Record Reviews
📝 2096 reviews| Artist | Title | Review |
|---|---|---|
| John Fogerty | John Fogerty | |
| Robben Ford | Mystic Mile | |
| Robben Ford | The Authorized Bootleg | <p>This is a keeper from the word "go." Recorded live in 1995 (but not released until 1998) at Yoshi's in Oakland, CA, Robben Ford is joined by long-time Blue Line trio members Roscoe Beck on bass and Tom Brechtlein on drums, as well as Bill Boublitz on a baby grand piano. Although nearly all of the songs can be found on other Ford albums (most are from Handful of Blues), one of the things that makes this jazzy recording so special is that Ford is playing only an acoustic guitar. The Ray Charles gem "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" (which you WON'T find elsewhere) is simply beautiful, and on Paul Butterfield's "Lovin' Cup," it's just Ford and his guitar. The brilliance of his playing and the reason behind why so many guitar players put him at the top of their list can be found in Ford's performance on this release, alternating between lead and rhythm. The Authorized Bootleg also has great (albeit laid-back) versions of "When I Leave Here" and "Tired of Talkin'." Highly, highly recommended.</p>— <b>Ann Wickstrom</b> |
| Robben Ford | Blue Moon | |
| Stephen Foster | Comming Home In A Jar | |
| Malcom Frager | Chopin | |
| Peter Frampton | Comes Alive | |
| Robert Fripp | League Of Gentlemen | |
| Bill Frisell | Where In The World | |
| Bill Frisell | Good Dog, Happy Man | |
| Bill Frisell | Ghost Town | |
| Bill Frisell | Blues Dream | |
| Bill Frisell | The Intercontinentals | <p>Bill Frisell has been actively — some would say obsessively — exploring the depths and dimensions of American roots music since the release of Nashville in 1997. His subsequent recordings — Ghost Town, Gone Just Like a Train, Blues Dream, Good Dog, Happy Man, and The Willies — were all approaches to the various folk styles that originated on American soil: country, blues, bluegrass, field hollers, jazz, and others. He has successfully been able to blend, extract, adapt, and otherwise morph one set of music onto another through his own approach to guitar playing — the song. More than any other contemporary guitarist, Frisell is driven by the notion of song — what it entails, both in terms of musical and cultural expression, and what it implies. On The Intercontinentals, Frisell continues his investigation of American music, but as a way of understanding how it entwines with the folk musics of other nations. Onboard for this outing are Frisell's longtime collaborators Jenny Scheinman; pedal, dobro, and lap steel guitarist Greg Leisz; as well as Brazilian mega-guitarist and songwriter Vinicius Cantuaria; Greek-Macedonian vocalist and oud player Christos Govetas and Malian percussionist and vocalist Sidikki Camara. Frisell had played with Camara and Malian uber-guitarist Boubacar Traore a couple of years before and was intrigued enough to explore the connection further. The result of this unlikely union is one of the most seamlessly beautiful works Frisell has ever produced. On it, he and Cantuaria delve into the modern Malian guitar and percussion sound pioneered by Ali Farka Toure; blend it with the timeless emotional resonance of Greek folk songs via Govetas' oud and infectious Brazilian lyricism; and filter it through shimmering country landscapes and otherworldly string textures that reinvent harmonic properties to suit the lyric of the blues, song, indigenous folk musics, and the contemporary improvisational ideal.</p><p>Frisell composed the lion's share of the tunes here, but there are also contributions by Gilberto Gil, Traore, Govetas, and Cantuaria. Scheinman's violin acts as a gorgeous signpost for virtually all of these musicians to return to; her melodic sensibility and crisp tone are beacons in the often swirling, escalating, and/or cascading whorls of plucked strings, playing as many as four melodies simultaneously with winding, almost knotty scalar interchanges. What is most fascinating is that even in the vocal tunes, or those where the Malian blues effect is the prominent force, everything else in the mix fans out and creates often contrapuntal backdrops for elegant and lush, if dense, textures. Simply put, this is the busiest record Frisell has made in years, but it doesn't feel like it. His sense of "song" is so pervasive, everything here is arranged to fit its "singing." His own tone is unmistakable, as is Leisz's and Cantuaria's. The guitars are as distinct as the oud and the violin, all of them carried into the next space by hand drums. While each song does stand on its own as a harmonic and lyrical entity, with adventurous improvisation added in the spirit of true exploration, as an album they are linked by the weave of aural tapestry, dynamics, and spaciousness that is so central to Frisell's sound. And while this is more collaborative than perhaps anything he's done in a decade, it nonetheless bears his sonic and esthetic imprint. This is a remarkable album; its sets a new watermark for Frisell's sense of adventure and taste, and displays his perception of beauty in a pronounced, uncompromising, yet wholly accessible way.</p><p>— <strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p> |
