Jonathan Richman – Action Packed: The Best of Jonathan Richman

Action Packed: The Best of Jonathan Richman

Jonathan Richman – Action Packed: The Best of Jonathan Richman Rounder 1166-11596-2 (2002)

If Buddy Holly had arrived in the punk era, he might have sounded something like Jonathan Richman.  The material collected here leans on bubblegum pop but with an ironic, half-serious delivery.  These are like children’s songs played in a way that has no appeal to children.  When it’s just Jonathan with a guitar, which is most of the time, the music could pass for that of some guy at an open mic night playing solo versions of old rock/pop songs and making up a few new ones as he goes too.  That might not sound all that interesting, but it all ends up being quite endearing because Richman is so convincing and earnest.  He doesn’t put across shy, introverted attitudes as better than anything else, just as something that belongs in the conversation with all sorts of other great music.  His songwriting PWNS that of Rivers Cuomo of Weezer (a band that is quite similar, if much less talented, with just the rock sound of The Feelies tacked on top of something that does kind of suggest a sort of superiority of the geeks).  A lot of people will just scratch their heads at this–even if they were intrigued by Jonathan’s appearance as a strolling troubadour in the film There’s Something About Mary.  But those with a soft spot for lovable losers and insecure geeks, or simply clever, quirky and goofy songwriting, welcome home…gabba gabba.

The Bad Plus – These Are the Vistas

These Are the Vistas

The Bad Plus – These Are the Vistas Columbia CK 87040 (2003)

A frequent comment about Bad Plus albums is that if you’ve heard one you’ve heard them all.  That’s mostly true.  But it’s also true that These Are the Vistas is head-and-shoulders above any of their other recordings.  The sound is often called “acoustic fusion”, which really means they play acoustic instruments with a traditional jazz style and sonic texture but focus on rock-oriented rhythms.  Think “Eighty-One” from E.S.P. by Miles Davis‘ second great quintet, when they were just starting to feel out how rock and jazz could meet.  The Bad Plus update what Davis’s group was doing considerably, by bringing to the table the sound of modern rock, as with covers of the likes of Nirvana and Blondie.  There is a more contemporary ironic touch to it all.  While it can sound a bit glib and formulaic elsewhere, the group probably never has and never will match what they documented here.

Atmosphere – God Loves Ugly

God Loves Ugly

Atmosphere – God Loes Loves Ugly Fat Beats 6591235001-2 (2002)

Basically these guys scale back the misogyny, homophobia, and other lame elements usually endemic to hip-hop.  They lessen those liabilities, but the problem is that they still employ all the usual styles.  Here, ANT and SLUG don’t recognize the tension between method and content the way they do elsewhere (When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold).

Louis Armstrong – Greatest Hits

Greatest Hits

Louis Armstrong – Greatest Hits RCA Victor (1996)

There is some good music on this disc, and some bad stuff.  It’s hard not to focus on the faults of this disc though.  When “Everybody’s Talkin’ (Echos)” started playing, I literally said out loud, “What the fuck? Why did he ever record this?”  But it kind of makes me wonder what he would have recorded if he lived into the 1980s…“Papa Don’t Preach”?  “Blame It On the Rain”?

Don’t get this album if you expect any kind of representative overview of Satchmo’s career.  This is really just a grab bag of RCA Victor-owned tracks thrown together in a maddening and inexplicable sequence.  Even the version of “What a Wonderful World” is not the one everyone knows and loves from the late 1960s single (and later popularized by the Good Morning, Vietnam soundtrack), but a cheeseball 1970s extended version.  There has to be a better entire career overview out there…

BADBADNOTGOOD – III

III

BADBADNOTGOOD – III Innovative Leisure IL2019CD (2014)

Rock meets jazz, more in the sense of jazz-inflected prog rock (Zappa‘s Hot Rats) than rock-inflected jazz (Miles‘ Bitches Brew).  Though they can still play straight jazz to boot (“differently, still”).  But this is surely a group of musicians more steeped in math rock (Battles, Don Caballero), electronic music (DJ Shadow) and hip-hop (Prefuse 73) than the sorts of things first-generation jazz fusion artists were listening to.  These Canadian youngsters play well.  Mostly they go for a harmlessly aggressive, moody atmosphere.  They don’t try to shove technical prowess in your face, which is what makes this so listenable.

Yusef Lateef – The Complete Yusef Lateef

The Complete Yusef Lateef

Yusef Lateef – The Complete Yusef Lateef Atlantic SD 1499 (1968)

Yusef Lateef was one of those jazz musicians who was a little too enamored with himself, and the idea that he was making “sophisticated” music.  Here, as usual, the rhythm section wastes away playing mostly basic walks, with Lateef soloing in an “exotic” way on top.  The absurdly titled The Complete Yusef Lateef (this is just an ordinary album, not a collection of all his recordings) has its moments, but is mostly fluff.  The opener “Rosalie” is basically the same song as “Be My Husband” that Nina Simone recorded for Pastel Blues — here credited as “traditional, arranged by Yusef Lateef” while Simone’s was credited to her husband and manager Andy Stroud).  He also records “See-Line Woman”, another song Simone recently recorded (Broadway-Blues-Ballads).  There is one boogaloo number, “Kongsberg,” following somewhat the format of most Blue Note albums of the early/mid 1960s.  The boogaloo song is the catchiest, and the best.  What sinks this is that Lateef is rather condescending in his appropriations of exotic sounds, doing nothing to engage his sources on their own terms.  He is just appropriating the otherness of disparate (most Eastern) musics to deploy in a subordinate role within his ho-hum hard bop framework.  Consider this an opportunity wasted.