agita of the Penderecki pieces without the sense of underlying rigor. Your mileage may vary, of course, and the Royals play beautifully.

---

Salomone Rossi
Jewish Polyphony at the Gonzaga Court (reissue)
Ensemble Daedalus / Roberto Festa
Glossa Cabinet (dist. Qualiton)
GCD C80006
Rick’s Pick

The Glossa label continues its excellent reissue series with the very welcome return to market of this wonderful recording of vocal and instrumental works by the Jewish composer Salomone Rossi, a figure who stood simultaneously at two important intersections: those of Jewish and Christian culture and the Renaissance and baroque styles. On this disc, recordings of his polyphonic Italian madrigals, liturgical Hebrew chants, and instrumental sinfonias and dance pieces are interspersed with complementary works by John Wilbye and Maurizio Cazzati. The recorded sound and the performances are splendid, and this album is a must-have for any early music collection.

---

Various Composers
Hochzeit zwischen Rhein & Themse (reissue)
I Ciarlatani
Christophorus (dist. Qualiton)
CHR 77371

The 1613 marriage of Count Palatine Friedrich V and the English princess Elizabeth Stuart was apparently rather anomalous in that it was something of a love match (though the romantic aspect was, predictably, puffed up considerably in subsequent celebratory literature). Though the nuptials were postponed when young Prince Henry fell ill and died partway through the festivities (a song of mourning for Henry is included on this program), once it took place it left behind some lovely music written for the occasion by German and English composers both renowned (Robert Johnson, John Dowland) and less so (Christian Engelman, John Coperario). The music is beautifully recorded and performed here, and this disc (originally issued in 1998) is strongly recommended to specialist collections.

---

Francis Poulenc
Complete Chamber Works (2 discs, reissue)
London Conchord Ensemble
Champs Hill (dist. Naxos)
CHRCD028

Consisting of recordings made between 2002 and 2011 and originally issued as a compilation in 2011, this two-disc set does a wonderful job of communicating Poulenc’s unique musical voice. He wrote with a spirit of humor but without irony, and his pieces often carried with them a sense of sweet-natured mischief. There are numerous sonatas for solo instrument with piano, as well as a splendid sextet for winds and piano, several duets for wind and brass instruments, and even a solo piece for guitar. At a few points I would have preferred a more intimate recorded sound, but the playing is wonderful.

---

JAZZ

---

Ron Carter
The Golden Striker Trio at San Sebastian (CD + DVD)
In and Out (dist. Allegro)
IOR CD 77103-9
Rick’s Pick

This is a generally very quiet and contemplative album by an unusually-configured supergroup led by bassist Ron Carter. Guitarist Russell Malone and pianist Mulgrew Miller, both legends in their own right, round out the trio, and the program consists of standards, Carter originals, and the composition for which the trio is named, a modern jazz classic by John Lewis. The playing is mature and insightful and always stunning, and the package includes a DVD with footage from the concert and a 20-track audio sampler from the In & Out label. Very highly recommended

---

Gilad Hekselman
This Just In
Jazz Village (dist. Harmonia Mundi)
JV 570013

Regular readers of CDHL will know by now that my tastes in jazz do not tend to run to the impressionistic, the abstract, and the self-expressive. They lean much more in the direction of the tight, the structured, and the swinging. But guitarist Gilad Hekselman’s latest album—a trio date that adds tenor saxophone on several tracks—works just fine as far as I’m concerned. It’s exploratory and discursive, filled with burbling melodic lines and with drum parts that feel more like punctuation and commentary than groove. But somehow it al hangs together very nicely and never feels self-indulgent. Recommended.

---

Ehud Asherie
Lower East Side
Posi-Tone
PR8103

Joined by tenor saxophonist Harry Allen (who is himself one of the top players of straight-ahead jazz and swing currently working), pianist Ehud Asherie romps his way through a wonderful set of American Songbook standards, referring back to stride, bop, and swing traditions and making you hear familiar fare like “S’posin’,” “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” and “Thou Swell” with new ears. Allen’s and Asherie’s back-and-forth is playful but respectful and both of them brim with fresh new ideas at all times. Recommended to all jazz collections.