| Bill Frisell | Bill Frisell, Dave Holland & Elvin Jones | <p>Bill Frisell is a jazz guitarist primarily by virtue of the influence of jazz guitar virtuoso Jim Hall; otherwise, Frisell is an amazing amalgam of stylistic influences that make him something of the Cassandra Wilson of the guitar. Melding ambient soundscapes, the twang of country music, the wide-open chords of pure Americana, and the bluesy electric sculptures of Jimi Hendrix, Frisell is one of the most original guitarists to come down the pike in a long time.</p><p>On this recording, Frisell has surrounded himself with an auspicious jazz-based rhythm section consisting of powerful, innovative drummer Elvin Jones and bassist/composer/arranger Dave Holland. That both of these musicians have played in settings as varied as those in which Frisell has found himself promises a brilliant recording on paper, and this is one of those times when that promise is fulfilled in the actual recording.</p><p>The genre bending is present from the start, with the opening “Outlaws,” which morphs from a jangly guitar intro to a bluesy, discordant jazz piece to an open, swaggering shuffle. Jones shines, both defining and pushing the beat, while Frisell offers a virtual history of jazz and blues guitar influences. At the same time that he is playing what amounts to hard bop, he is delving into the Hendrix-by-way-of-Wes-Montgomery grab bag, and the trio swings as hard as any in recent memory. Dave Holland caps the opener off with a wonderfully melodic bass solo. “Twenty Years” is a waltz that allows all three players to demonstrate their mastery of space, with understatement being the key element. “Coffaro's Theme” combines a folky sound with some ambient washes, with Frisell's trademark pedals, loops, and tape effects sounding like an organic part of the mix. “Blues Dream” is indeed both bluesy and dreamy, with a late night feel and a few harmonic elements that hint at a more foreign locale than most of the tracks on the album.</p><p>If Frisell sometimes seems to mine the same Americana-laden sound as John Fahey, he does it with fewer nods at virtuosity and a more direct approach. His cover of Stephen Foster's “Hard Times” is much looser, giving a jamboree jam approach to the piece that belies its lyrics, which are not heard here. While a bit more languid than one might expect to hear from guitarists of Foster's time, the arrangement and overall feel convey the composition's wistful, hopeful melancholy very well. The trio's rendition of “Moon River” is simply gorgeous, stripping the song of its Breakfast at Tiffany's association and portraying it as a beautiful melody with sophisticated harmonic underpinnings. Jones offers some stunning brushwork, and Holland's support for Frisell's solo flights are perfect.</p><p>One cannot help comparing this group with John Abercrombie's Gateway trio, featuring Abercrombie on guitar, Holland on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. That group has recorded four albums over a period of more than fifteen years, and I'd love to think that Frisell might find the results of this outing fascinating enough to repeat the experience periodically, though the chances of that are probably slim. Like the Gateway group, this trio demonstrates an amazing level of interplay, with Holland and Jones well able to get inside Frisell's mind and offer not only support, but also real interaction and subtle colorations. I find it easy to imagine those who like to listen to more adventurous and improvisational rock-oriented guitarists loving this album as much as jazzheads. One of the elements of the Gateway group that was intriguing was its ability to do extended group improvisations that were musically successful, like some kind of jazzy Grateful Dead. Frisell, Holland, and Jones could no doubt provide some intriguing results with group improvisation as well. How about it, guys? If not, at least we have this album to enjoy, and if you enjoy guitar improvisation by a master musician, it comes highly recommended.</p> |
