Mick Jagger is a freak of nature. He rocked his ass off in Minneapolis. How a guy in his early 70s can rock like a teenager is beyond comprehension. The band legitimately defended their title as the “world’s greatest rock and roll band” and they did not even seem like they were trying that hard.
My wife and daughter accompanied me to the show and one of the cool features that it rained all day and we stressed all day about a wet show. Just as warm-up act Grace Potter started her set, the rain cleared and it was a dry evening for the rest of the show. A great memory for me will be my young adult daughter discovering the quintessence of rock and roll in Keith Richards. She was mesmerized by his multitasking (cigarette in is pick hand).
Set list:
Jumpin’ Jack Flash / It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It) / All Down the Line / Tumbling Dice / Doom and Gloom / Bitch / Moonlight Mile / Out of Control / Honky Tonk Women / Before They Make Me Run (Keith Richards on vocals) / Happy (Keef again) / Midnight Rambler / Miss You / Gimme Shelter (with opener Grace Potter as guest vocalist) / Start Me Up / Sympathy for the Devil / Brown Sugar ENCORE: You Can’t Always Get What You Want (with Minneapolis choral group VocalEssence) / (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
Less than a week later it was time to check out the Sticky Fingers reissue. What a deal Target has: the two CD edition with a copy of the LP mailed to your house for $20 (in 4 to 6 weeks – good to lower expectations – I was delighted when it showed up in 10 days).
Sticky Fingers is a an absolute classic. I can’t declare a favorite Stones album but Sticky Fingers is right there in the mix and “Can’t You Here Me Knocking” is my favorite Stones song.
The album flies out of the starting block with a rock and roll classic “Brown Sugar.” I never realized what a fucking depraved song it was until I heard Ryan Adams cover it as dirge in concert many years back. Who but the Stones would juxtaposition fun rollicking music with lyrics about the slave trade?
About 15 years ago a guy at work turned me on to this album. It was his favorite album and it was not available on CD and so he had a Japanese important. He lent it to me and I dubbed a copy for my collection. To this day it is still not available except as a Japanese import on CD (fortunately it is on Spotify).
I was on East Lake Street (Minneapolis) this past weekend so I stopped into Hymie’s and found a nice vinyl copy for $3. The LP was issued in 1971 long before Scaggs became a big star (but he was a cult favorite at the time).
Scaggs hit the big time in 1976 with the LP Silk Degrees. That album rode a thin line between disco and R&B. Scaggs was enough of a rocker to keep it real. I assume, by the center label, the $3 LP I found in the Hymie’s crates was a post Silk Degrees reissue – but it is still a nice piece of wax.
When we backtrack to an album like Boz Scaggs & Band we can see he where this white boy got so much soul. The album features a nice large band with horns. It features blues, R&B, soulful country and at times foreshadows the slick sound of Silk Degrees. It is slick and raw at the same time – like a well mixed cocktail (I assume the great engineer/producer Glyn Johns had something to do with that).
Scaggs penned or co-wrote every cut on the album. Scaggs greatest feature is that he has such a unique voice – which is instantly recognizable. He makes every song his own. It’s an easy voice that has just a bit of a smirk.
The album is a great taste of the 70s when a skilled singer songwriter could throw down a diverse set of cuts in a great studio with a top-notch band. This album will appeal to baby boomers and retro R&B loving millennials – something Mark Ronson would have created if he was sent in a time machine to the 70s.
An album title has never been more appropriate. This is a three-hour tour de force – a 10-piece jazz band augmented by a 32-piece orchestra, 20-member choir and a featured vocalist (Patrice Quinn). I come to this as a jazz fan and I am guessing most ears will be coming from a hip hop aesthetic. This is not hip hop based jazz like Robert Glassper, but rather pure jazz. I will be curious to how the hip hop audience takes to it. I won’t bore you with the back story as it is better told elsewhere.
One of my favorite books is Michael Chabon‘s Telegraph Avenue. A key “character” in the novel is a jazz record store (Brokeland Records). It is not hard to imagine The Epic playing 24 by 7 in the store. The album juxtapositions John Coltrane and soul jazz – imagine Trane on CTI Records.
Kamasi (and other soloist) shred on top of elaborate arrangements that would not be out-of-place on a David Axelrod LP or a Mingus LP. The arrangements are elaborate, yet the soloist sound totally spontaneous and improvisational. Kamasi’s wailing sax solos evokes both Coltrane and an expert rapper’s flow – sometimes at the same time.