---

Alexander String Quartet; Joan Enric Lluna
Gershwin & Kern
Foghorn Classics (dist. Allegro)
CD2008
Rick’s Pick

String quartet arrangements of jazz standards are nothing new—and sometimes they’re not even anything special. This album is, though. The first four tracks consist of selections from Porgy & Bess arranged for string quartet plus clarinet, and they’re excellent. But even better are Jerome Kern’s own arrangements (scored for string quartet by his assistant Charles Miller) of six of his most popular songs, including a devastatingly lovely setting of “The Way You Look Tonight.” The program ends with Gershwin’s “Lullaby for String Quartet.” Everything is played beautifully, with a very nice balance between romantic yearning and jazzy swing. Highly recommended.

---

North America Jazz Alliance
The Montreal Sessions
Challenge
CR73354

This is a smooth and enjoyable standards album by an unusual combo led by vibes, accordion, and guitar. John Labelle provides soft (and, to my ear, rather derivative) vocals on several tracks, but what makes the album uniquely compelling is the interplay between Kenny Kotwitz’s accordion and Steve Hobbs’ vibes; on tracks like “Just One of Those Things” and the gently but powerfully swinging “Delilah” they bounce off each other with a sweet and understated virtuosity. The whole album is tons of fun.

---

COUNTRY/FOLK

---

Chris Leigh & the Broken Hearts
Broken Hearted Friends
Blue River
(no cat. no.)

If you’re wondering what’s up with independent country music in 2013, then give Chris Leigh’s debut album a listen. Its ten original songs are informed by the usual influences (romantic disaster, drinking, the importance of Willie Nelson, etc.), but they ramble across multiple country-music subgenres: George Jones-style barroom honky-tonk, Western swing, rockabilly. Leigh’s voice is rich and chesty, and his songs are full of great hooks and charming little references (the ghost of the Jordanaires hovers over several tunes). Very nice.

---

George Jones
The Complete United Artists Solo Singles
Omnivore
OVCD-55
Rick’s Pick

Don Rich
Sings George Jones
Omnivore
OVCD-50
Rick’s Pick

This pair of albums shines a fascinating light on two of the greatest geniuses in country music history. At his peak, George Jones was one of the most gifted singers in the history of American popular music, and despite the occasional embarrassing novelty tune and the odd clunker, this 32-track selection of his singles is chock-full of hair-raising examples of his genius: “She Thinks I Still Care,” “Sometimes You Just Can’t Win,” the gospel weeper “He Made Me Free,” etc. There are lots of George Jones greatest-hits collections out there, but this is one is unusually fine and would make an excellent introduction for any library collection. Don Rich was a different kind of genius: as guitarist and backup singer for Buck Owens, he quietly and self-effacing helped to shape what would become the Bakersfield Sound, and he had an uncanny ability to shape his voice to fit Owens’, resulting in some truly brilliant recordings during the 1960s. This recently-discovered solo album, which languished in the vaults for decades for reasons no one seems to know, shows him to be a less brilliant lead vocalist than backup singer, but is still plenty good—and it’s very interesting to compare his vocal approach on these tunes to that of Jones himself. As a piece of country-music history, the album is priceless.

---

ROCK/POP

---

Andy Stott
Luxury Problems
Modern Love (dist. Forced Exposure)
LOVE 079CD
Rick’s Pick

Producer Andy Stott made a major splash with this album late last year, so you may already have patrons requesting it. Several of its dreamy, mysterious tracks feature sampled vocals from Alison Skidmore, Stott’s former piano teacher. All of them are beautiful in a funky way and funky in a sort of abstract way, and at times they’re unsettling and at other times weirdly uplifting. It’s quite rare to encounter an album of electronic music with this kind of emotional and—dare one say—intellectual depth. Highly recommended to all pop music collections.

---

Dead Leaf Echo
Thought & Language
Neon Sigh
NC008CD
Rick’s Pick

This trio has been active in New York for some years now, touring heavily and producing singles, remixes, and videos (plus one EP) since 2006. Their debut full-length album was produced by John Fryer (of Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil fame), and the sound is exactly what you’d expect: dreamy, lush, deeply pretty but also fairly weird, with vocals that are generally submerged in the mix—imagine Bryan Ferry backed by Robin Guthrie. It’s really quite wonderful, and anyone who loved the great shoegaze bands of the 1980s will enjoy this one a lot.

---

King Django
Anywhere I Roam
Stubborn
STU-0028
Rick’s Pick

I usually put reggae and reggae-related releases in the World/Ethnic section, but the latest from King Django (the man who pretty much serves as the center of gravity for New York City’s surviving ska scene) is all over the place stylistically while remaining consistently informed by the unique flavors of the NYC scene: on this excellent disc you’ll hear ska, rock steady, and vintage-style reggae in both roots and dancehall styles, along with a slightly hilarious Police cover and instrumental contributions from the likes of Regatta 69, the Scrucialists, and even the mighty Soul Syndicate. Django’s sense of humor and skanking energy are a source of delight throughout. Highly recommended.

