July/August 2001
Ralph Towner, "Anthem," 2001
"Anthem" is an incredible study in understated elegance. This is a crystal pure
recording that continues Ralph Towner's tradition, begun in 1980 with the live
recording "Solo Concert", of musical leaps of faith using solo guitar
with an approach that succeeds because of his rare willingness to take
improvisational risks combined with creative genius. Towner is an expert
at creating chords that hang in the air and await resolution, fostering
a suspenseful expectation as on the ethereal "Solitary Woman". "Anthem" and
"The Lutemaker" reveal the kind of compostional ingenuity and solemnity that
inspired an Apollo crew to carry a young Towner's "Ghost Beads" to space.
The darting and angular melody of "The Lutemaker" is especially unique to
Towner's unconventional writing style. You don't have to strain very hard to hear
the Bill Evans influence in "Gloria's Step" and "Very Late", numbers which
dovetail the carefree spirit of jazz with an astonishing technical virtuosity
of the classical player. Having received much of his early didactic training
under classical guitarist Karl Scheit in Vienna, Towner's work in jazz has
subsequently become forever indelibly imprinted with a classical nuance, but
never more so than in his solo work, as here. Towner once said that
vibraphonist Gary Burton was such a stalwart partner in a duet format that
playing next to him was like sitting next to the Hoover Dam. With "Anthem"
it's apparent that Towner, by himself, has secured that same rock-solid consistency.
Don Conoscenti, "Paradox of Grace," 2001
Death is an uncomfortable and difficult topic to broach even in song, which
should be a safe haven for speaking to unspeakable human dramas. Only a very few
popular songs have successfully done justice to the theme of death, most
notably Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" and Mike and the Mechanics' "In the Living
Years". Don Conoscenti likewise succeeds with his heart-rending and chilling vignette
"The Other Side", which examines the tragedy of death and grief juxtaposed against
a promise of renewal and hope. The first phrases of "The Other Side" passing through
Conoscenti's lips are augmented in lonely desolation by the cry of a didgeridoo,
a solitary and soulful vocal delivery tolling like Jackson Browne's. Over the next few
lines Conoscenti is joined by Ellis Paul in magical and meteoric harmony, emoting
in a palpable and cathartic way that Browne has even never before achieved.
The double capo clamped on Conoscenti's fretboard on the cover of "Paradox of Grace"
is a tipoff that the music inside is indeed resonant with the ringing of open
strings. "Molly" has that kind of rhythmic vibrance which David Wilcox made
his signature on "Eye of the Hurricane". If one listens closely, you can catch a
hint of a debt of influence from the Beatles here and there. The intro
to Woody Guthrie's "Vigilante Man" is a banjo rendering of "Within You Without
You" on Sergeant Pepper. "Only the Truth" features a slide riff which recalls
George Harrison's "If Not For You". Within "Paradox of Grace" lies some extraordinary
neo-folk befitting the desert mountain origins in which Conoscenti writes and resides:
music which is at once mystical, stark and moving.
Freddie Bryant, "Live at Smoke," 2000
Not every jazz guitarist whose M.O. is a nylon-string guitar sounds like Earl
Klugh. Some sound much cooler. Somewhere in the musical spectrum far from
the wavelength where smooth jazz is hunkered, there's a place where be-bop blends
into bossa nova, and Freddie Bryant is there. Though much of "Live at Smoke"
is straight-ahead jazz, Bryant makes some compelling forays into polyrhythmic
and world territory on the samba-tinged "Spiral" and "Tikki Tikki Gamela" in
7/16th time. Even the tune which carries the same name as his supporting band,
"Kaleidoscope", has a modal ethnic and almost Klezmer-like mood much as some
of the jazz done by Dave Liebman. Kaleidoscope's lineup of guitar, two
saxophones, trumpet, piano, bass, drums and percussion pretty much assures
that this music is a brimming and generous ensemble sound, and never more
than on the opening cut "More World... More Jazz" which plows ahead with sax and brass
lines scattering helter-skelter. Unlike most CDs which front-load the best tunes
first, on "Smoke" the song order seems backwards... the tunes get more interesting
and the guitar playing more virtuosic with successive tracks. In fact,
Bryant is barely perceptible on the opening cut, highlighting one
reservation about this CD. The production occasionally leaves the spotlight on Bryant
slightly askance, his excellent guitar work sometimes lost in tonal
muddiness. In general though, Freddie Bryant weaves a unique musical tapestry of disparate styles
exemplified by two of his mentors, jazzman Gene Bertoncini and classical guitarist
Ben Verdery. Bryant's tapestry though, is all his own.
Don Ross, "Huron Street," 2001
For musicians and composers there's something about young adulthood which fosters
an intense creativity. There's conversely something about maturity which
frees the artist to reach deeply within the heart in order to place an
emphatic stylistic stamp upon his work. We get the benefit of both on "Huron
Street", where Don Ross revisits twelve fingerstyle tunes he wrote when just embarking
on a life journey that ultimately led to winning the prestigious National
Guitar Fingerstyle Championship at Winfield twice, in 1988 and 1996. "Big Buck"
opens this CD with the kind of joyful and masterful fingerpicking typical of
Leo Kottke's enthusiastic early work. "Thin Air" is a conglomerate of slapping,
chiming and pleasantly blindsiding chord resolutions with trade-off jamming
between Ross and bassist Jordan O'Connor, recalling the telepathy of Michael
Hedges with Mike Manring. Ross' music is not the plodding and timid guitarwork
that sometimes is associated with new age, despite the fact that
Narada is widely known as a new age label. Ross can really kick up some phosphor-bronze
dust with his syncopated six-string sense on tunes such as "Loaded. Leather. Moonroof.",
"Zarzuela", "Wall of Glass", "Lucy Watusi" and "Three Hands". On the other hand,
the subdued intensity of "Catherine" is as subtle a musical landscape as the glint of
morning sunshine on the shimmer of spring leaves.
Kelly Joe Phelps, "Sky Like a Broken Clock," 2001
Fans of Kelly Joe Phelps won't have the opportunity with "Sky Like a Broken Clock"
to gush over another of his collections of smooth acoustic slide guitar.
There's nary one tune where steel hits the strings. The great news is that it's great music
nonetheless, like discovering a brand-new artist. Phelps' excursion into acoustic
fingerpicking on this disc doesn't mean that he has totally abandoned the blues.
Still, I would have to say that it's the only acoustic blues recording I've
ever heard which hardly flirts with a 12-bar format. He adroitly intones
a pleasant gruffness similar to Mark Knopfler's vocals, and though he came into
singing for a living late in his career, you can tell he knew naturally how to do
it all along. Phelps' lyrical poetry may be the only vestigial hint of a career
begun playing jazz in the spirit of Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. His music
on "Sky" is decidely folk, pointing 180 degrees away from an abstract freejazz
genre. The abstractions that Phelps captures here are not those of musical
notes, but of words forming oblique and cryptic, often dark, narratives.
This is KJP's first recording with a band, string bass and percussion, done live without overdubs.
"Sky Like a Broken Clock" exudes a spirit of spontaneity and honesty.
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com