There is a lot to absorb here and it is going to take me weeks to fully appreciate this album, but I feel compelled to post after just a listen and half because I am sure this is a masterpiece and I feel the need to shout from the mountain. This is both devotional to the jazz cannon and a completely modern reinvention. This album has the potential, like Mile’s Bitches Brew, to turn on a new crowd to the beauty of the jazz form. Finally I love the ambition of this album: an amazing combo (but even that is oversized), a jazz orchestra, a choir and classic vocalist. It dashes from one place to another (Stevie Wonder, Trane’s Classic Quartet, Axelrod’s jazz symphonies, etc.), yet never sounding disjointed – it is a cohesive whole. I am gobsmacked. More later if I can climb my way out of this pleasure-dome.
When Mumford & Sons came on the scene in 2009 their sound was fresh, but by the time their second album came out in 2012 they were over played and I was bored with them.
The boys did what they had to do on Wilder Mind – they changed up their signature sound – including banning the banjo. This is dangerous stuff tampering with the recipe, but if you are a real musician you have to evolve.
I like the new sound. Sure at times it evokes Coldplay, but I think that is a superficial criticism.
“Tompkins Square Park” – The first time I heard the song I thought Coldplay, but subsequent listens it remind me of Don Henley’s “Boys Of Summer.” Not a bad influence for guitar strumming and banjo plucking band trying to find a new voice.
“Believe” really has the Coldplay sound, but Marcus Mumford has a much more unique and interesting voice than Chris Martin. This works for me. Full disclosure I like Coldplay and most other U2 influenced bands so it is a guilty pleasure to consume this kind of pop.
“The Wolf” takes Mumford & Sons signature hard and fast strummed acoustic guitars and substitutes electric guitar and rock drums. What do you get? A great sounding U2 song.
“Wilder Mind” the band hits their stride with the new sound. They sound like an evolved Mumford & Sons and not someone else. They have a legitimate new voice on this song.
“Just Smoke” – Again I feel like this song sounds like an appropriate evolution. Maybe a little Dave Mathews Band sounding – but I think that is a good place for them to go (I am not a DMB hater).
“Monster” is a quite ballad that really highlights what a cool pop voice Marcus Mumford has. Very nice melancholy tune.
“Snake Eyes” is a little taste of old M&S – opening with acoustic guitar. But then it goes atmospheric. Then big electric guitars. This is going to sound great in arena.
“Broad-Shouldered Beasts” has a nice little Led Zeppelin North-African groove.
“Cold Arms” is a nice mellow ballad accompanied by some stark acoustic guitar.
“Ditmas” by this point in the LP, the band sounds completely at home in their new style.
“Only Love” starts out as the quietest song on the album but ends with a bang. This song is likely to draw the Coldplay accusation. But again Marcus Mumford’s voice is so much more interesting than Chris Martin’s – this sound fits the boys like a glove – it is a great steal.
“Hot Gates” ends the album on a solemn note. A bit of dirge, but with a certain magnificence.
I love the new sound and I am glad these guys took the gamble to reinvent themselves. This is arena worthy folk rock. Glorious melancholia.
Fresh Blood is suffering from the same problem as Father John Misty’s I Love You, Honeybear – it follows a masterpiece debut. White’s 2012 Big Inner was an amazing LP and was on my best of 2012.
White is a pop musician whose work evokes Stevie Wonder, Self Portrait era Dylan, Brian Wilson and the the A team of Atlantic Records (Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin). His arrangements drip of the late 60s and early 70s pop: rock instruments with strings and horns.
It is so refreshing in the hip hop era to have lush organic arrangements. White leverages his Spacebomb Records crew (Richmond, Virginia) which includes real instruments and vocalists.
Fresh Blood is a nice sequel to Big Inner. If you are a baby boomer you will have a sentimental smile as White evokes the pop symphonies of Motown and Memphis. If you are younger you will be treated to some wonderfully warm music (think Bon Iver without the computers). Pure ear candy. Love this LP.
2011’s Alabama Shakes single “Hold On” knocked me out. However not much else on Boys & Girls hit me. Not a bad album, just unremarkable. Too retro for me. Sound & Color is a giant step forward in the evolution of the band.