---

Robyn Hitchcock
Love from London
Yep Roc (dist. Redeye)
YEP 2315

Just in time for his 60th birthday (“Rock and roll is an old man’s game now, so I’m staying in it,” he says) comes the latest album from Robyn Hitchcock, doyenne of weirdo post-pop. As usual, the hooks are iffy and the lyrics are off-center at best—but also as usual, there’s something captivating about his particular weirdness, and something grabby about these songs. And his voice sounds exactly the same as it did when he was singing for the Soft Boys in the 1970s. Expect demand.

---

Dao De Noize
Kalam
Psychonavigation
PSY060

The artist who calls himself Dao De Noize got his start in 2011, experimenting with guitar noise and droney ambient music. With Kalam, he starts moving in another direction, taking panethnic percussion sounds, samples of the Muslim call to prayer, and other elements, and layering them into hypnotic, highly repetitive sound sculptures that evoke the work of Muslimgauze. It may take a couple of listens for the music to work itself into a happy place in your brain, but give it a shot—it’s worth the effort.

---

Modeselektor/Moderat
50 Weapons of Choice #02-09
50 Weapons (dist. Forced Exposure)
50 001CD

If you like your techno dark, grumpy, and instrumental (as I confess I do), then check out this weird but very cool collection of four tracks by Modeselektor and Moderat. Modeselektor’s “Untitled” and “Art & Cash” are given two and three remixes respectively by the likes of Roska and Phon.o, while Moderat’s “A New Error” and “Rusty Nails” get remixed by Shackleton, Headhunter, and T++. This compilation was originally released in a very limited and numbered edition, in case that matters to you, but what really count are the deep, grumbling grooves. The sun comes out briefly near the end for the relatively lighthearted SBTRKT remix of “Art & Cash” and Housemeister’s take on “Untitled,” but otherwise this is pretty straight-faced stuff.

---

WORLD/ETHNIC

---

Kobo Town
Jumbie in the Jukebox
Stonetree/Cumbancha
CMB-CD-25
Rick’s Pick

Have you ever wondered what calypso music would sound like today if it had survived, more or less stylistically intact, from its glory days in the 1940s and ’50s? Here’s your answer: the lilting melodies and clever wordplay would be much the same, as would the primarily acoustic instrumentation, but the mix would include hints of hip hop and dubwise reggae and maybe even the faintest suggestion of electropop. Trinidad native Drew Gonsalvez moved to Toronto as a young teenager, but his calypso roots are deep and he writes sharp-eyed, hook-filled songs about all kinds of timely topics, just like his forebears did. Brilliant.

---

Lúnasa
With the RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Lúnasa Records
LCD 002

There’s danger in putting a traditional Irish band in front of an orchestra: the danger is that the orchestra’s size and relative lack of nimbleness will undermine the lightness and agility that are so essential to making this music in a compelling way. Lúnasa and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra get around this danger mostly by keeping the orchestra out of the way and using it to paint chordal backgrounds, giving the music added depth and color without weighing it down. This approach is especially effective on the slow airs; on the uptempo numbers the orchestra feels, frankly, more or less vestigial—but it never gets in the way, and fans of this excellent Celtic group will find much to enjoy here.

---

The Battle of Santiago
Followed by Thousands
MWPC
(no cat. no.)

Though their sound is heavily influenced by Latin American music styles, The Battle of Santiago is actually a Toronto-based band, three-fifths of whom are Anglo. Not that the bandmembers’ ethnicity matters, but it’s kind of an interesting factoid when you take into consideration how broad the sonic palette is here: elements of dub, reggae, son, salsa, ambient, techno—it’s almost as if African Head Charge had made an album in Cuba. But not really. Explaining is kind of pointless, so just listen.

