This week, a Coltrane tribute, reinvented folk songs from Rhiannon Giddens and Radie Peat, and the return of Beck.
This week, a Coltrane tribute, reinvented folk songs from Rhiannon Giddens and Radie Peat, and the return of Beck.
Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves Remake A John Coltrane Classic
This year marks the centennial of the towering jazz sax player and composer John Coltrane, and today, sax player Branford Marsalis and his quartet have released an album with the noted jazz singer Dianne Reeves called Dedicated To You. It’s essentially a remake of the album that Coltrane made with singer Johnny Hartman in 1963. It’s a daring choice, but the band, especially pianist Joey Calderazzo, is up to the challenge. My favorite track on the original album was (and is) “Lush Life,” and the Marsalis/Reeves version does well not to pale in comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d67zw9hSgoU&list=RDd67zw9hSgoU&start_radio=1
Beck Returns, But Only At Night
Beck has always been a restless sort, with each album refusing to follow in its predecessors’ footsteps. His new album, Ride Lonesome, comes seven years after Beck’s last record, the synth-laden, Pharrell Williams-produced Hyperspace, and it is a definite left turn. Sonically, it recalls Beck’s 2014 LP Morning Phase, which in turn grew out of the 2002 LP Sea Change. Like those earlier records, Ride Lonesome features lush orchestrations and sees Beck returning to Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) for production. In terms of mood, it could almost be his answer to the 1958 proto-concept album Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely, in that it is a collection of songs that all deal with solitude, with heartbreak, and with the fugitive thoughts that keep you up at night. A standout track is “In The Night,” a lovely, poignant song that features acoustic guitars, and while Beck uses synthesizers here, most of the strings and other orchestral sounds are real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNYj8R1Aq3s&list=RDXNYj8R1Aq3s&start_radio=1
Lankum’s Radie Peat Reinvents An Old Folk Song
Radie Peat has already made a reputation for herself as lead singer of Ireland’s drone-folk heroes Lankum and the dark folk group ØXN. But on November 13, she’ll unveil her debut solo LP, called No Human Tongue Can Tell. This week she released the single “The Moon And Stars,” a folk song in a spellbinding new version. The original song hints at an unwanted pregnancy, and perhaps an abortion; Peat rewrites some of the lyrics to offer the woman’s perspective on the story – a story of betrayal and desperation that she suggests is timeless. The melody has moments that recall “Love Henry,” which Peat recorded (in a chilling, dread-infused version) with ØXN, but the drum-and-bass production casts the song adrift from both its original time and its original sonic terrain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khmR8SoWShk
Adam Wilzie’s Posthumous Collaboration With Johann Johannsson
Friendship Survival Guide is a remarkable duo album by two friends: Adam Wilzie, who co-founded the droney electronic group Stars Of The Lid and now works with film composer Dustin O’Halloran in their post-classical duo A Winged Victory For The Sullen, and the late Johann Johannsson, the award-winning film composer from Iceland who died suddenly in 2018. The pair had been friends for many years and, in 2013, began working on a collaborative album. But when Johannsson won the Golden Globe for his music to the film The Theory Of Everything, he was suddenly catapulted into the upper echelon of the movie industry and the duo album had to be set aside. Eventually, Wiltzie (with the Johannsson family’s permission) went back to those tapes and completed the album – in the studio of famed engineer and producer Steve Albini, who would also die suddenly a few months after the project was finished. The album is a series of almost orchestral electronic drones, vaguely psychedelic and haunted by sonic ghosts (Johannsson left behind literal tape loops, which decay into ghostly sounds as they continue playing). “Dazed And Reflective Glory” also features electric guitar, fuzzed out, droning and distant, and when there is a chord change the impact is both sonic and emotional.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG3Rn7yppJ4&list=RDfG3Rn7yppJ4&start_radio=1
Rhiannon Giddens Mines American Roots Music And Poetry
Since her beginnings with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a group that reclaimed the history of Black string band music, Rhiannon Giddens has become a powerful and unpredictable voice in the music world. Her solo career has included everything from Celtic folk to opera, and her new album, out today, adds poetry to the mix. Hope Is The Thing With Feathers takes its title from the famous poem by Emily Dickinson, which Giddens sets to her own music. But the album also looks back to her roots in Americana (and includes former Chocolate Drop fiddler Justin Robinson); one standout track is this arrangement of Ola Belle Reed’s “High On A Mountain.” It’s a relaxed, progressive bluegrass version of the tune, with banjo by longtime collaborator Dirk Powell, accordion from her duo (and life) partner Franceso Turrisi, and guitar played by the Congolese-born, Dublin-based Niwel Tsumbu (who isn’t so well-known here, but is a fixture on the Irish new music scene).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTsg2iYdXDs&list=RDMTsg2iYdXDs&start_radio=1