One Track Of The Year: the subdudes - "Poor Man's Paradise"

by Pico

With all the All Star albums of 2007 out of the way, there's just one more piece of year-end business to take care of: my favorite song of the year. Like the top CD of the year, this one didn't require much agonizing. It's a song that puts me in a great mood every time I listen to it, and it has a great message to go with a great sound. That song is "Poor Man's Paradise" by the subdudes.

Before I delve into the song itself, allow me to explain the missing capitalization. You see, I've recently learned that the band refers to itself without those big letters, much like, say, "k.d. lang." I don't know for sure why they do, but it fits in nicely with the down-home, humble way they present their music.

Not surprisingly, the song of the year is that way, too.

"Poor Man's Paradise," which was written by the entire five piece band, quickly got me on it's bandwagon when reviewing the subdudes' outstanding 2007 release Street Symphony. It was actually released as a single ahead of the album earlier in the summer.

Back then when I reviewed Street Symphony, I said this about the song:

"Poor Man's Paradise" is the advance single from the CD and it's a real gem of a song. It's straightforward lyrics are character sketches into people who find refuge in the simple pleasures of life after their lives were torn part by Katrina. You'll be hard pressed to find a more uplifting song derived from that tragedy and it's sure to be a staple in the Subdudes' live rotations for many years to come.

(Tommy) Malone's sweetly soulful lead vocal supplemented by street corner harmonies. And then to top things off, they threw in a show stopping, hand-clapping chant guaranteed to get the crowd stoked:

One-and-two-and-three-and-four,
Turn the music up some more,
Two-and-three-and-four-and-five
Ain't it good to be alive
Three-and-four-and-five-and-six
This is how we get our kicks
Four-and-five-and-six-and-seven
All God's children go to heaven
(in a poor man's paradise...)


To me, "Poor Man's Paradise" has three simple but powerful messages:

1. The triumph of the human spirit over even the violent wrath of Mother Nature,

2. taking enjoyment from the simple pleasures of life, and

3. the healing power of music.

The simple and carefree melody is a perfect match for the lyrics and when you throw in some of the most pleasing doo-wop harmonies south and west of the Bronx, you've got yourself a foot stomping anthem for hope and happiness with a wide appeal.

Anyone who's read this space long enough knows I can get into some pretty cerebral stuff. But the primary aim of music is still to entertain and revive your soul. "Poor Man's Paradise" does just that, and does it damned well.

And that concludes my musical musings until next year. I hope you have a safe and enjoyable holiday season, and thanks for reading.


Listen: the subdudes - "Poor Man's Paradise"

Purchase: the subdudes - Street Symphony


"One Track Mind" is a more-or-less weekly drool over a single song selected on a whim and a short thesis on why you should be drooling over it, too.

My All-Star CD's of 2007: The Best Of The Rest

by Pico

Either it's been a strong year music-wise, or I've simply been listening to more new releases than I usually do. It's probably a combination of both but regardless, there was a lot of good chaff left on the floor by the time I finalized my All-Stars Starters and Alternates lists. And so, here's a list of the records that merited serious consideration for all star status. On some days, a few of these selections sound like all stars to me. Despite some shortcomings, I'd have no problem recommending any of these. For your convenience, these selections are grouped by genre. Click on the links within the CD titles where provided to find more information on these records elsewhere on this blog:


All That Jazz

Joel Frahm We Used to Dance
Frahm is not widely recognized among the tenormen outside the NYC area, but he should be. This record testifies for him well.

Robert MacGregor Refraction Of Light
MacGregor has come seemingly out of nowhere as a fully developed tenor sax talent. Both his advanced compositional and playing style reminds some of Blue Note Wayne Shorter, but MacGregor is his own man. An up and comer to watch for in the post-bop jazz scene.

