MUSIC NOTES
All reviews based on a five star rating system
Van Morrison
A Night in San Francisco
(Polydor/Polygram)
With his last few releases approaching snooze-control, it's only natural to see a Van Morrison live record as a plain holding-pattern move. In fact, one glance at the song-list sets off alarm bells: isn't this the third time around for "Vanlose Stairway"? But the proof is in the listening, and it turns out this two-disc, 22-cut album--recorded on two Bay Area nights last year--is for people who miss the old rambunctious, eclectic Van-the-Man. There's little meditative about his rowdy, Celtic-flavoured reworkings of early fare like "Moondance" or "Tupelo Honey", and even his mellower recent stuff, like "In the Garden" and "So Quiet in Here" is interrupted by surprising snippets of tunes from James Brown, Sly Stone, and Rogers and Hart (as in "My Funny Valentine"). Expected guests like Georgie Fame, John Lee Hooker, saxist Candy Dulfer, and guitarist Ronnie Johnson (Morrison's current musical director) turn up the fun quotient, and he has bluesers Junior Wells and Jimmy Witherspoon shouting some of the songs which first inspired the Belfast Cowboy in his pre-Them days. He also shows the sense to have other singers tackle some of his over-exposed ditties, like Hooker's growling "Gloria" or Brian Kennedy's subtle take on the sentimental "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?". But even without the cameos, the record offers something Morrison hasn't delivered in years: real excitement .
Boz Scaggs
Some Change
(Virgin/EMI)
In the 1970s, Boz Scaggs was an Al Green for people scared of black music, and little happened in his sporadic subsequent output to dispel that notion. The thing is, you imitate something long enough, sometimes you turn into the real thing. Actually, Boz was always a guitarist and singer of excellent taste, going back to his Texas days with the Steve Miller Blues Band. Surprisingly, some of that early enthusiasm infuses Some Change, a record more engaging than it has any right to be. His ersatz soul-man vocals are still up front, but the Jim Nabors goofiness--which always threatened to put another "O" in his first name--has fallen away in favour of a more genuinely ruminative style. Scaggs played most of the instruments, along with co-producer and drummer Ricky Fataar (although guest key-boardists like Booker T. Jones and Smitty Smith pop up), giving the album an intimate, late-night feel. After a clumsy, pop-eager opening tune, it settles down to older-but-wiser observations of wayward love. And even if there's little revelatory in the lyrics, tunes like "Time", "Illusion" and the gently propulsive title cut have a seductive sweep that makes everything feel as profound as a second scotch with a long-lost friend.
Alison Moyet
Essex
(Columbia/Sony)
It's hard to believe that the big-voiced Moyet, as part of the pre-Eurythmics Yaz (or Yazoo, in some places), was once a tower of soul in the vanilla-synth world of "New Wave" music. Now that everybody's rediscovered dance music, not to mention Aretha Franklin (the original edition, anyway), this once-innovative diva is just another singer, churning out would-be hits in the faceless English pop machine. Sure, she wrote most of these forgettable numbers, but she sounds numb and detached in the Pet Shop Boys-like production provided by Ian Broudie and Pete Glenister. The only time she wakes up, ironically, is for one acoustic-guitar-based cut written by Jules Shear. But even "Whispering Your Name" is shot in the house remix ending the disc. What's next, hitting the disco-revival circuit with Gloria Gaynor?
The Brian Setzer Orchestra
(Hollywood/WEA)
It's funny what happens to some rockers as they get older: as the edge goes, they slowly become whatever they were rebelling against. Of course, Setzer's retro-billy Stray Cats were always in pose mode, and his guitar often betrayed more intelligence than the song selection let on. Now he's gone the Colin James route and embraced music made before he was born. Although many of the tunes were written by Setzer, they're intended to recall the late-'40s milieu in which big-band, blues, and hillbilly sounds collided for the first time. But primordial chemistry like that can't be recreated, and anyway, his voice isn't up to the task. His off-key Holiday Inn croon sounds silly on pseudo-raunchy items like "Ball and Chain" and "Sittin' on It All the Time", and the sub-Jack Jones impression is driven home by ill-advised covers of "Route 66" and (I kid you not) "A Nightingale Sang in Barkley Square". His guitar-playing, though used sparely, is always tops, and you have to wonder when Setzer'll stop kidding around and put out a smart instrumental record.