| Bill Frisell | East/West | <p>The allusion of the title East/West is an apt one; this live double-CD set is a study in contrasts. Recorded just six months apart with two different trios, Bill Frisell really shows both sides of his musical personality. The "East" disc was recorded in December of 2003 at the Village Vanguard with Frisell on guitar (acoustic and electric) and loops, Tony Sherr on acoustic bass and a bit of acoustic guitar, and Kenny Wollesen on drums and percussion. The program here consists largely of well-known standards with a couple brief improvisations and a single Frisell composition. The "West" disc was recorded at Yoshi's in May of 2004 and features Frisell (guitars, loops), Viktor Krauss (acoustic bass), and, well, Kenny Wollesen on drums (no other percussion), but this time the program is half Frisell compositions, a couple pop songs, and the traditional "Shenandoah." On the "East" disc, only three of the ten tunes are longer than five minutes, but on the "West" disc only one track is shorter than eight minutes! The preponderance of standards on the "West" disc keeps the players mostly on the inside tip, even eliciting laughter from some audience members when Frisell hits the intro to the old warhorse "People" (to which he replies, "you think I'm joking or what?"). They do loosen up a bit at the end, for a wonderful arrangement of Willie Nelson's "Crazy" with two acoustic guitars and looping aural detritus, and there's a fun gallop through "Tennessee Flat Top Box." The group improvisations also add a bit of spark. Folks who discovered Frisell in the late '90s with albums like Nashville are going to love this set.</p><p>Then there are the folks who discovered Frisell in the '80s as a major player in the downtown new music scene along with folks like John Zorn and Wayne Horvitz (fellow bandmates in the groundbreaking and genre-smashing Naked City band). For them, Frisell seemed to be losing his edge a bit as his trademark skronk was traded for acoustic textures. Richter 858 and the Grammy-winning (!) Unspeakable saw him revisiting that earlier sound to some degree, mainly through more extensive use of delays and loops, but the "West" disc here shows he's really back. "Heard It Through the Grapevine" starts out a bit slow, but right from the outset the delay plays a large role, ping-ponging ugly harmonics back and forth as an intro before hitting the first verse. It gradually picks up momentum, until the delays return and Frisell adopts a roaring backward-sounding tone for the end. "Blues for Los Angeles" has even more great looping, some pretty menacing sounds, and some fantastic soloing. "Pipe Down" (originally on Nashville) gets a much slower deconstructed treatment, then kicks into high gear with a serious groove. This set is way more adventurous than the "East" one, and might surprise some old fans who haven't been paying close attention of late. Frisell retreats a bit from the edge for the last track, a nice reading of "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" where the delay plays little to no role. With both bands, the rhythm section offers great support, but interestingly, Tony Scherr gets a bit of solo space while Viktor Krauss gets none. Then there's the fact that the album is called East/West, but the "West" disc (the later of the dates) is programmed as the first disc, so you listen to the sets in reverse chronological order as well as the opposite of what the title implies (perhaps "West/East" would have been more appropriate). And while this set is indeed a study in contrast, the common thread is the absolute guitar mastery and singular style and tone of Frisell. His use of double stops, open string voicings, and chordal leads in his playing, not to mention that slippery tone, makes him one of the most recognizable voices in music no matter what the context. And it's clear that Frisell is at home in any context, from playing chestnuts like "The Days of Wine and Roses" to John Zorn speed metal. The fairly naked trio context of East/West really gives the listener a chance to appreciate exactly what he can do, no matter which musical direction they're coming from.</p>— <b>Sean Westergaard</b> |
| Blind Boy Fuller | Heart Ease Blues | |
| Kenny G | Breathless | |
| Peter Gabriel | Peter Gabriel | <P>Peter Gabriel tells why he left Genesis in "Solsbury Hill," the key track on his 1977 solo debut. Majestically opening with an acoustic guitar, the song finds Gabriel's talents gelling, as the words and music feed off each other, turning into true poetry. It stands out dramatically on this record, not because the music doesn't work, but because it brilliantly illustrates why Gabriel had to fly on his own. Though this is undeniably the work of the same man behind The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, he's turned his artiness inward, making his music coiled, dense, vibrant. There is still some excess, naturally, yet it's the sound of a musician unleashed, finally able to bend the rules as he wishes. That means there are less atmospheric instrumental sections, as there were on his last few records with Genesis, but unhinged bizarreness in the arrangements, compositions, and productions, as the opener "Morbund the Burgermeister" vividly illustrates. He also has turned sleeker, sexier, capable of turning out a surging rocker of "Modern Love." If there is any problem with Peter Gabriel, it's that Gabriel is trying too hard to show the range of his talents, thereby stumbling occasionally with the doo wop-to-cabaret "Excuse Me" or the cocktail jazz of "Waiting for the Big One" (or, the lyric "you've got me cookin'/I'm a hard-boiled egg" on "Humdrum"). Still, much of the record teems with invigorating energy (as on "Slowburn," or the orchestral-disco pulse of "Down the Dolce Vita"), and the closer "Here Comes the Flood" burns with an anthemic intensity that would later become his signature in the '80s. Yes, it's an imperfect album, but that's a byproduct of Gabriel's welcome risk-taking — the very thing that makes the album work, overall.</P><P>— <B>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</B></P> |
