August music reviews
Tord Gustavsen Trio: Being There
ECM
These talented Norwegians create a fine set of cerebral jazz compositions on piano, double bass, and drums for their third disc on the prestigious ECM label.
In a style I would describe as elegant minimalism, there is a lot of beautiful music in the 14 little tunes these talented guys play, and significantly, seem to underplay. Like earlier “open” vamping piano stylist Ahmad Jamal and then lush ”intellectual” Bill Evans, Tord gently lets you wait a bit, then puts just the right notes perfectly in place. His work is continuously like the first few bars of a Herbie Hancock solo where Herbie pulls back the steam just a bit, makes a few light and tasty suggestions of what’s to come, then builds up from there.
Tord just stays in that initial non-frantic genteel notion of understated lead line then into improvisation that modern jazz lovers adore in the aforementioned pianists, and also from master jazz guitarist Jim Hall. All substitute the most appropriate “just right” notes, and nothing more.
This trio’s music isn’t hard to follow and it can most pleasantly float by as aural wallpaper. Appropriately, a small amount of attention rewards the listener with pleasant realisation of varied little gems of superb trio interplay in sophisticated compositions and related improvisations. Very nice for relaxation, meditation or moderate intoxication.
Recorded sound is classic ECM, analytical, ambient, clean, cool, and well balanced. John Paul
Laura Veirs: Saltbreakers
Nonesuch
A cerebral and enchanting chanteuse with an acute sense of the down to earth, Laura Veirs clearly has equal appetite for the pain and the joy of living. Her lyrics evoke natural landscapes (of sea and sail, nightingale and butterfly) across which humans stumble, occasionally into meaning and contentment but more probably into the funeral pyre or dreams of “being stones in black stillness”. Yet for all the artfulness of her literary referencing (AS Byatt’s Possession, Jose Saramago’s Blindness) and metaphoric phrasing, she can still readily deliver the plainspoken and tangible.
And the music’s resounding too. Sometimes over-busy: with gravitas laid on too thickly, particularly in the more electric pieces, like Pink Light and Phantom Mountain, where multiple lines of melody and counterpoint crowd into crescendos (possibly a too assiduous attempt to suggest a storm of encroaching emotions). Her forte is the simpler and usually more subdued semi-acoustic stuff, infused with upright bass or viola – through which her lyricism can breathe, uncluttered.
And for a crowning definitive song it’s hard to go beyond the single release Don’t Lose Yourself which treads a nimbly surging piano line between melancholy and optimism. Anyone who can already capture polarities of mood so adeptly and infectiously must have greater things yet to come. Paul Green
Queens of the Stone Age: Era Vulgaris
Interlope Records
Previously I've liked the odd single (Little Sister) from QOTSA but when I've listened to the whole album in a store I've not been sufficiently blown away to part with my cash. Now I think I know why. The QOTSA sound is an acquired taste. Repeat plays allow the varied time signatures and guitar treatments to open up to expose some cool tunes and interesting riffs. During a cursory listen in the record shop you just won’t “get it”!
How to describe the latest from QOTSA to the uninitiated? It's a heavy rock album, with occasional bluesy influences (Into the Hollow). Sometimes the guitars sound like other things – one time a laughing nutter (Run, Pig, Run); the next something totally different - detuned/almost out of tune (Turnin’ on the Screw).
Josh Homme takes a leading role throughout, lending vocals, guitar, songwriting and production to the album. He has a good (but not outstanding) voice that suits the earthy, sometimes sombre feel of the music.
The lyrics aren't that easy to decipher and you get the distinct feeling that they're not especially “happy happy”. There's a dark tone to tracks like Run, Pig, Run – “There is no safe place to hide”. The title track is a brooding closer to the album which sounds like it might fall apart at any time.
This certainly isn't a singalong/good time album to put on at a regular party. But in the right company, at high volume, and fuelled by a beer or two, tracks like Battery Acid and Sick, Sick, Sick are likely to promote some serious moshing and bad dance behavior. In the wrong company, you'll clear the floor and kill the party.
Like I said it's an acquired taste! Be selective. Play it loud! It makes much more sense that way. Douglas Lang
Curtis Stigers: Real Emotional
Concord Records
Twelve tunes from contemporary songwriters are smoothly performed by vocalist and sometimes tenor saxophonist Stigers. From Bob Dylan’s sweet I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, to Mose Allyson’s sarcastic Your Mind Is On Vacation (and your mouth is working overtime) there is variety and musical interest from this young American Tune (P. Simon) crooner. Yes, he is, and yes, he does it well.
Special mention has to be made about the excellent jazz backing arrangements by Stigers co-producer Larry Goldings. He plays tasty accordion, vibraphone, piano, and classic Hammond B-3 organ on several tracks perfectly complimenting Stigers’ slightly home-spun, good old boy inflected vocal deliveries. Gently gravel and grit, with charm, warmth, and wit.
It’s a good contrast that calls to mind a Nora Jones style countrified delivery with jazzy blues backing. Incidentally confirming this is Larry Goldings working his B-3 on her latest album. So it swings and roundabout for those who like good tunes in fine arrangements played by people who obviously know what they doing, and doing it very well. John Paul
Various: The Rough Guide To Bellydance Café
Rough Guide
To these western ears the ‘oryantal dansi’ is at its shimmering sinuous best when it’s instrumental. And there’s a Turkish pearler here in Selim Sesler’s Gozyasi which has an elegance and coherence of rhythm and fluid clarinet-fired tone that builds in mesmerising hypnotic loops. Three other beguiling instrumentals by Egyptian ensembles also offer crisp folkloric blends of tabla, zither, oud, violin and woodwind, and it’s an easy summons to a bazaar world of heady coffee, jellabas, and bewitching Romany women, all framed in a haze of hookah smoke. But elsewhere it’s decidedly bustling two star fare – and too much of it too. With their temple vocal pining, fussy flourishes, and melodramatic or meandering progressions, too many of these songs seem short on Middle East mystique or sensuousness. Paul Green
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