Sir Douglas Quintet
Day Dreaming at Midnight
(Elektra/WEA)
Sir Doug is back, and it's a testament to changing tastes that his retooled '60s sound fits in perfectly with today's jangly alternative music. What's startling is how little it's retooled. The Beatle hair may be gone, but the Austin, Texas-via-Sooke, B.C. songwriter is still purveying his infectious blend of Tex-Mex rhythms, bluesy singing, cheesy garage-band effects, and wall-o'-guitar twang (maybe too much guitar on some tracks). It helps that veteran Quinteters, like Farfisa-man Augie Meyers and guitarist Louie Ortega, are back, and they're joined by Creedence Clearwater rhythm-men Doug Clifford and Stu Cook. Son Shawn Sahm is also in the fold, on guitars and vocals, and he co-wrote the set's catchiest tune, "Too Little Too Late", with his gruff-voiced dad. "Intoxication" and "Dylan Come Lately" are other standouts, with lyrics about the music Sahm still loves to death.
Stanley Jordan
Bolero
(Arista/BMG)
Like the world really needs a 23-minute fusion version of Ravel's sensual masterpiece. It is worth hearing once for the African rhythms and odd instruments (shakuhachi flute and jazzy flugelhorn) wafting through the mix. But the whole thing is anchored--as in sunk--by one of those maddening click tracks which made the "Hooked On..." records so annoying in the early '80s. An antique air hangs over the rest, as well, with '70s tunes like "Betcha By Golly Now" and Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" showing up. The effect is intentional, but Jordan doesn't really add anything new to the oldies, except that which any modern studio can provide. Mainly, it's painful to see how the young guitarist, with that unique, fingerboard-tapping style, has failed to live up to his early promise. What good does it do to swamp a revolutionary technique in a sea of dated synthesizers? This mindless crossover approach even makes the 4- minute solo closer sound more like an apologetic afterthought than a hint of sweet things to come.
McCoy Tyner Big Band
Journey
(Verve/Polygram)
In which John Coltrane's favourite pianist and enduring jazz warrior gets back to his compositional roots in a well-recorded set of tunes in the vein of his classic turn-of-the-'70s output for Blue Note and Milestone. With pals Billy Harper, Joe Ford, and Steve Turré in the horn section, and with Avery Sharpe and Aaron Scott on bass and drums, the large group delivers punchy new versions of Tyner's " Peresina" and "Blues on the Corner" and lively Latin grooves on three cuts written by bandmembers (Turré's romantic "Juanita" is the stand-out). Still, the most effective piece mutes the ensemble for a lovely Dianne Reeves reading of Sammy Cahn's "You Taught My Heart to Sing", with lyrics by Tyner and a fine trumpet McCoy Tyner solo from Jerry Gonzales. This is the blend he tried years ago with Phyllis Hyman, and its success points to putting away the orchestra in favour of a quiet duo record of standards and more rediscovered originals.
Cyrus Chestnut
Revelation
(Atlantic/WEA)
This young New Orleans pianist, known for supporting trumpeter Donald Harrison and singer Betty Carter, is more playful than Marcus Roberts, but he shares the latter's encyclopedic grasp of jazz piano idioms--albeit towards the modern end. With subtle help from bassist Christopher Thomas and drummer Clarence Penn (although a few cuts are solo), Chestnut recalls Thelonious Monk on the title cut, Herbie Nichols on the sprightly "Blues for Nita", and Horace Silver on the groovin' "Cornbread Puddin' ". He also assays Massenet's brief "Elegie" and approaches the traditional gospel of "Sweet Hour of Prayer. If the record has a flaw, it's that Chestnut favours the same few keys, and sometimes drives his homage-laden pieces a few minutes longer than necessary. Maybe after backing others for so long, he can barely contain himself; still, I'd rather see his prodigious talent meted out in tastier bites.
