One Track Mind: Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'" (1981)

NICK DERISO: Tony Soprano tucked into a booth at a New Jersey diner, one of those old-time places with a selection of jukebox tunes right at the table.

He considered, briefly, something by Tony Bennett, then went with Journey's "Don't Stop Believin,'" and the final, controversial, moments of HBO's "The Sopranos" -- one of television's most challenging series -- began to unfold.

As the camera cut to Soprano's wife Carmela, Journey frontman Steve Perry sang: "Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world. She took the midnight train going anywhere."

Back to Tony: "Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit, he took the midnight train going anywhere."

From there, nothing much else happened, short of some shady characters giving Tony the stink eye. Then, just as Perry sang "Don't stop," Soprano looked toward the restaurant's entrance and the screen abruptly went blank -- sparking furious debate about what happened next.

Even among members of Journey.

"The point of the song playing," Perry said in published reports this week, "is that you just don't give up; life goes on even if you're the Sopranos. ... In the midst of his turbulent life and everything, there's always this sense of family and this sense of dreams and hopes for some kind of normalcy -– some kind of don't-give-up, don't-stop-believing feeling. I actually shouted 'All right!' at the end."

An era-defining radio hit -- this one, "Open Arms" and "Who's Crying Now" once leaked from every passing car, it seemed -- "Don't Stop Believin'" helped move nine million copies of the album "Escape" in 1981.

It was, and I'm not making this up, also part of a video game. ("Don't Stop Believin'" played in the background while you controlled various band members, helping them -- again, not making this up -- avoid groupies and evil promoters on the way to the Journey spaceship.) Still later, and perhaps just as improbably, it became a lockerroom anthem during the Chicago White Sox's run to a World Series title a couple of seasons ago.

Not bad for a tune that mentions a neighborhood, south Detroit, that doesn't exist. (Perry later covered for this by inserting the name of every single stop the band made on its endless 1980s touring schedule -- even "Shreveport," again not making this up, when Journey played a cowbarn in my hometown called Hirsch Memorial Coliseum.)

Now, it belongs to television history.

"It puts our feet in the cement," Journey keyboard player Jonathan Cain said this week. "We're a staple in the American music culture. Like us or not, we're here to stay."

But, what did this final scene, you know ... mean?

Many appear to be counting on an as-yet unannounced "Sopranos" movie to subsequently explain things, and the soundtrack seemed to bolster that theory: "Some will win, some will lose," Perry offered. "Some were born to sing the blues. Oh, the movie never ends. It goes on and on and on and on ... "

There is some truth there, even if a sequel isn't in the offing.

"The Sopranos" finale, to me, challenged us to once again accept the mundane, open-ended nature of our own lives -- and that goes for mobsters, too. Some, in fact, will win -- and some will lose. But we know little about how that all will turn out.

In the meantime, there are smaller joys, like a jukebox and its perhaps disposable heroes. Not to mention video games that demonize groupies and evil promoters.

Forgotten series: Bernie Worrell, "Blacktronic Science" (1993)

NICK DERISO: From the trembling strains of the first harpsichord notes here, to the rappy backbeat that follows, to the bubbling funk from later on, to the hard jazz moving through this album after that, it's clear ...

Bernie Worrell -- the original keyboardist with Parliament-Funkadelic-- is crazy.

But in a good way.

And we were only on track four. You could almost hear the sound of jaws dropping.

Even with all of that, though, this album retains the comfortable feel of capitulation. This marks a celebrated reunion for Worrell with bandmates George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and Mudbone Cooper, who played together on "Blacktronic Science" for the first time in more than decade.

The best of these new collaborations was "Dissinfordollars," with its thrilling groove, and a sound that just gets more and more dense. As with the best of the old P-Funk stuff, you'll hear a kind of kitchen-sink soul -- with horns, Mini Moog, sound effects, drum loops and vocals continually piling on. Soon, it was lumbering, like it always would, toward something retro and divine ... the mothership!

Maceo and Fred also peek out -- positively leak out, really -- on "The Vision."

The most interesting side roads, though, feature Maceo sitting in with Worrell and Tony Williams, from the second great Miles Davis group. This deft combination of Hammond B-3, drums and alto could have filled an entire, challenging album of its own.

But that's not the way of one Bernie Worrell, who remains frisky and deep. His swirling orchestral bits and loopy keyboards bolster a funky R&B hybrid that still can't be fenced into something so pedestrian as trio jazz.

"Won't Go Away," for instance, has the sweeping strings of a mid-1970s tune, until Mike G from the Jungle Brothers barges in with a hip-hop spoken interlude.

