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Album Reviews
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(166 reviews)
Date: May 15, 1970
Release: BLUE NOTE #36195
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Considered by some to be trumpeter Donald Byrd‘s last worthwhile jazz recording, Electric Byrd is a high-flying relic from 1970. This album can be understood as Byrd’s formidable response to the musical challenges set down by trumpet-rival Miles Davis with his epic Bitches Brew recordings from a year earlier. Clearly Miles is the ghost presence here, with distinct echoes of his sound permeating the vibe of this exploratory set.
Byrd demonstrates on his three originals that he, too, was a force to be reckoned with. The supremely atmospheric “Estavanico” opens the album, inventively fusing together elements of funk, psychedelica, Brazilian music, and hard-bop to create a truly transcendent groove. Clocking in at around 11 glorious minutes in length, “Estavanico” is an absolute masterpiece and must be heard by all fans of the Bitches Brew.
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Date: 1969-1970
Release: BLUE NOTE #831875
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An album of previously unreleased material taken from two 1969-1970 sessions which capture the immensely talented trumpeter Donald Byrd in a transitional moment of artistic brilliance. The first two tracks, “Kofi” and “Fufu,” were both recorded during the 1969 session, and are the most original and imaginative compositions on the album. Rooted in the hypnotic African-infused rhythms of drummer Mickey Roker, bassist Ron Carter, and percussionists Airto and Dom Um Romao, these two tracks synthesize the modal, electric, hard bop, and funk strains of late 60s jazz. On “Kofi,” Lew Tabackin’s flute swirls freely above the thickly layered grooves and complex horn arrangements. Frank Foster plays with authority on “Fufu.” Byrd’s playing on Kofi shows the influence of his vastly superior rival, Miles Davis. Still, his own distinct sound shines through, as he plays with great fluidity and style.
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Date: 1969
Release: Columbia #65150
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Fans of the Byrds’ psychedelic brand of folk-rock were left baffled by the band’s sudden about face in the direction of country music on Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Many wondered how the same band that recorded the ’60s drug anthem “Eight Miles High” could suddenly end up singing “I Love The Christian Life” without any hint of sarcasm. Even the 1968 radio ad promoting the record features a disbelieving fan insisting, “Naw, that ain’t the Byrds,” after hearing only a few song snippets. Ahead of its time, Sweetheart of the Rodeo was a groundbreaking act of rebellion away from the classic rock sound of its day, entirely different from anything the Byrds (or anyone else) had recorded before.
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Date: 1972
Release: POLYGRAM #810314
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Laid-back, Southern-tinged, white-boy groove music from the early 70s. Cale is best known for having penned a string of hits covered by Eric Clapton, including “Cocaine” and “After Midnight.” His own recordings have largely been overlooked and forgotten. This album captures Cale in his most creative period, and reveals why his obscure sound is so often imitated by those in the know.
Really flows like an album should, with its own distinctly mellow vibe. This is music perfect for creaky old porches, rocking chairs, and hound dogs. The band shuffles along with a grooving country-blues edge that defines Cale’s unmistakable sound. His nimble guitar playing and mumbled singing style blend soulfully together on such songs as “I’ll Kiss the World Goodbye” and “Right Down Here.”
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Date: 2000
Release: MATADOR OLE 426-2
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Like the blues itself, Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall) is a soulful product of the Deep South. Her voice is charged with aching strains of gospel, soul, blues, and country-folk. The Covers Record is her quiet storm, a stripped down affair, featuring nothing more than her captivating voice coupled with a lone piano or guitar. Without any contrived nostalgia, her covers of mostly contemporary songs sound as if they could have come from Alan Lomax‘s Great Depression field recordings.
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Date: July 1958 – May 1959 (recording)
Release: Rhino #81732
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Where I come from, deep in the heart of Dixie, we know him as Brother Ray. And for the past half a century, Brother Ray has been the chief pastor at the most raucous rock ‘n’ soul revivals this side of the pearly gates. If you don’t get goose bumps when you hear that raspy voice slowly maneuver its way through “Georgia on my Mind” (even if you’re not from Georgia), well, then there’s obviously something wrong with you. Seriously wrong.
Ray Charles’s career has seen him play for and with the entire spectrum of humanity. He’s hobnobbed with royalty, poverty, and even Muppets. But back when he was playing what the establishment had branded, “race music,” his label, Atlantic Records (the preeminent producers of R&B and soul) put out one of only three live Ray Charles albums. Aptly titled, Ray Charles Live, this classic presents two important performances captured ten months apart in July of 1958 and May of 1959.
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Date: 1975
Release: A&M/Horizon #0809
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“There is joy laced with confidence in this music, and sadness, or pathos, that is as much connected to the Blues as it is to the huge yearning of that sound in Eastern music… Throughout the record, one can hear the melding of Third World music and mysticism with Western instruments.”
– From Stanley Crouch’s original liner notes to Brown Rice
For Don Cherry, life and music were one and the same, and he consistently approached both with a daring sense of adventure. In his world-view, the art of living life and expressing life through music depended upon people “listening and traveling.” A global explorer, Cherry learned to play and compose for wood flutes, tamboura, gamelan, and other non-Western instruments.
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Date: February 15, 2005 (release)
Release: Nettwerk #30414
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Aside from the occasional Air song, I don’t consider contemporary French music worth the effort. You can spend unreasonable amounts of time wading through stacks of mindless hip-hop or slick and unsoulful pop in order to find the very few hidden gems of the French music scene. That said, you can imagine my surprise at uncovering such talents as Benjamin Biolay, Keren Ann, Carla Bruni and Coralie Clément all within the space of a year.
The last mademoiselle remains my true favorite of the bunch. Fans and detractors alike cite her whispery voice that can give instant mood to whatever song she sings as the key to her sound. The sexy then twenty-one-year-old first used it to near perfection in “Salle des Pas Perdus”, a jazzy, bossa nova inflected album of sweet, wistful songs that make for perfect listening as you sip your Friday evening apéro.
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Date: 2001 (release)
Release: Merge #487
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One of my favorite “Sixties” bands, the Clientele didn’t even cut a record until three decades after the passing of the Summer of Love. With a vintage sound almost entirely outside of contemporary music, the Clientele’s exquisite pop conjures up a pastoral age of hazy psychedelic dreamscapes splashed with soft sunshine, swirling leaves, hopeful longings, and just a little bit of rain. Even if you were born too late, their wistfully nostalgic melodies will lull your mental clock into believing it’s 1968 again.
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Date: April 1972 (recording)
Release: Columbia/Legacy #63568
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Recorded in April 1972, Ornette Coleman’s social-political rant Skies of America was a highly flammable LP. A composition, like Lazarus, rising out of the new cotton fields, the album was saturated in the lighter fluid of racial upheaval, the late-’60s assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy, and the less-than-racially diverse frontlines of the Vietnam war. From the start it’s like a loaded gun, defying classification, even by avant-garde standards. In the America of the early ’70s, King’s dream gave way to Ornette’s nightmare—a horrific vision by a prophet whose pen was a brass horn, and the apocalyptic monster of inspiration, the mighty bald eagle.
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