Reporting live from Brooklyn: I am here for most of the month and have been staying with my wife Dariece in a lovely brownstone near Fort Greene Park. Here is a grab bag review of CDs from the collection of the house’s owners, Jason and Eliza Factor (a huge thanks for their hospitality).
“Monk in Tokyo” - this 1963 concert, released posthumously in 2001, is everything one would hope to hear at a Thelonius Monk gig - brilliant music, Charlie Rouse’s tenor sax solos (possibly the most underrated tenor player in the jazz world - why isn’t he as well-known as Coltrane, Rollins, Young, Murray, etc?), a killer rhythm section of Butch Warren on bass and Frank Dunlop on drums), and, of course, Monk being Monk. Every note is perfect.
“Passion” by Peter Gabriel - the music used for Martin Scorcese’s film “The Last Temptation of Christ.” This CD is one that I am playing daily. A brilliant mix of electronics, Middle Eastern instruments and techniques, solos from the great Shakti violinist L. Shankar, and a stellar group of musicians. A must-have. One I need to buy ASAP.
“The Gospel According to Ike and Tina” by Ike and Tina Turner - Jesus, Proud Mary, no Joseph.
“Zyryab” by Paco de Lucia - Dariece and I went to see Woody Allen’s hilarious new film “Vicky Christina Barcelona” (go see it), which features lots of Spanish guitar music. I found this de Lucia CD from 1990 in the Factor collection. Most of my experience with his guitar music was in association with Al di Meola and that style of “fasterfasterfaster” speed-driven guitar porn (I am partial to their work together on “Mediterranean Sunset”); this recording is along those lines. The title track features piano work from jazz legend Chick Corea and Jorge Pardo on flute. Its sense of dynamics and musicality towers above the remaining seven six-string sprints on the CD.
“Seeds of Man” by Woody Guthrie - not a CD but a 401-page novel by the folk music legend (the Woodys Guthrie and Allen, incidentally, were both former Brooklyn residents). I mention it because in Chapter Nine is a section where the main characters are singing songs during the road trip that propels the narrative. One of the songs is actually a snippit - “Good mornin’, Mister Zip Zip Zippp/With y’r hair cut jest as short as/Hair cut jest as short as/With y’r hair cut jest as short as mine” - which are the same lyrics used by Tom Waits in one of the songs on his 1977 “Foreign Affairs” recording (I think the song’s title is “Haircut”; it has been a few years since I listened to that particular album.). I have no knowledge regarding whether Waits had ever read this novel and took these lines for his own work. Guthrie may have even taken them from someone else. One more example of “Good composers borrow, great composers steal.” The book is great. Think of “On the Road” if written by John Steinbeck and there is the tone of the novel. Naturalistic, funny, carnal, and I have another two hundred pages of it to read.
And now to catch a train to Manhattan…see you in September…bonus points for those of you readers who recognized the Steely Dan reference in this review’s title…
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
You must log in to post a comment.