Midway through this album, somebody yells out: "Hey, Bernie, this is funky."

That's just the beginning.

Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets, "Blast Off" (2006)

NICK DERISO: The Rockets were an undeniably crisp, hard-working blues band in the early 1980s, respectable if a little nondescript.

Darrell Nulish handled vocals and harmonica, fronting a group led by the unusually named, and just as unusually talented, guitarist Anson Funderburgh.

The basis for "Blast Off," a 1992 retrospective called "Thru The Years" on Black Top Records, actually devoted four tracks to these first two albums. This 2006 update only includes one, called "Come On."

Listening to this professional, and somewhat obvious cut (the oldest on the new CD, it appeared on 1981's "Talk To You By Hand"), you can't argue with the technique. But the band dynamic shifted toward the old-school in the mid-1980s when harpist Sam Myers -- a sideman with Elmore James in the 1950s -- joined.

Funderburgh also smartly moved the recording sessions away from their DFW homebase, with many of the subsequent dates held across the state line in Metairie and New Orleans.

By focusing on Myers, this newer compilation goes even further than "Thru the Years" in underscoring that dramatic transformation. "Come On" is followed by 16 shotgun blasts of searing soul from Sweet Sam -- all but two of which feature him on vocals.

The night my man Myers died, I wrote this tribute.

The Rockets, always a smart and swinging Texas blues outfit, became something entirely different once they added the time-tested respectability of Myers' throaty growl.

That's probably best heard on the original 1987 release "Sins," which rightly garnered four tracks on the initial best-of, "Thru the Years." Winner of four W.C. Handy Awards, "Sins" remains a tasty, nearly perfect blending of Dallas flash and Mississippi mud -- and it's from a time when the balance of Sam's wailing harp and Anson's sprite, spindly soloing was still exciting and new.

"Blast Off" starts by duplicating 11 of the cuts from "Thru the Years," then follows Myers through to his untimely recent passing. Notable in this updated compilation are some late-period offerings, including the 1999 Funderburgh original "Change in My Pocket" and "Rambling Woman" from 2003's "Which Way Is Texas?" on Rounder's Bullseye imprint.

The best tracks remain the Myers-Funderburgh slow burns. Myers is transcendent on ageless sides like "I Done Quit Getting Sloppy Drunk" and "My Heart Cries Out for You" from this anthology.

Meanwhile, "A Man Needs His Loving," a light blues swing, works as a terrific counterbalance here to the Rockets' gritty take on Buddy Guy's "$100 Bill." "Oh-Oh," by contrast, is almost rockabilly.

Pay special attention to the subtle work of longtime pianist Matt McCabe, who is often the purring engine that pushes these triumphs along. The opening track also includes Mike Judge (yes, that Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butt-head) on bass. He was a member of the Rockets from 1987-90.

Michael Brecker, Pilgrimage (2007)

photo by Darryl Pitt

by Pico

Michael Brecker's untimely passing at age 57 last January was, to me at least, one of the bigger blows to jazz music in a long time. But this piece isn't going to be a eulogy to him because we've covered that already. Instead, it's a celebration of some terrific music he posthumously left behind.

After laying out for about a year while he underwent treatment for his myelodysplastic syndrome, Brecker came back in August, 2006 for one more album, Pilgrimage, just released last month.

Most likely knowing that he likely wasn't going to be around much longer, Brecker followed the Warren Zevon Plan for a finale: assemble top drawer talent and follow the formula that made everyone fall in love with you in the first place. But do so with a little more gusto and don't get overly sentimental. Like Zevon, Brecker succeeds in making you miss him simply by doing everything that he does best.

And what does Brecker does best? Blowing that tenor sax is on the top of the list, natch, but it's also about jazz squarely straight ahead but still as challenging as anything coming from the avant garde. Brecker's compositions are another stength containing unexpected chord changes galore yet shadings that emerge a little more with each listen.

Incidentally, all the selections here are Brecker originals, which I believe is a first for him. And lastly, Brecker is about interplay that demands much from all players, not just him.

So it made sense that the aforementioned top drawer talent are no less than pianists Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau, guitarist Pat Metheny, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Jack DeJohnette.

For Brecker, these aren't guys he pulled in for the sake of having big names on his records, he's played with all of these guys extensively before in various configurations, such as Metheny and him playing together in Joni Mitchell's band way back in the mid seventies.

While one could detect some slippage in the technique of other heavies like Miles Davis and Stan Getz on their last recordings, you'd be hard pressed to tell from Pilgrimage that Brecker was in any way an unhealthy man.