---

TOP PICK OF THE MONTH

---

Paul Motian
On Broadway, Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (reissue, 5 discs)
Winter & Winter (dist. Allegro)
910 200-2

Over a period of ten years, from 1999 to 2009, drummer Paul Motian led a small combo in a series of recordings covering standards from the American Songbook. On the first three installments of what would turn out to be a five-volume series, the core supporting cast included saxophonist Joe Lovano, guitarist Bill Frisell, and bassist Charlie Haden, augmented (on Volume 3) by saxophonist Lee Konitz. The fourth and fifth volumes saw the personnel change entirely: by 2005 Motian was leading a trio that included Chris Potter on saxophone and Larry Grenadier on bass, and for the fourth On Broadway album he added singer Rebecca Martin and pianist Masabumi Kikuchi. Kikuchi joined him again for the fifth and final volume in the series, but by this point his bass player was Thomas Morgan and the group included two saxophonists: Loren Stillman and Michaël Atlas. What all of this means is that the five volumes feel more like two: the Frisell/Lovano/Haden period followed by the Other Period. Each is wonderful in its own way, but what they have in common is Motian’s completely unique ability to simultaneously celebrate and deconstruct the standard repertoire. These songs are the sacred canon of jazz; they are the foundation of the house of American popular music. That said, Motian treats them with love, but not reverence: the arrangements sometimes break the songs down into component parts, regularly lapse into group improvisation, and occasionally threaten to float away into abstraction. But at their most adventurous they never lose sight of the songs’ essence or threaten to devolve into self-indulgent honking and noodling.

Highlights are so numerous that they can hardly be called highlights and include the heartbreakingly tender interplay between Lovano and Frisell on “I Wish I Knew” and the light but utterly irrepressible swing of the sax-and-drums duet on “The Way You Look Tonight.” (The only downside to these recordings is Kikuchi’s truly obnoxious habit of whining and growling audibly, à la Keith Jarrett, while he plays.) No one else could do a project like this the way Motian did, and Motian never had more skillful or sensitive collaborators than he did on this series of recordings. These five discs constitute one of the best accounts of this repertoire ever made, and it ranks with Ella Fitzgerald’s Songbooks series as a national musical treasure. The Winter & Winter label is to be richly commended for bringing them all back to market in its uniquely elegant style.

---

CLASSICAL

---

Martin Luther
Zu Gottes Her und Deinem Trost
Ensemble Devotio Moderna / Ulrike Volkhardt
Cantate (dist. Qualiton)
C 58047
Rick’s Pick

Subtitled “Luther Hymns and Contrafacts from Northern German Sources,” this disc features sacred songs recently discovered in sources from Lower Saxony and Western Pomerania. Although my German is rusty at best and the English liner notes are nearly incoherent, it appears that these consist mostly of previously-existing hymns rewritten by Martin Luther (and other Lutheran composers) to accommodate Protestant doctrine. They are presented here for the most part monodically, with single voices (nicely varied in gender and range) accompanied by medieval instruments. Familiar melodies emerge (most notably “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott”), but with slightly startling syncopations and variations. The playing and singing are excellent, and this disc is a must-own for all early music collections.

---

Various Composers
Musici da Camera: Music from 18th-century Prague (2 discs)
Collegium Marianum / Jana Semerádová
Supraphon (dist. Qualiton)
SU 4112-2

Although not as celebrated at the musical centers of Vienna, London, and Paris, Prague was also a hotbed of musical activity during the baroque period, and the city nurtured the careers of composers both local and foreign. This two-disc set features chamber works by composers as famous as Vivaldi and Fasch and as obscure as Frantisek Jiránek and Johann Georg Orschler. The Collegium Marianum ensemble (playing on period instruments) is excellent, and the program is consistently enjoyable. A must for all comprehensive baroque collections.

---

Robyn Schulkowsky
Armadillo
New World (dist. Albany)
80739-2

Robyn Schulkowsky’s Armadillo is a long, multipart composition for two drummers and one percussionist. Its structure is unusual: it consists of four movements, the first of which is 42 minutes in length, the other three between five and six minutes. All are built out of interlocking patterns that vary widely in density of texture: at some points the sound is thick and heavily repetitive, while at others it’s spare and almost pointillistic. However, at no point is the piece’s structure inaudible; while improvisation is part of the composition, the listener never gets the feeling that the players are simply making things up as they go along. For the recording, Schulkowsky is joined by veteran avant-garde drummers Fredy Studer and Joey Baron.

---

Ludwig Van Beethoven
Triple Concerto, op. 56; Trio, op. 1, no. 1
Claremont Trio; San Francisco Ballet Orchestra / Martin West
Bridge (dist. Albany)
9395
Rick’s Pick

This is a thoroughly delightful recording of two of Beethoven’s most beloved works, the Triple Concerto and the E-flat major Trio for violin, cello, and piano. The orchestral work is played with warmth and vigor, and the chamber piece absolutely sparkles, the coruscating lines in the Presto section delivered by pianist Andrea Lam with an almost laughing virtuosity. This is the first recording I’ve encountered by the Claremont Trio, and I’m very impressed; the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra is excellent as well.