Chris Potter Follow The Red Line: Live At The Village Vanguard
Potter is another New York-based tenor guy but one whose made a name for himself some time back. On Red Line, Potter introduces five new originals in a live setting and is backed by an electric band featuring Craig Taborn on the Fender Rhodes. It's no-nonsense fusion with chunks of challenging hard bop thrown in and would be a great listen for anyone who is a fan of either.

Manhattan New Music Project Jazz Cycles
Modern creative jazz outfit MNMP playing some inpsired, final works of noted composer Paul Nash. Nash literally gave his last ounce of energy to the project and it's a fitting tribute to his legacy.

Jean-Luc Ponty The Acatama Experience
This isn't a total return to Ponty's classic seventies fusion style, but it's close enough. Old friends Philip Catherine and Allan Holdsworth make guest appearances.

Miles Davis The Complete 'On The Corner' Sessions
The most important reissue of the year, even though much of it is a tough listen and it's rather pricey (recently discounted to $100 at Amazon). You pick this one up more for the historical importance and to answer a lot of the "where did so-and-so get that cool idea from" questions.

Groundtruther Altitude
This third part of the Charlie Hunter/Bobby Previte trilogy is arguably the best part of this improvised stew of industrial jazz. Adding MMW keyboard John Medeski to the mix provided more spice to the soup.

Drew Gress The Irrational Numbers
Gress is a very good acoustic bass player, but on The Irrational Numbers he proves to be a very fine composer, too. He takes on the impossible challenge of combining improvised music with chamber jazz with a little bit of electronics thrown in and mostly succeeds.

Steve Allee Colors
Allee didn't make his mark with acoustic, straight-ahead jazz and didn't make his mark leading a trio. But here he did both well enough to make you think that he did.


Pop and Other Guilty Pleasures

Scott Fisher & 1am Approach Step Into The Future
Perhaps the best album of the year by an unsigned artist. A gifted singer, songwriter and keyboardist who's niche is a pleasing blend of reggae, pop and jazz.

Julie Dexter/Khari Simmons Moon Bossa
If you're curious about that hybrid brand of music call "soul bossa," this one's a good CD to find out if you'd like it. Singer Dexter and bassist Simmons (India.Arie) combine to mix Brazilian flavored covers and originals and effectively update Sergio Mendes' brand of jazzy pop.

Machan Motion Of Love
A similar style to Moon Bossa, but Machan writes almost all the tunes and trades in some of the soul for more jazziness. Full of first call session musicians, Motion Of Love is tastefully played and put together.


The Old Rockers

The Eagles Long Road Out Of Eden
One disc full of very good, fresh classic California rock spread out over two discs. At the price of one disc, though, who's complaining?

Mark Knopfler Kill To Get Crimson
Knopfler has long ago fallen off the rock radar screen even though his art continues to expand well beyond the Dire Straits days. But little of what he does these days really qualifies for rock; it's more American roots music: country, blues and folk. All the same, it does qualify for quality listening.

John Fogerty Revival
Fogerty has always been Fogerty but he seems even more so on Revival. A couple of tracks short of solid, but worth the purchase.

Neil Young Chrome Dreams II
One of Neil's odd and ends releases. As such, it's a bit of a mixed bag, but not as uneven quality-wise as these things tend to be. "Ordinary People" is an epic track.

Warren Zevon Stand In The Fire
This reissue from 1981 captures Zevon at the height of his powers; he cleaned up enough to put on a lively, focused show. And the time frame meant he was going to heavily cover songs from his classic 1976-1980 period. Why do we miss Warren? This live set answers why.

James Taylor One Man Band
You've heard most of these songs hundreds of times before and JT hadn't changed his style in 35+ years, but so what? Taylor is a great live act and hearing these songs with little accompaniment makes us remember what great songs these are in the first place.


da' Blooz:

James Blood Ulmer Bad Blood In The City: The Piety Street Sessions
Got this CD back in August and somehow neglected to listen to it until now; dang, what was I thinking. Folks, I whiffed in a big way here, this one is a true All-Star. Look for a full review sometime in January.