This is both alt rock and soul music. A wonderful juxtaposition. I hear Arcade Fire, Prince, Emotional Rescue era Stones, early Kings Of Leon, Erykah Badu, Queen (without the guitar histrionics) and Smokey Robinson. Not as derivative as Boys & Girls but a brilliant synthesis of influences – it is a fine line and the Alabama Shakes are riding that line like a skilled skateboarder rides a rail.
Pop music always stands on the shoulders of the past. There is nothing new. But an inspired band in its groove who reinvents the past makes it a new moment. The Shakes have done that with Sound & Color.
Brittney Howard has done something fantastic here. She has developed a signature vocal that is neither male or female. It is merely a rock vocal. And that is a great thing.
The Alabama Shakes have pulled of the neatest trick in popular music: they have beat the sophomore slump.
I became familiar with Keith Jarrett by way of his iconic solo improvisation records like “The Köln Concert” (1975 on ECM) and his work with early electric Miles Davis. Most of my experience has been through his ECM releases.
Expectations is a very ambitious album where Jarrett plays in a variety of styles: solo piano, avant garde free jazz, jazz rock fusion, soul jazz and complex chamber jazz.
Although Jarrett was affiliated with Miles, he only made this one album on Columbia. The fact that they dropped him from the label after this brilliant masterpiece hopefully resulted in someone getting fired. It is not like Jarrett was some inaccessible artist. Three years later he would release “The Köln Concert” which has sold nearly 4 million copies.
I only recently discovered this double LP when I found it in a crate for a mere two bucks. I like Jarrett, and although the copy looked a bit beat, up I figured what the hell. It has been sitting in my preview pile for months without a listen. I am moving this summer so I am now aggressively working through that pile so I can appropriately file them before packing them for the move.
I dropped the needle on Expectations the other day and I have been in audio orgasm ever since. First despite what looks like a pretty beat up piece of wax this thing plays VG – you just never know until you spin it. But the real joy is the amazing music.
What I particularly like about the album is hearing Jarrett and his compositions in a larger band context. And who the hell is this guitarist Sam Brown? He is a perfect foil for Jarrett. Outside of his time with Miles I have never heard Jarrett in this context.
I have said this before, but this is exactly the kind of album that keeps me digging. seventy eight minutes of mind-blowing jams. Pure joy at a little over two and half cents a minute.
Per the brewery: “A stout with roasty malt character intermingled with deep vanilla tones, all dancing in an oak bath.”
Per me:
- Nice bourbon odor
- When it first hits your tongue you taste smoke then the bourbon flavor
- As it leaves the tongue you taste the sugar and vanilla – like melted ice cream
- The aftertaste is a more traditional stout flavor
- The burp is bourbon
- After aftertaste is milky
I enjoy bourbon and this is a delightful treat. Most breweries only have a seasonal bourbon beer, but this brew is available year round. This is a treat beer – at $15 for a four pack of 12 ounce bottles – you will want to sip. I suggest a chalice and about 50 degrees. Highly recommend. So good I managed to make it last from tip-off of the Michigan State vs. Duke semifinal to the start of the second half.
It has taken about three and half years to accumulate 300 posts. I have a very small readership, but that is OK, as my main motivation is a personal document of the music that is engaging me at any given time.
Friends and acquaintances will ask what I am listening to and before this blog I would generally be stupefied by the question. Now I can pull out my iPhone and scroll through recent posts and give an informed answer.
I still struggle to articulate what about an album touches my heart and soul. I don’t think I have written a negative review. I have listened to lots of music over the last several years I didn’t like and many a beloved artist has let me down. But I am not interested in spending my valuable time and energy documenting an album I hate.
Despite listening to thousands of albums I still get excited by a new release and discovering an old album (e.g. my recent Keith Jarrett post). Blogging album reviews has enhanced my listening because it forces an engagement with the music. I still get geeked-out by a cool guitar tone, a great groove, a clever lyric and the human voice exposing a genuine emotion (whether brilliantly acted or if it is for real).
I am in my mid-50s and I have been serious about music for most of my life. I have been around long enough to have heard the influencer in their time and I am still curious enough to seek out and hear the influenced in this moment. I am critical enough to separate the purely derivative from the real artist who borrows to make something real – their twist on a classic recipe.
I still have a lot to write about: music I have not yet met, my personal “hall of fame” recordings, introductions to my favorite artists and general music trends. I would like to explore budget audio as it saddens me young music fans don’t have the passion for sound that my generation had (I debated saying “has,” but it is sadly “had”). I would like to think if they were educated about their options, where aware of reasonably priced components and had a chance to experience quality audio they would be hooked. And then there is food and drink which often forms the analogies I use to describe music.