---

Gregorio Allegri
Masses; Miserere; Motets
Choir of King’s College London / David Trendell
Delphian (dist. Allegro)
DCD34103

OK, here’s my shameful confession: you know that glorious passage in the middle of Allegri’s famous Miserere, the one where the sopranos soar up to a high C? I’ve never liked it. It’s always seemed overdramatic and gimmicky to me, forcing me to stop and acknowledge the sopranos’ skill rather than letting me focus on the work itself. For that reason I’ve generally steered clear of Allegri’s other works, but this disc has convinced me of the error of my ways. Alongside the inevitable Miserere, it includes world-premiere recordings of two parody Masses (“In Lectulo Meo” and “Christus Resurgens”), and the motets on which each was based. The singing is lovely, the recording quality excellent.

---

Franz Krommer
Flötenquartette (reissue)
Peter-Lukas Graf; Carmina Trio
Claves (dist. Albany)
50-8708

This is a very fine modern-instrument account of three flute quartets by the underrated Czech composer Franz Krommer, who came to Vienna in 1795 at the height of the craze for “mixed” chamber music, particularly quartets written for winds and strings combined. Of the three pieces presented here, two were originally written for flute and string trio and one began as an unmixed string quartet. This recording was originally issued in 1987; the playing is very good, though my personal preference is for the woodier sound of a period flute. Recommended.

---

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Magic Flute; Divertimento no. 3; Le Nozze di Figaro; etc.
Heinz-Peter Linshalm; Petra Stump; Reinhold Brunner; Milan Turkovic
Gramola (dist. Allegro)
98941

It may be too soon and too much of an exaggeration to say that we’re entering a new golden age of the basset horn (the clarinet’s slightly larger older brother), but there does seem to be an increasing number of recordings for the instrument and a growing population of players. For those who (like me) love the basset horn’s uniquely warm and glowing tone, this is great news, and this very lovely disc is one of the fruits of that welcome development. It consists of arrangements for basset horn trio of two opera medleys, the F major Adagio, and Divertimento no. 3. Playing and recording quality are both top-notch, and Mozart’s achingly sweet melodies are a perfect match for the featured instrument’s tonal properties.

---

Ludwig Senfl
All Ding ein Weil: Songs & Instrumental Music
Tore Tom Denys; La Caccia
Musica Ficta (dist. Allegro & Albany)
MF8015

Ludwig Senfl was a pupil of Heinrich Isaac, and thus well-versed in the techniques of polyphonic composition. But the bulk of his output consisted of German lieder, some of which were bespoke songs composed for special occasions. The accompaniments demonstrate Senfl’s mastery of polyphonic technique, as do his instrumental pieces. This very fine album offers a nice assortment of both, all of them masterfully performed by tenor Tore Tom Denys and the broken consort La Caccia.

---

JAZZ

---

Food
Mercurial Balm
ECM
2269

This one gets the award for Best ECM Album Title Ever. “Mercurial”? Yes: the music is unsettled, varying, at times even grumpy. You’ll hear glitchy beats that promise to settle into a groove but don’t, and gently chaotic-sounding improvisations that suddenly blossom into gorgeously structured composed passages. “Balm”? Yes: the prevailing mood is meditative, encouraging, softly beautiful. Led by percussionist Thomas Strønen and saxophonist Iain Ballamy, Food is an ensemble that always errs on the side of spareness and whose members value quality of texture over exhibitionist virtuosity. The result doesn’t sound much like jazz—which, when you think about it, may be something of an indictment of the state of modern jazz.

---

Miles Davis Quintet
Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 2 (3 CDs + 1 DVD)
Columbia/Legacy
88725418532
Rick’s Pick

The first volume in this series featured Miles Davis’s “second great quintet” (with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams). This one showcases his third, which retained Shorter but replaced the rhythm section with an equally high-powered (and arguably more subtle) one: pianist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette. As before, the audio discs are based on locally-recorded board mixes and therefore sound quite good; the DVD documents a 46-minute set recorded at the Berlin Philharmonie. Like the first volume, this one should be considered an essential purchase for all comprehensive jazz collections.