Robben Ford Truth
Ford has no tricks up his sleeve for this standard fare blues-rock CD, but his solid songwriting, polished band and of course, his unmatched guitar playing make this one worth the purchase.

Bryan Lee Katrina Was Her Name
As long as you like Bryan Lee (and why wouldn't you, if you like the blues?), there's no reason not to like this record. The Braille Blues Daddy always delivers solid, dependable electric blues. Always.

My 2007 MVP CD: David Torn - Prezens

by Pico

When it came time to decide which CD's to include in my starters and alternates lists, there was a lot of agonizing over many of the choices. But my top choice came
early and easily. In fact, it was all but determined by the end of May, after I listened to David Torn's Prezens a few times.

Unless you delve in the underground genre of experimental rock-jazz guitar, David Torn won't be a household name to you. But with his extensive work as film composer, producer and sideman, his handiwork has likely reached your ears at some point. Whether scoring movies like Friday Night Lights, sessioning for artists such as k.d. lang, adding guitar loops for David Bowie or producing for the likes of Bill Bruford's Earthworks, Torn has put his fingerprints on a lot of major projects from relative obscurity.

Projects like these leave little time for making his own records and Prezens officially marks his first solo album since 1996's What Means Solid, Traveller?, although the two SPLaTTeRCeLL albums at the turn of the millenium are essentially Torn-led projects. It's also his return to the ECM label since his avant-fusion masterpiece Cloud About Mercury from twenty years ago.

Those who have patiently followed Torn all those years will find a lot of his hallmarks in Prezens: an ambient personality clashing with his heavy-metal
side, a propensity to jam at war with his inclination to carefully construct compositions, and most of all, the imaginative textures he processes into the tracks.

At the same time, it's a big leap in Torn's evolving style. While Mercury pioneered combining the artificially created atmospherics of Brian Eno with a harder edge, the songs had a conventional progression to them. 1995's Tripping Over God incorporated more non-Western song structures, particularly East Indian. Prezens, however, retains some modality but otherwise abandons any perceivable framework in his songs. One could even say they are not really songs, but rather, collections of irregular shapes and forms.

As such, it's meant to jolt the listener out of comfort zones and long-held notions of how music is supposed to be played. There are plenty of nods to styles ranging from blues to ambient to heavy metal to Middle Eastern, but the music dwells in none of the places it references. The compositions are all very asymmetrical, but they probably weren't necessarily conceived that way.

And why is that so?

Because the album was constructed much the same way Bill Frisell's Floratone was put together. That is, the basic tracks of improvised performances were recorded performed live in the studio. Then, these tapes were later dubbed, looped and remixed, resulting in a Frankenstein of organic and synthetic music. Only here the basic tracks are laid down by an entire quartet extemporaneously playing together, i.e., collective improvision. And Torn, who is responsible for all the post-human twiddling, brings to bear his considerable experience as a film composer, producer and sideman. It's group playing shaped into one man's vision.

The group itself provides a key reason for why this formula works: Tim Berne (saxophone), Craig Taborn (keyboards) and Tom Rainey (drums). These guys are all not only reigning masters of improvised music, but have played together with and without Torn for a number of years. The chemistry needed to pull off those basic tracks was already established long before.

Even with all that going for it, following this template doesn't guarantee the record is going to be any good; risk-taking implies the real chance for failure, after all. Prezens works because Torn is pitching perfectly timed curveballs at every opportunity. The songs zigs where you expect it to zag. He creates ambient structures and then tears them down, sometimes in dramatic fashion, long before they get too rote. And Torn does all this while often remaining tuneful.

