Stan Getz – Focus

In my early 20's, I first got exposed to jazz, and still love most of those crowd pleasers, including one I'm sure everyone's heard of: the so-smooth-as-butter that even the Starbucks generation has it on their iPod: Getz/Gilberto.

Girl From Ipanema has been so played and covered and tastefully coffee shopped that it's hard to remember sometimes that Stan Getz did amazing and different stuff both before and after the Bossa Nova thing. He could have easily ridden that train until the end of his days.

But it's not Getz/Gilberto, or even his later work that I want to turn you on to.

It's his 1961 masterpiece: Focus.

Allow me to set the stage.  Another album I love is Joanna Newsom's 2006 Ys album.  In Ys (pronounced like "ease"), Joanna sat down on pedal harp and recorded 5 long original songs in very few takes.  Once the recording was finished, she worked with composer Van Dyke Parks to create an orchestral score to lay behind her recording.  It's an amazing accomplishment, and I think it's kind of cool that Stan Getz did kind of the reverse on Focus.

Getz commissioned big band composer Eddie Sauter, to make him an album of modern classical pieces for strings, bass and harp, which Sauter delivered.

Now, I don't have the liner notes in front of me anymore, and can't find them on the internet anymore, but as I remember it, Getz laid down his saxophone takes on his first listen of each track!!!

I liked the whole album, but I remember about a minute into Night Rider just having a feeling like all the air was being sucked out of my chest.  Have a listen:

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It's well known that the sax is improvised, but if it's true that he improvised the first time he heard the recordings, then it just blows me away, that he was able to create this level of excitement and invention without any planning at all.

Also worth listening to is another exciting track, I'm Late, I'm Late:

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And a mellower ballad, I Remember When:

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Ahmad Jamal – At The Pershing / But Not For Me

My dad turned me on to Poinciana the other day… holy crap, what an amazing jazz song.    So, for starters, just listen to someone take a jazz piano standard and turn it into something definitive:

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This is just a fantastic merging of percussion and piano.  I wish there was video so I could see if they had halos over their heads or something.

Another spectacular one, Woody'n You:

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A more chilled out but equally impressive Moonlight in Vermont:

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It was hard for me to pick out highlights, because I've just been listening to the whole album over and over again.

Forest Swords – Dagger Paths

I've been slowly but surely listening to this short-but-sweet album from the UK Band Forest Swords.

I'm a big fan of the spare, spooky music from the old spaghetti westerns and I'm sure Ennio Morricone would approve of Dagger Paths.  The album starts with Miarches, eerie echoing surf guitar and dubstep-like female vocals.

Holyoke Mist could seriously could be the soundtrack to a modern spaghetti western, with dramatic drums and spooky strings.

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I'm ready to call Janelle Monae the Andre 3000 replacement for the new decade, and these two albums the new Speakerboxxx.   Big Boi appears on Janelle's new album, and Janelle of course appears on Big Boi's new album, and the production is so mind-blowing and consistent you could put these two albums together on shuffle and call it a new wonder album.

Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (which you can listen to in its entirety on his myspace page) is a wonder, and an easy sequel to his half of Outkast's Speakerboxxx album.  He finally realized Andre was not going to get his shit together and just went ahead and released a beautiful, smart, sexy, dirty album the continues along the same frame as some of the best of Outkast.

Janelle Monae's album has been out for about a month, and I still get frustrated with how unbelievably talented she is.  She can sing, rap, write, and just generally kick ass with her own weird, robotic style.  I think Tightrope is the most amazing hip-hop/pop song since Hey Ya.  I have been wearing this song OUT and just finally saw the video, which only enraged me more because I was like, "Oh, she's an amazing and unique dancer too?!"

And lesser but also cool is the video for the remix:

So get these two albums and bump them, because there's so many enjoyable songs between the two of them that I want to barf.  I've been waiting for Chico dusty for a year, and didn't realize I was going to get a double album of Big Boi style goodness.

Both of these brand new rap albums are good in their own way.

When some people listen to new rap albums, they're paying primarily to the music and the rhythms to hear if it's good or worth listening to.  I don't.