---

Bennett Paster
Relentless Pursuit of the Beautiful
(self-released)
(no cat. no.)
Rick’s Pick

Here’s another aptly-titled jazz album. Pianist and composer Bennet Paster leads a septet (including the excellent tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm) on an all-original program of what can really only be called “modern jazz,” but without either the self-conscious avant-gardism or the novelty-for-novelty’s-sake that too often characterizes projects falling into that category. Tightly-written horn charts, expansive but logical chord changes, and a constant focus on listenability characterize virtually everything on this album—yet none of it sounds easy or pandering either. Highly recommended.

---

Chris Hopkins & Bernd Lhotzky
Partners in Crime
Echoes of Swing Productions
EOSP 4510 2

Germany-based pianist Chris Hopkins has been leading a revival of classic swing and stride piano styles for some time now, and his latest release is a charming duo set with fellow paleojazz aficionado Bernd Lhotzky. As is often the case with Hopkins projects, the music offers a charming combination of the traditional and the quirky: check out the 5/4 jazz arrangement of Beethoven’s “Für Elise,” for example. There is one original composition, but the album focuses on classics and obscurities by the likes of James P. Johnson, Duke Ellington, and Fud Livingston. Like all Hopkins releases, this one would make a fine addition to any jazz collection.

---

Sean Nowell
The Kung-Fu Masters
Posi-Tone
PR8106

When jazz tries to get rockish, the result is too often an embarrassing cross between oversimplifed jazz and awkwardly non-idiomatic rock. But when jazz tries to get funky, the results are often much better. Case in point: this adventurous but tight septet date led by saxophonist Sean Nowell, who writes and arranges with a great sense of voicing and structure but who can also take things out in exhilarating style when called upon to do so. The compositions are all Nowell originals except for a version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Crosstown Traffic,” and not only are they funky, but they also often rock hard–believe it or not.

---

Scott Hamilton
Remembering Billie
Blue Duchess
BDCD003
Rick’s Pick

Tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton (a mainstay of the excellent swing-revivalist label Arbors Jazz) here offers a wonderful tribute to Billie Holiday, performing familiar tunes that she made famous and vice versa: “Them There Eyes,” “Good Morning Heartache,” “God Bless the Child,” etc. Leading a standard quartet (with the addition of guitarist Duke Robillard on two tracks), Hamilton plays these pieces in a style that explicitly invokes Holiday’s pre-WWII recordings, a period during which her style was more carefree and swinging, even as it was informed by deeper emotions. Hamilton doesn’t attempt to mimic Holiday’s phrasing or vocal tone, but pays loving tribute to her by imbuing these standards with the same level of personal investment and emotion that she did. The result is a moving and deeply enjoyable album.

---

COUNTRY/FOLK

---

Pharis & Jason Romero
Long Gone out West Blues
Lula
1303
Rick’s Pick

Clawhammer banjo players like me speak Jason Romero’s name with reverence—not so much because he’s a fine player (though he is, in spades) but because he builds some of the most gorgeous instruments on earth. Most normal people aren’t banjo nerds, however, and will find themselves praising Jason and his wife Pharis for their vocal blend, their taste in old songs, and their ability to write new ones that sound just as good as the best of their traditional selections. The Romeros are not po-faced academic folkies: their songs draw happily on old-time, bluegrass, and country traditions without worrying much about boundaries, and so much the better. If you’re after high-quality homespun singing and songwriting, look no further.

---

Buck Owens
Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics
Omnivore
OVCD-52
Rick’s Pick

I’ve never completely forgiven Buck Owens for his involvement with the TV show Hee Haw, a program which I believe did tremendous damage to the credibility of country and folk music in the 1970s. Buck Owens was a genuine musical genius, but thanks to Hee Haw the world now mostly knows him as a joke. (Admittedly, without Hee Haw most of the world might never have known him at all.) But one of the happy consequences of that involvement is the recent discovery of these recordings he made for broadcast, but which have never before been released. As its title suggests, the program consists of classic country songs (“Hey, Good Lookin’,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” “Oklahoma Hills,” etc.), on all of which he is backed by his exceptional band the Buckaroos. Owens gives each song the unique Bakersfield flavor that was his trademark, and the album is absolutely wonderful. An essential pick for any country music collection.

