CBAD Review: All the reviews of the Vampire Weekend album seem to mention “pop mastery” and that made me think of the original pop-masters, The Beatles. Rather than just throw up one of the classics, I decided to reach back just a few years and grab the soundtrack to the $100,000,000 Cirque du Soleil production of the Beatles’ themed “Love” in Las Vegas.
The show, given all of the hype, was merely decent. The soundtrack, while not revolutionary or groundbreaking in any real way, is none-the-less a pretty fun mix. Great for reading the paper to on Sunday morning or background party music for the jazz challenged, that sort of thing… Some interesting surprises along the way as well, even if you’ve heard these songs 100’s of times.
Pro Review: If boiled down to a simple synopsis, the Beatles’ LOVE sounds radical: assisted by his father, the legendary Beatles producer George, Giles Martin has assembled a remix album where familiar Fab Four tunes aren’t just refurbished, they’re given the mash-up treatment, meaning different versions of different songs are pasted together to create a new track. Here, the arrangements have everything pushed up toward the front, creating a Wall of Sound upon which certain individual parts or samples can stand out in how they contrast to the rest. This means that LOVE can indeed sound good — particularly in a 5.1 surround mix as elements swirl between the front and back speakers, but these are all window-dressing on songs that retain all their identifiable elements from the original recordings. And that’s the frustrating thing about this entire project: far from being a bold reinvention, a Beatles album for the 21st century, the Martins didn’t go far enough in their mash-ups, creating new music out of old, turning it into something mind-blowing. -Stephen Thomas Erlewine
CBAD Review: Love this album, classic Scofield. Straight-up enough to work at a cocktail party without weirding out your guests, but interesting enough to stand up to repeated listenings. Also great for an easy Sunday morning just hanging out.
Pro Review: John Scofield has continued to grow and evolve year by year. This 1995 set is quite blues-oriented, sometimes boppish and fairly laid-back, almost sounding like a Jimmy Smith or Groove Holmes date from the 1960s. Larry Goldings (who doubles occasionally on piano) is almost as significant in the ensembles as the leader/guitarist, and has become the most important arrival on organ since Joey DeFrancesco and Barbara Dennerlein. Many of the tunes (all Scofield originals) use parade-like rhythms propelled by Idris Muhammad and Dennis Irwin (particularly the eccentric “Peculiar” and “Groove Elation”), and the interplay between the two lead voices is quite appealing. Scofield is quite unselfish as far as taking solo space goes (he clearly enjoys the light funky grooves set by Goldings), and the results are quite appealing. -Scott Yanow
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Pro Review: Taj Mahal’s been chasing the blues around the world for years, but rarely with the passion, energy, and clarity he brought to his first three albums. What’s most striking is Mahal’s way of making even the oldest themes sound as if they’re part of a new era. Not just through the vigor of his playing–relentlessly propulsive, yet stripped down compared with the six-string ornamentations of the original masters of country blues–but through his singing, which possesses a knowing insouciance distinct to post-Woodstock counterculture hipsters. It’s the voice of an informed young man who knows he’s offering something deep to an equally hip and receptive audience. –Ted Drozdowski
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CBAD Reader Pick: Hey Sharon Jones, shove it.
Pro Review: Like its predecessor, Spirit in the Dark, 1972’s Young, Gifted and Black found Aretha moving with soul music’s elite into a progressive phase that opened up the emotional content of her work even further. “All the King’s Horses” mourns the death of her first marriage, while “Day Dreaming” and “A Brand New Me” point toward what we’d now call “healing.” Two stabs at social comment, Nina Simone’s title cut and, intriguingly, Elton John’s “Border Song,” round out this impressive portrait. –Rickey Wright