To me, a rapper needs to have something to say.  Seriously.  You're just talking, motherfucker, and it's 2010.  Do you have something to say, or are you just filling space?  Are you going to tell me something about your personal struggle… honestly, so I can compare my experience to yours and see if I can learn anything, even from your mistakes?  Or, are you just going to brag about the same animal shit that a dog rapper would rap about if he could talk?

So, here's two rappers who, to some extent, have something to say about what they're going through (and manage to place it well alongside some solid, striking music).

Drake, is a Lil' Wayne protege, and talks like he's a made man.  He bitches about why he's only known the people who surround him for less than a year, and then at the same time wonders why his old friends are complaining he doesn't have time for them.  He brags about how great his life is, but then at the same time, childishly bitches about the plastic feeling it creates.  The funny thing is his original raps were about fame before he was even famous.  He seems to able to create this weird mix of arrogance and yearning, and you can see how he created the beautiful and sterile world he created for himself.

I guess he must have been drawing on his previous fame experience as Jimmy in the Canadian Degrassi Jr. High sequel: The Next Generation.

Plus, he really knows how to craft a hook.

The Roots, on the other hand, have been making albums for 15 years.  They've gone through a few cycles of fame, even though none of them has really become a superstar.  They're amazing musical craftsmen, and could rap circles around Drake.  Instead of including a mega-star who's mentoring them, like Drake and Lil Wayne, they're hyping indie bands and singers like Joanna Newsom, M. Ward and the Monsters of Folk, and the girl singers of The Dirty Projectors.  The Joanna Newsom cut, with a slowed-down sample of "Right On" is particularly good.

So what do The Roots have to say?  They have a little more grown-up feeling.  They're not gonna talk about how famous they are.  They're almost talking about being regular grown-ups with regular problems.  Except, they are 15 years into a great career and trying to make sure they're the best they can be.  You hear regular frustration and humility, and… they actually play real drums.

The Roots I'll probably still be listening to next year, but I'm having no problem bumping Drake this summer.

Recommended listens for The Roots, on their myspace page: Dear God 2.0, Radio Daze, Right On.

Recommended listens for Drake, (unfortunately not on his myspace page): The Resistance, Fancy.

Well, first of all, there's this Tallest Man on Earth cover of Paul Simon's Graceland:

Then there's this track off the upcoming Cee-Lo solo album, which sounds very much like a Gnarls Barkeley track for sure (note that Cee-Lo is the singer of GB).

Oh, and every goddamn song on Janelle Monae's unbelievably good new album The ArchAndroid.

When my girl and I thought that The Antlers' album Hospice was a true story, I told her she had to listen closely to it in the car on the way to Burning Man last year. By the time we got to the late-album crescendo, Wake, we both had tears streaming down our face.

The album can still get me misty, but now we both know it's not literally true.

Peter Silberman of The Antlers did not work at a hospice, and did not befriend a young, abusive girl with bone cancer and care for her until her death.  He did, however, write an amazingly sweet story about it, in album form, that touches on real themes of death, guilt, love, generosity, abuse, and the meaning of life.  He wrapped it in amazing package of shimmering shoegazer rock and some pretty goddamn touching vocals.

His self-released CD slowly grew in popularity in Brooklyn until finally Frenchkiss picked it up and gave it a real release.

Peter and the band have had a pretty good year since then, I guess, and tonight I finally get to hear them play the album live at Neumos.  Thanks, pretty girlfriend.

Note: The above photo is from the pdf liner notes for the album.

The Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt

Ok, say it and let's just get it over. He sounds like a young Dylan. Or like he's trying really hard to sound like one.

Yes, he kinda sounds like a young Bob Dylan, but he's kind of passionate in a way that Dylan never was.

Plus, I like it when my girl says, "Who is this?" and I can say with a straight face: it's The Tallest Man on Earth.

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Edit: I just wanted to add one more song… this one is pretty amazing too.