Take the opening track "AK." Its beginning statement is made a with a looped sample drenched in reverb before Torn introduces the song's key on a softly-played electric guitar. Meanwhile, Taborn provides some blues-heavy figures from a Hammond B-3 organ and Berne blurts out some smears from his sax as Rainey's stuttered drumming is taken in and out of the mix and some odd, electronic sounds are randomly thrown in. Slowly, a riff emerges out of Berne and a gradual build up ensues. The riff culminates in the drums' full participation and Torn's crunching axe playing the riff in unison. After a few rounds at full bore the band backs out except for Taborn's organ noodling and Torn's atmospherics before Berne plays subdued notes to take the tune out as gently as it began.

The semi-title song "The Structural Function Of Prezens" employs an even more unpredictable tact, as explained in a past One Track Mind. "Bulbs" has a clamorous false start which dies off before a chord progression is introduced that at times sounds like jungle funk-era Miles. Similarly, "Neck-Deep In the Harrow" has a "On The Corner" aesthetic to it in the contentious middle section where Taborn and Torn trade fours.

"Them Buried Standing" is a brief, bizarre samba. "Sink" features Berne's all-out skronking in a inspired mash-up of electronica and free jazz. "Transmit Regardless" finds Berne and Torn simul-soloing with Rainey's seriously funky beat churning underneath.

There's much more going on with these tracks than I've bothered to describe, however, but it would take up too much space to even skim over all the nuances found in each of them. And that's part of the beauty of them; a casual listen picks up the mixed-in markers that Torn uses to set up each segment of the songs but more intense listening reveals the tight interaction of those core recordings.

Everyone has different opinions on what makes a great record. The ones I chose as my favorites for this year I thought were good for widely different reasons. But a record that challenges my preconceptions, is played with a high level of creativity and reveals more of itself each time I listen to it is the kind of record I put in a special category. For 2007, David Torn's Prezens fits that criteria the best.


Purchase: David Torn - Prezens

Dan Fogelberg: 1951-2007

by Pico

At 6:00 a.m. this morning, singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg passed away peacefully at his home in Maine. He fought a three year battle with prostate cancer that was already advanced when diagnosed in 2004. He was 56 years old.

He will of course always be remembered for the music he left behind. The hits like "Longer," "Same Old Lang Syne" and "Leader Of The Band" will come to mind for most people, but I myself more strongly identify with those good-to-great albums he put out in the seventies, from Souvenirs to Twin Sons Of Different Mothers (with Tim Weisberg). He didn't quite reach the level of popularity or acclaim of Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Eagles or James Taylor, but he had his moments back then where he was every bit as good as those guys.

Just the day before yesterday I was realizing how some 30 years ago, his Captured Angel tricked me into liking country music without my knowing about it. His tasteful melodies, heartfelt lyrics and rigorous attention to detail in the musicianship made it all irrelevant.

But in the last years of his life, Fogelberg wanted to get something out to the public more important than music: the message for all men middle aged and up to get properly tested for prostate cancer:

I cannot encourage you strongly enough to get a DRE (Digital Rectal Exam) and a PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) test EVERY YEAR.

The medical community suggests this for men over 50, but men with a family history of prostate cancer should start getting tested at age 40.

The PSA test is a simple blood test...it only takes a minute or two. The DRE, okay, every man squirms at the thought of this exam, but hey, it too takes only a minute or two, and IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE.

Prostate cancer can be very slow growing or very aggressive, but detected early while it is still confined to the prostate gland, it can usually be treated and cured successfully.

Once it spreads beyond the prostate it is called Advanced Prostate Cancer (PCa). At this point it becomes imminently more life threatening and harder to treat. Do yourself and your loved ones a huge favor and GET CHECKED REGULARLY. I promise you, you DON’T want to go through what I’m going through if you can avoid it.

Education and awareness are key, I urge you to follow the link below to the Prostate Cancer Foundation web site and read up on how best to protect yourself and reduce your likelihood of contracting this terrible disease.

For more details, check the Official Dan Fogelberg website.

May you be in a better place now, Dan. And thanks for some great music.


Purchase: Dan Fogelberg - The Very Best Of Dan Fogelberg