He plays with as much fire, passion and control as he is legendary for. And if anything, he took good advantage of the involuntary time off to write a uniformly strong set of songs.

The closest that Brecker comes to alluding to his impending demise is the melancholy "When Can I Kiss You Again," which refers to a time in his treatment where his family wasn't allowed to touch him. It's not Brecker's saddest song, honestly, but it's well played with Metheny's guitar solo being particularly touching, here.

Much of the rest of the selections are more spirited, and to those unaccustomed to this kind of music, it sounds much like blowing sessions. They're more than that, actually, but even they weren't, these would makes for some damned fine blowing sessions.

The ending "Pilgrimage" deserves a special spotlight. It has a "A Love Supreme" type extended introduction underpinned by Hancock's electric piano before settling into a mid-tempo groove with a knarly chord progression where Hancock, Metheny, Mehldau and Brecker (this time on the EWI) take turns before the song climaxes at the second go around of the head.

The track serves as a demonstration that Brecker could sometimes evoke Coltrane---not in his sound, but in his ambition.

Michael Brecker went out fighting and left his fans one last gift. The ol' list of jazz's best swan song recordings is in need of an update. Pilgrimage is a deserving addendum.


Purchase: Michael Brecker - Pilgrimage

Forgotten series: Frank Sinatra, "Trilogy: The Past" (1980)

NICK DERISO: "Trilogy," presented as an "event" in 1980 when Frank Sinatra sessions began slowing to a crawl, finds him attempting to frame the past, present and future on a trio of consecutive discs.

It's a perhaps audacious, but ultimately flawed release.

Then nearing the end of his recording career, Sinatra was to be commended, I guess, for attempting something like the concluding album's free-form "Reflections on the Future in Three Tenses" -- even if arranger Gordon Jenkins' sides ended up being overly didactic and, really, entirely dispensable. Sinatra's middle record here, helmed by Don Costa and focusing on the present, included contemporary 1970s songs like "Song Sung Blue," "MacArthur Park" and "Just the Way You Are," and was largely forgettable, too.

Stick with the old stuff: Arranger Billy May, a rumpled and formerly legendary boozer, fashioned a sensitive, even supple set of charts on Disc 1 -- his first collaboration on strings with Sinatra since 1957's remarkable "Come Fly With me."

Called "The Past," it's dotted with several now-familiar songs that, at this point, the then-64-year-old Sinatra hadn't tackled before. There's a deeper coloring both to his phrasing and May's once-blazing brass on tracks like Gershwin's "But Not For Me" and "They All Laughed"; Gus Kahn's "It Had to Be You," and Cole Porter's "All of You."

He and May also make spirited runs through a few tunes that Sinatra had already added similar dimension to in concert as he grew older, including his early hit "The Song Is You" and "Street of Dreams" -- which Sinatra had memorably interpreted during his live mid-1960s recording with the Count Basie Orchestra.

Beats me how the brilliant May (who worked with Glenn Miller, Bing Crosby, Stan Freeberg and George Shearing; and originally arranged "Cherokee," a swing classic widely considered a key inspiration for bop) has somehow remained underrated. Equally adept as driving rhythms as he was with a ballad orchestration, May was as off-handed as he was unique.

He incorporated drums in a way that more celebrated Sinatra collaborators like Jenkins and Nelson Riddle never did. Then there's the legend of May writing charts for the "Come Fly With Me" sessions -- which included definitive versions of both "Moonlight in Vermont" (relaxed and plush, it's a nice preview of how "The Past" would so perfectly match strings with Sinatra's enduring ear for phrasing) and "April in Paris" (a series of thoroughly enjoyable emotional crescendos) -- even while working on Freeberg's half-hour radio show earlier that afternoon.

Back then, May might down a half a fifth of scotch -- he quit drinking in 1964 -- while conducting, but he never missed a beat.

That loose, swinging attitude ultimately saved a too-cute set that (despite having produced "New York, New York," which appeared on Costa's middle record) has become infamous for devolving from the sublime into the ridiculous and then the utterly bizarre.

We find a cut on "The Future" featuring the lady who did those caterwauling vocals during the title sequence of TV's "Star Trek." Who wants a Sinatra CD with something called "Conclusion: Song Without Words"?

May showcased, with simple grace, why the past still mattered. This is, at least on Disc 1, enduring American art -- modern yet thoroughly free of the dated, "high-concept" missteps that doomed the rest of "Trilogy."

Sinatra would enter a recording studio again only a handful of times over the next 15 years. None produced more timeless results than this.