| Peter Gabriel | Plays Live - Highlights | <p>Released after Security brought Peter Gabriel a gold record and Top 40 hit, the double-album Plays Live summarizes his first four solo albums quite well. Though these performances aren't as fearless as the ones that accompanied his first solo tours, they are surging and tight. Gabriel is a consummate performer and even if the tapes were slightly cleaned up in the studio, his passion is apparent throughout the record. It's a very good live album, but it really is only necessary for die-hard fans. [In 2002, Universal released a 12 song "highlights" disc.]</p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p><hr/><p>Although he had thrived on live performance as a member of Genesis, Peter Gabriel waited until he was four albums and six years deep into his solo career -- with the hit album Security and the Top 40 "Shock the Monkey" chalked up to his credit -- before he took the plunge into concert recording with this album. Released as a double-LP and two-CD set (but also later in a single CD "highlights" edition, missing four songs), this is a fine summing up of the artist's early solo years. Most of his biggest hits and key album tracks are represented in tight, inspired performances -- the notes concede that some of what is here was sweetened after the fact in the studio, but the immediacy of the stage performances wasn't lost in the process, and that emotional edge and intimacy give songs such as "Solsbury Hill," "I Don't Remember," and "Shock the Monkey" a sharper, deeper resonance than their studio renditions, fine as those are. It's that side of the performance that makes this release well worth owning, for anyone enamored of Gabriel's voice or songs, even if nothing here wholly supplants the studio originals. And the band -- Tony Levin (bass, stick, backing vocals), Jerry Marotta (drums, vocals), David Rhodes (guitar, vocals), and Larry Fast (keyboards) -- is in excellent form as well. What is lacking is the cohesiveness that one might have gotten from a live album assembled from a single concert; derived from a multitude of shows, the individual songs are excellent unto themselves, but there's little sense (or even the illusion) from song to song of any forward momentum across the album, and that might be the one major flaw here. But this is a suitable capstone to the first phase of Gabriel's solo career, and also a peculiar one in certain respects -- given the effort that obviously went into assembling the album, the packaging is almost minimalist by the standards of live albums and double albums of the era (the LP version even put both platters into a single sleeve).</p><p>—<strong>Bruce Eder</strong></p> |
| Peter Gabriel | So - 25th Aniversary Edition | <p>Peter Gabriel introduced his fifth studio album, So, with "Sledgehammer," an Otis Redding-inspired soul-pop raver that was easily his catchiest, happiest single to date. Needless to say, it was also his most accessible, and, in that sense it was a good introduction to So, the catchiest, happiest record he ever cut. "Sledgehammer" propelled the record toward blockbuster status, and Gabriel had enough songs with single potential to keep it there. There was "Big Time," another colorful dance number; "Don't Give Up," a moving duet with Kate Bush; "Red Rain," a stately anthem popular on album rock radio; and "In Your Eyes," Gabriel's greatest love song, which achieved genuine classic status after being featured in Cameron Crowe's classic Say Anything. These all illustrated the strengths of the album: Gabriel's increased melodicism and ability to blend African music, jangly pop, and soul into his moody art rock. Apart from these singles, plus the urgent "That Voice Again," the rest of the record is as quiet as the album tracks of Security. The difference is, the singles on that record were part of the overall fabric; here, the singles are the fabric, which can make the album seem top-heavy (a fault of many blockbuster albums, particularly those of the mid-'80s). Even so, those songs are so strong, finding Gabriel in a newfound confidence and accessibility, that it's hard not to be won over by them, even if So doesn't develop the unity of its two predecessors.</p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
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