Music: New Releases, August 2011 Volume 2

JAY-Z / KANYE WEST
WATCH THE THRONE

Given that relations in the hip-hop community can range from brotherly to bullet-ridden, this pairing was one to watch, not simply due to the high profile nature of the two participants, but the possibly prickly relationship: mentor being challenged by pupil is an old story, after all, and while it doesn’t always go all Obi-wan/Anakin, there was at least the possibility that West’s explosion of popular and critical acclaim (particularly in the wake of last year’s My Dark Twisted Fantasy) would strike sparks off his senior partner. For better or worse, the result is somewhere between more and less what you might have expected.

If nothing else, it’s a case of interesting timing: released at the height of the latest (ongoing?) financial crisis, and juxtaposed with images of London aflame in economic misery, the gold-plated album cover, and the luxury brand-name callouts (not just Gucci and Manolo, but Rolex, Hublot, Mercedes, Maybach and Lamborghini) remind us that today’s version of “street cred” is as much about conspicuous consumerism and aspirational mobility as anything as simplistic as “keepin’ it real.” But, then, in today’s America, that’s how you create and sustain a legacy: “I’m liable to go Michael/Take your pick: Jackson, Tyson, Jordan (Game 6)” suggests the level of ambition here. More than most pop music forms, rap is tied to its moment (hip-hop will never give birth to the countless “oldies” stations that endlessly recycle rock and pop music), and being a great hip-hop artist is like being a great basketball player: ten years from now, a new generation won’t even know your name, unless it’s gilded with the kind of success Jay-Z and West have achieved. “Built a republic, that still stands /I ’m trying to lead a nation to leave to my little mans.”

…today’s version of ‘street cred’ is as much about conspicuous consumerism and aspirational mobility as anything as simplistic as ‘keepin’ it real…

Most of the album continues in that vein, and it’s awfully easy to hear it as two multi-millionaires defending their turf against the anger of youth (again, the London riots make for uncomfortable contrast). Almost as a pre-emptive reaction against that, though, the album is not necessarily safe, polished music-making: weird instrumental bits reappear like a scrappy leitmotif, and the samples from Nina Simone, Curtis Mayfield, Otis Redding and Will Ferrell (!) are treated to abrupt start-stop insertion, interrupting the flow, unwilling to let the listener relax. If Watch the Throne isn’t the best album that either participant has made, it’s the latest chapter in a pair of important pop music legacies, which is at least as important as Kanye’s snappy new suit.

ARMY NAVY
THE LAST PLACE

A song cycle about a dysfunctional love affair with an eccentric, entangled actress sounds like Rufus Wainwright or Colin Meloy territory, replete with plangent piano and dissonant chordal structures. Not, certainly, what we generally expect from power pop, even when performed with the bracing punch demonstrated here. Rather like Telekinesis’ 12 Desperate Straight Lines, The Last Place is an exuberant celebration of depression.

The musical pedigree is in place: Army Navy knows their Big Star, Teenage Fanclub, and Posies, but they’re not afraid to throw in some Superchunk guitar roar on tracks like “Feathered,” while “A Circus” rocks to a pub-rock stomp, and “I Think It’s Gonna Happen” is all punk energy and early-Kinks guitar.

The Last Place is an exuberant celebration of depression…

Singer Justin Kennedy manages to shape even the direst lyric into ear-bending catchiness. He starts out by cautioning us that “The last place I wanna be is in my head” to a charging guitar riff. “Sorry about your lobotomy / To remove the part that held all of me” shimmers rather than sulks; “You said it was only me and you / Except for your husband that was true” sugars the spite, and “Maybe it’s your celebrity / That made you want to slum it with me” leavens the bitterness with ironic sunshine. Things turn lushly epic as the album winds down, with the swelling chorus and skewed guitar that drive “Open Your Eyes,” followed by six driving minutes of “Pastoral,” finally fading into a bittersweet whistled coda, suggesting that our narrator has sung himself into acceptance.

PEPPER RABBIT
RED VELVET SNOWBALL

You want eclectic, these guys do eclectic. The story goes that frontman Xander Singh spent several years working in a store that sold vintage musical instruments; he would take them home in the evenings and watch instructional videos on Youtube until he’d managed to master clarinet, ukulele, sax, trumpet, and anything else he could lay his hands on… including a bank of Roland synthesizers to fill out any sound he might have overlooked. Not to go too deeply into pop psychology, but I wonder if some of that might have been to compensate for a singing voice that is… well, it’s decidedly enthusiastic and distinctive, but “musical” isn’t the first word you’d attach to it. But in conjunction with percussionist Luc Laurent (who seems to know as many different ways to produce sounds by hitting and pounding things as Singh does), Pepper Rabbit produces an intriguing sonic mix.

You want eclectic, these guys do eclectic.

“Lake House” opens things with the suggestion of a John Lennon song produced by Brian Eno, followed by “Rose Mary Stretch,” probably the album’s most conventionally catchy tune… if you don’t mind singing cheerfully along to tales of financial disaster. The duo offer us slightly warped history lessons n “The Annexation of Puerto Rico” and “The Ballad of Alessandro Moreschi,” while “Murder Room” features the cheerful promise that “I’ll put your head in the window / For everybody to see.” If there’s a flaw in the album, it might just be that the emphasis on diversity brings a concomitant lack of focus, so that nothing resembling a personality really comes through anywhere. It’s an engaging assortment of tunes, whether or not it adds up as an album.

BLUE NOTE JAZZ REISSUES: AUGUST 2011 NEW RELEASES

That the Super Audio CD format continues to persevere in the face of the growing presence of Blu-ray may speak to nothing more than the stubbornness of Sony, but the fact that it remains backwards compatible with conventional CD players means that even if you don’t own a SACD player, you can enjoy this latest batch of Analouge Productions’ Blue Note jazz reissues now, and find even more revelatory sound if you do invest in the SACD format later. Either way, essential jazz albums restored to sound better than ever.

Pick of the litter, for me, is Jimmy Smith’s Midnight Special, drawn from sessions in the spring of 1960 that also produced the classic Back At The Chicken Shack album. The premier jazz organist is backed by a band including Stanley Turrentine on tenor sax, Kenny Burrell on guitar, and drummer Donald Bailey. The playing is muscular and swinging, with “Why was I Born” a dark, gospel-hued change of pace.

…essential jazz albums restored to sound better than ever…

Also from 1960, we have Lou Donaldson’s Sunny Side Up, featuring trumpeter Bill Hardman, pianist Duke Pearson, and the solid rhythm section of drummer Al Harewood and bassist Sam Jones; Donaldson was known more as a composer than many of his contemporaries, and “The Truth” and “Goose Grease” are among his strongest.

Freddie Hubbard’s Hub Cap shows the trumpeter during his prolific breakout period (it was one of three classic albums he released in 1961), with Jimmy Heath, Cedar Walton and Philly Joe Jones, featuring four Hubbard originals, with a bonus alternate take of “Plexus.”

Stanley Turrentine’s Up at Mintons Vol.1 is a crystalline 1961 live set featuring the legendary saxophonist along with guitarist Grant Green and pianist Horace Parlan; the original LP was a 2-disk set, so one hopes for Volume 2 to appear soon.