I have enjoyed writing this blog and hope I have helped you discover something new or be reminded of something you have forgotten. Forgive my lapse in grammar and spelling – I could use an editor.
Marling’s last release, Once I Was An Eagle, was my best of 2013. Short Movie is a further evolution of her sound. It is still acoustic based, but a bit more colored by rock instrumentation. She continues to channel Joni Mitchell, but her phasing has broaden to include other influences (Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde perhaps?). Like her last album I really appreciate that as much as she reminds me of Joni, she has her own voice both musically and lyrically.
As I have stated many times in this blog there is nothing I love more than an album that is a “grower,” that is, an album that reveals itself after repeated listens. The first time I listened to this album I was a bit underwhelmed, but by my third listen it seemed like a whole new album. Filled with depth and nuance. This review was pieced together after several more listens. It has continued to reveal.
“Warrior” Marling’s voice and acoustic guitar are front and center like early period Joni, but it is augmented by swirling electronics and echoed vocal overdubs giving it a more Nick Drake feel.
“False Hopes” starts out like it could be an outtake from Joni’s Blue but it evolves into a full-out rocker that would not sound out of place on late period Replacement’s album (including some Westerberg phlegmatic phrasing).
“I Feel Your Love” more channeling Joni. Deep bowed strings and jangling guitar. “I feel your love/Please let me go” what an interesting emotion.
“Walk Alone” I am sorry, but this is the best Joni album – since Joni stopped making albums. But again Marling makes it her own.
“Strange” A nice change-up – Laura does Lou (Reed). Marling delivers a nice snarl.
“Don’t Let Me Bring You Down” rocks like the Pretenders. It starts with a simmer and then comes to a full boil. Lyrically Marling cuts open a vein and lets it bleed:
Please don’t let me bring you down
Do I look like I’m fucking around?
Love seems to be some kind of trickery
Some great thing to which I am a mystery
I’m not sure I can do it
“Easy” has a nice Dylanesque lyric and melody. A nice ode to an old friend with this frank lyric: “You fell asleep listening to me linger on.”
“Gurdjeff’s Daughter” Musically this echos Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing.” This is the most musically sophisticated song on the album. According to Song Facts:
A shaman that Marling met inspired in her an interest in mysticism. This led to the English singer hunting down everything she could find about the Chilean filmmaker, author and spiritual guru Alejandro Jodorowsky. This surreal track was written about some advice that the Armenian spiritual teacher George Gurdjieff gave to his daughter, which she passed on through an encounter with Jodorowsky at a film premiere.
Marling told NME: “I was reading Joborowsky’s biography. There is this absolutely brilliant moment where he meets Gurdjieff’s daughter. Gutdjieff is like a spiritual teacher, a philosophical cult leader, and this daughter tracked Jodorowsky down at a première of El Topo in Mexico City to tell him he needed to brush up on his metaphysical skills because he’s going to be a really important part of humanity. She said, ‘I’ve been sent to teach you all these things.'”
“They ended up in a hotel room together, and she reeled off this list of his sayings, his rules for living, of how to be a moral human being.”
“I pretty much turned that verbatim into a song. Like one of them is ‘Don’t share orders for the pleasure of being obeyed’ and another is ‘Don’t be impressed by big personalities.'”
“Divine” A little bit of Dylan modernized via Counting Crows.
“How Can I” is more classic Joni sounding material. Cool minimalistic drums behind guitar and vocal.
“Howl” begins with a Pink Floyd sounding lethargic electric guitar riff. Marling pipes in with a smoky vocal. Another song that has a Lou Reed feel.
“Short Movie” Marling gets vulnerable with a Nick Drake sounding song with this key lyric:
Just a girl that can play guitar
I think I could get away with
Saying only half what I say
No, I can’t give you up
“Worship Me” ends the album. This is the most mysterious lyric on the album. Is it a women talking to her lover? Is it an uncertain god? Is it an idea talking? Musically it is meditation. There is a fascinating crackle in the background – almost like surface noise on an LP (I am listening via Spotify).
Overall this is a fine follow-up to Once I Was An Eagle. Looser and yet a step forward. I love Joni Mitchell and since she has withdrawn from the business I have to get my fix via her disciples. And like Saint Paul she does her master proud with a sophisticated mediation. . This will make the best of 2015 list for sure.
Axl's Catch Groove 