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This album is about to actually be released for the first time. I like a lot of the songs, but I love this song. Buy it when it comes out. They used to sell it as a blank CD-R because Danger Mouse licensing didn't get their price (until Mark shot himself… I bet this will be great for his career).

This one fucking song haunts me so much. It's not even Sparklehorse play, it's The Flaming Lips.

The album's story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Mouse_and_Sparklehorse_Present:_Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

Mark's Story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Linkous

Note that he killed himself after receiving an undisclosed text message.  Damn am I curious what was in that text message.

This badass song, revenge:

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You know, nobody claims to dislike Hendrix.  It's just one of those things.  He's got like, the most fantastic brand goodwill ever.  Not that it does him any good.

But I'm actually one of those rare people: I'm a Hendrix Fan.  I love all of his real albums (only 4), I like most of his posthumous work (almost as much), and I even treasure some of his early recordings with Curtis Knight and other soul dudes.  I do NOT treasure all that much his drunken live recordings with the Doors or whatever.

Anyway, I was pretty excited to hear that they'd somehow dug up even MOAR posthumous recordings and were basically releasing a new album called Valleys of Neptune.

I've been able to give it a few listens and I'm pretty damn happy.  It's a lot of re-recorded versions of songs in the more bluesy style he was starting to get into when he died, and a few unheard originals.

So, I thought I'd do a quick Hendrix tribute post and let you listen to some of my favorites, with a focus on the stuff he never got to release in his lifetime.

First of all, off the new album, I really am liking this great instrumental cover of Sunshine of Your Love:

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And a cool song called Mr. Bad Luck:

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Then, moving back to songs released after his death in many different forms, but arguably the best on the one closest to what he wanted, a big album called First Rays of the New Rising Sun.  This song is one of my favorite tunes ever, ever, ever, mostly due to it's magnificent and rueful lyrics.  It's called My Friend.  I recommend you listen to it several times.

A choice cut of the lyrics:

Now a lady with a pearl handled necktie
Tied to the driver's fence
Breathes in my face,
Bourbon and coke possessed words
"Haven't I seen you somewhere in hell,
Or was it just an accident?"
You know how I felt then, and so:

Before I could ask "was it the East or West side?"
My feet they howled in pain
The wheels of a bandwagon cut very deep,
But not as deep in my mind as the rain
And as they pulled away I could see her words
Stagger and fall on my muddy tent
Well I picked them up, brushed them off,
To see what they say,
And you wouldn't believe:
"Come around to my room, with the tooth in the middle,
And bring along the bottle and a president"

And sometimes it's not so easy,
Especially when your only friend,
Talks, sees, looks and feels like you,
And you do just the same as him

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Also, a little more of a minor work, I also love Belly Button Window, arguably a pro-choicey song?!

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Then, I could sit here and lead you down the primrose path of Jimi's genius albums he released on purpose all day… really you can just listen to the whole albums and you're pretty much in good hands, but I'll just make one pick from each album that you may not have heard.

From his last album, a live album recorded with Buddy Miles: there's so many massive songs on this album, but I'm going to do Power to Love.  I knew this kid when he was 5 who loved this song and called it "The Jellyfish Song" because of these lyrics:

It's so groovy to float around, sometimes even
a jellyfish will agree to that.
I said flotation is groovy and easy,
even a jellyfish will agree to that.
Yeah, but old jelly's been floatin' so long
and so slack, lord, ain't no kinda bone in his jelly back.
Floatin' ev'ry day and ev'ry night is a risk, sometimes
the wind ain't right!

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From his crazy last double album with The Experience, I present the crazy, jazzy, Rainy Day, Dream Away, which I love for his little ad-libs that start the song, including some perhaps real joint-hitting noises:

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From Bold As Love, which truly blew my goddamn mind at age 17, I present Jimi's way-cool story of an alien dropping back to earth to tell people how messed up things are in the future:

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And from Jimi's seminal Are You Experienced? which you'd otherwise think was a greatest-hits album, the groovy space-opera with crazy radio noises, Third Stone From the Sun. Let Jimi land his kinky machine a little closer to you, baby:

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Ok, I'm glad we had this time together, Jimi.