I Want You Back

I'm a big fan of the slowed down, acoustic, soulful covers of upbeat pop, rock and hip-hop songs, while acknowledging that it's an approach which had become overdone well past the point of cliché many years ago.

The unbelievably talented Janelle Monae indeed slows down this unassailably ebullient Jackson 5 hit, but rather than simply go the delightful if well-trod twee route, she takes it in a jazz direction without actually adding any swing rhythms—and yet embuing it with an incredible amount of swing. And the results are simply magical: ethereal and yet thoroughly earthy at the same time.

Driven to Tears? So what.

As a fan of The Police and a Miles Davis fanatic, I found this amalgamation beyond magnificent.

Gwen

So, as usual, my first thought upon hearing how beautifully the great Philly Joe Jones plays piano on this song he composed himself, is "well, that's not fair." I mean, how uncool is it that possibly the greatest hard-bop drummer ever is also a killer pianist? But, of course, that's probably not entirely a coincidence: he was arguably the greatest hard-bop drummer ever because he was a killer musician. I mean, duh, but it still felt worth pointing out. Or, really, an excuse to post this.

Egg Radio

I think the first time I heard Bill Frisell was on the Disney covers collection, Stay Awake, featuring wonderful covers by the likes of NRBQ, Suzanne Vega, Michael Stipe and Natalie Merchant, and best of all, the Replacements demolishing "Cruella De Ville," still one of my favorite covers of anything ever, as well as a demented version of "Heigh Ho" by Tom Waits.

Since then I've become a fan of Frisell's jazz work, including his series of live albums, all of which are enjoyable and many of which are superb, including his covers of John Lennon, in which he proves (as if it were needed) that Paul McCartney wasn't the only Beatle with a knack for writing insanely gorgeous melodies.

This may be my favorite Frisell original, and after playing it roughly three dozen times over the past week, I finally realized why: it sounds like the beautiful child of "Moon River" and Ritchie Valens' "Donna."

Junk

I've always had something of an aversion to jazz covers of rock, since so often it (to my ears) bowdlerizes the source into EZ-listening mush, but Brad Mehldau clearly has not a lounge player's approach but one much closer to that of John Coltrane, and the results are always engaging and often extraordinary. And I'm always pleased when my tastes line up with an artist's I like, since I think this is maybe the single most gorgeous song, melodically, that Paul McCartney ever wrote. Which, you know, isn't sayin' nothin', all things considered.

In fact, if I have any quibbles with this version, it's that I'd have liked it to go on about another half hour.

Bittersweet Symphony/Waterloo Sunset

This freakin' guy.

There are some who think the secret to Brad Mehldau's greatness is that he went to high school about half a mile from where DT and I went to school, and at the same time, no less. These people are (mainly) wrong.

What they're not wrong about is that he's great. 'cuz he is great.

Fly Me to the Moon

Blossom Dearie is something of an acquired taste, although it may be easier for those of us who grew up on Schoolhouse Rock to acquire said taste, given that she was the voice behind the much beloved "Figure Eight" and "Unpack Your Adjectives."

I don't care much for jazz vocals, alas, as a general rule. But this is one of my favorite songs and oh my goodness does this go right to the heart like an arrow to the knee. So tender, so sweet, so direct.

Nuclear Burn

Play it loud! 

I can remember at least two LPs back in the day that had some variation on that theme. "This record was designed to be played loud. Turn it up!" That kind of thing.

Well, that actually does go for this. A lot of the nuances, the ghost notes and such, get lost if it's not loud enough. Of course, depending upon how much you turn it up, that does mean that the louder sections might be uncomfortably loud, but hey, that's life, no?

Phil Collins no longer seems to be the automatic punchline he was for a while, and good. A reappraisal has been due for some time—pretty much ever since his critical rating went down, in fact. But beyond the fact that I'm a fan, it was always a little baffling to me, since I've probably listened to this album of his more than any of his solo works and maybe more than any Genesis album. For whatever reason, I find it remarkably easy to write to. It's a groovy kind of love.

(The song is only a bit over six minutes long, incidentally—for some reason, the uploader put it on there twice. Hey, double the fusion, same low price!)

My Love and I

In case you were sitting there wondering, "say, what's the most gorgeous song ever?"

And now you know.

Pictures 6

You know what's uncool? To be able to play drums like this:

and then also be able to play piano like this:



C'mon, Jack. Pick a lane, man. It's not fair to everyone else.

Footprints

I walk into the living room and hear the sweet sounds of Wayne Shorter and see the 13-year-old
staring at my computer intently. I slowly peek over her shoulder. She's starting at the iTunes window.

She side-eyes me and says, "I need to practice piano, but there's only a little over a minute and a half left of the track. And it's against my personal beliefs to stop a song in the middle if you can possibly avoid it."

That's my girl.

Cantaloupe Island

There's so much to love in this clip. The amused, disbelieving looks Omar Hakim and Stanley Clarke give Herbie Hancock as he teases and teases the intro to the tune. The grins Hakim and Hancock exchange towards the end of Hancock's solo. How locked in Clarke and Hakim are during their duet, and Hakim's razor-sharp right foot which seems to be synced to the atomic clock in Boulder. The way Clarke stomps on the riser almost as though he were headbanging, before he waves off Hakim at the end, signifying surrender—and any musician that can get Clarke to even pretend to be impressed by technique is a serious monster. Shorter patting Clarke's shoulder in sympathy immediately thereafter.

Most of all, of course, it's the joy and intensity with which all these musicians approach this tune they've played so many times, especially Hancock and Shorter. Shorter attacks his solo like he's been waiting years for the opportunity. And the way Hancock transitions from a ferocious, almost Jerry Lee Lewis-like pounding of the keys to a gentle introspection in the space of about a quarter second is magical.

Giants still walk the earth.

New Year's Day

So my imaginary friend Chris mentioned that he has several times been stuck in hotel courtesy vehicles with drivers who are enamoured of this series of God-awful albums.

Naturally, I was horrified, as would any right thinking mammal, upon hearing The Clash covered by—and this is really their real name—The Cooltrane Quartet. Because I mean really. Need I say more?

But then I made the mistake of playing this one.

And...and...

...and I kinda love it.

I don't like cool jazz—in fact, I pretty much hate it the way DT hates hair metal. And I'm not at all fond of lounge singing or, indeed, almost any jazz vocals. But damn if this doesn't somehow work.

Great Writing

And here we have a perfect example of outstanding writing: it gets right to the point, says its piece, and gets out. Kind of like a Miles Davis solo. 

No wonder Miles and Teo worked so well together. 

Fable

"This is beautiful, Dad," says my 11-year-old. "Who is it?"

"John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner," I say. 

She nods. "I thought it sounded like Ralph Towner. But it wasn't quite...there was a kind of bite to it, you know? That didn't sound quite like he usually does. I guess that's the other guy." 

I smile. Ralph Towner only plays acoustic guitars (and keyboards), and she was correctly noting the different timbre of John Abercrombie's electric guitar. 

It's very rare that I feel like I've really gotten something right.