---

Junior Sisk & Rambler’s Choice
The Story of the Day That I Died
Rebel
REB-CD-1851

Here’s another helping of smooth, hard-edged traditional bluegrass from the band that won the International Bluegrass Music Association’s “Album of the Year” award in 2012. Sisk and his crew are skilled and fluent pickers and they have good taste in bluegrass songs both old and new, but what really catches your ear is the creamy blend of their harmony singing. Mandolinist and tenor vocalist Chris Davis is a recent addition to the group, and a very welcome one. Recommended.

---

Wanda Jackson
Best of the Classic Capitol Singles
Omnivore
OVCD-56
Rick’s Pick

Her name is still spoken with reverence by rock’n’rollers around the world and across genres—the Queen of Rockabilly, Wanda Jackson. If you’d like to know why she remains an icon, check out this generous collection of singles (A and B sides) recorded between 1956 and 1962. You’ll hear her veer unexpectedly from crooning barroom weepers to throat-shredding rockabilly rave-ups and from novelty numbers like “Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad” to romantic ballads like “(Every Time They Play) Our Song.” If your library has a collecting interest in the history of American popular music, then it simply has to include this disc.

---

ROCK/POP

---

Javelin
Hi Beams
Luaka Bop (dist. Redeye)
82

Javelin’s music has been described as “pastiche pop,” and that’s not a bad descriptor at all: picture a colorful torn-paper collage with scraps taken from the past forty years of popular music (Smokey Robinson, Survivor, glitch funk, Jonathan Richman, Human League), and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect. Three years after their quirkily charming debut album comes Hi Beams, which finds the band’s sound maturing somewhat but sacrificing none of the candy-coated weirdness that made the debut such a blast. This is music that might easily sound precious if it weren’t so relentlessly hooky and good-natured; instrumentals and vocal tracks are equally irresistible. Recommended.

---

Eddie C
Country City Country
Endless Flight (dist. Forced Exposure)
EF 009CD

Instrumental hip hop is, to be honest, one of my favorite musical subgenres: all the funkiness, all the cool samples and juxtapositions, none of the rancid sexism or macho chest-pounding. Eddie C has an unusually personal style, one that draws on vintage soul, jazz, house, and Latin influences with subtle inflections of dub thrown in from time to time. On Country City Country you’ll hear cute Casiotone beats, disco handclaps, Balearic grooves, and all kinds of other stuff, all of it suffused in a warm analog ambience and dredged in a greasy batter-fried coating of funk.

---

DJ Sun
One Hundred
(self-released)
(no cat. no.)

The first full-length album from this globe-trotting DJ and producer reflects both his mixed cultural heritage (Netherlands, Suriname, Texas) and his long experience on the decks both in clubs and on radio stations. Technically I guess you could call this music instrumental hip hop, but although there are plenty of funky breaks and samples, that designation doesn’t seem to quite fit. It’s more like swinging funky international sunny-day-at-the-beach music, and I don’t know what bin it should go in. On the other hand, who cares?

---

Alice Russell
To Dust
Tru Thoughts
TRUCD270
Rick’s Pick

Soul and R&B revivalism is all the rage these days, and for someone with a vintage-sounding voice like Alice Russell’s, it would be all too easy to relax into a career of mere commercial reverence—raking in the bucks singing old Aretha Franklin and Ann Peebles songs and maybe writing a few period-piece originals. But Russell isn’t satisfied with that approach. On To Dust she retains her uniquely classic vocal style, but puts it to use on songs that draw equally on vintage soul, gospel, electronica, rock, and even bluebeat. This is deeply great stuff.

---

Mouse on Mars
WOW
Monkeytown (dist. Forced Exposure)
030

For those who like their electronic dance music weird, glitchy, and occasionally graced by Argentinian girl-punk and by shouted declamations in an imaginary language, there is Mouse on Mars. Each track on this album has a nonsensical three-letter title (“VAX,” “WOC,” etc.), and each offers a different take on electro; sometimes the lurching beats make an explicit nod to dubstep, sometimes you’ll hear hints of footwork, vintage P-Funk, and even orchestral classicism. Mouse on Mars’ music isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely for some of us.

---

Nosaj Thing
Home
Innovative Leisure (dist. Redeye)
IL2010TT
Rick’s Pick

Jason Chung is that rarest of things: a DJ/producer with a truly unique and personal sound. It’s not that his music is free of influences—on the contrary, it’s filled with touchstones to both the past (booming 808s, skittering jungle percussion) and the present (lurching dubstep beats, nouveau-ambient textures). But he blends these elements in unique ways and harnesses them to an almost startlingly laid-back style, one that manages to be equally funky and restful. Sleepy vocal contributions from a couple of guest artists complete the picture of a man whose musical vision seems dedicated to making heads nod—either in response to the beat or in narcoleptic reaction to the warmth and gentleness of his grooves, or both. Brilliant.

---

WORLD/ETHNIC

---

Dur-Dur Band
Volume 5
Awesome Tapes from Africa
55602
Rick’s Pick

When I played this CD at home, my wife asked if the band was from Cambodia. My teenage son came in the room and guessed India. But in fact, the Dur-Dur Band were from Somalia. Their sound drew on local musical traditions like kabebey, dhaanto, and niiko, but also on Western rock and the flossy electropop sounds of the mid-1980s, when this album was originally released. Let’s make no bones about this: the sound quality is terrible. But once you get used to it, the lo-fi ambience becomes part of the music’s charm, though it remains secondary to the attraction of its bubbling grooves and soaringly pretty vocal melodies. This one will really grow on you, trust me.

---

Sheila Chandra
Weaving My Ancestors’ Voices (reissue)
Real World
CDRWG24
Rick’s Pick

Originally issued 20 years ago, this solo album by Anglo-Indian vocalist Sheila Chandra is timeless in its appeal. This is partly because it draws on ancient material, and partly because it does so in ways that bear no allegiance to musical fashion—you are no more likely to hear an English folksong delivered in ghat style or a Spanish lullaby sung over a drone with North African vocal ornamentation today than you were in 1992. Chandra’s voice is sometimes unaccompanied, sometimes backed by a drone instrument, and always sumptuously beautiful. The album unfolds slowly, like a strange and lovely dream.

---

Marcia Griffiths
Marcia Griffiths and Friends (2 discs)
VP
VPPHCD1834

Marcia Griffiths is one of the grandes dames of reggae music, a former member of the I-Threes (Bob Marley’s backup singers), a former partner to the underrated Bob Andy, and a solo artist with a long and distinguished career. On her latest album she teams up with colleagues from all over the spectrum of reggae styles for a two-disc, 38-track set of duets. DJs like Lieutenant Stitchie, Cutty Ranks, and Buju Banton make appearances, as do such A-list singers as Sanchez, Freddie McGregor, and Richie Stephens (not to mention the late Gregory Isaacs, indicating that at least some of these recordings were made some time ago). Highlight: a ska version of Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” featuring DJ Assassin.

---

Bongos Ikwue & Double X
Wulu Wulu
Bik
BIKCD001
Rick’s Pick

Forty years ago, Bongos Ikwue was one of the most popular singers in Nigeria, a man who blended traditional African and American soul music in a way that had not been heard previously in that musically diverse country. Surprisingly, Wulu Wulu is the first record he has released outside of Nigeria, and it’s so good that it may have you scouring the internet for vinyl copies of his older stuff. You’ll hear echoes of Afrobeat, township jive, and juju along with a rich strain of vintage Stax-style R&B, but what will grab and hold your ear is the mellow richness of Ikwue’s voice, which remains as smooth as silk despite his advancing age. This is a beautiful and joyful album.

---

Emilia Amper
Trollfågeln (The Magic Bird)
BIS (dist. Qualiton)
2013

Emilia Amper plays the nyckelharpa, a Norwegian instrument that is like a cross between a fiddle and a hurdy gurdy—the player bows the four melody strings and depresses keys along the neck, while drone strings vibrate in sympathy in a chamber underneath. For this album Amper has written original tunes in a traditional Nordic style (though at times elements of modernism, including a sort of Steve Reich-style phased minimalism, creep into the original pieces) and also arranged and adapted traditional songs and tunes. The result offers a delightful window into the possibilities of blending the old and new in Nordic music.

---

Mop Mop
Isle of Magic
Agogo (dist. Redeye)
AR 029

As much as I love African pop music generally, the Afrobeat subgenre has always left me kind of cold—I’m not usually interested in hearing the same chord played over and and over for 15-20 minutes at a time. (On the other hand, I do love juju, so I’m not sure what that says about the consistency of my musical tastes.) The international Mop Mop team makes music that draws on a similar strategy of harmonic stasis, but enriches it with lots other influences as well: Latin instruments and rhythms, American funk, old-school hip hop vocals (courtesy of Anthony Joseph), and elements of voodoo jazz. It’s still not completely my cup of tea, but libraries with a collecting interest in modern African pop music shouldn’t hesitate.