One Track Mind: Steely Dan "Doctor Wu" (1975)

by Pico

Wednesday night I noticed a tickle in my throat; it was sudden, unwelcome cascade of post-nasal drip. "I am not getting sick" I told myself and went to bed successfully ignoring this minor distraction.

Thursday night the symptom was still persisting, but I felt fine. As a precaution, I started taking Zicam. "I am NOT getting sick" I confidently reassured myself.

By Saturday morning, I had become a non-stop snot factory. But still, I was not going to let that intrude on my weekend. Not with my wife's relatives all in town for the weekend. "I am NOT getting sick!" I growled between more persistent coughs. I bought some Claritin and Mucinex to relieve the symptoms, but that didn't do diddly. Still, I managed to attend all the family functions without compelling anyone to treat me like a leper.

Saturday night I loudly snored when I wasn't tossing and turning but my wife felt sympathetic more toward my plight than her resulting lack of sleep. In her words, it sounded as if I was "drowning in my own mucus."

By Sunday morning I had a pounding headache, aches all over and my strength all sapped and replaced by green goo. Now my appearance at work the next morning was in serious jeopardy. Yup, it was time to make a trip to the doc-in-the-box. I was officially sick. Damn.

When I arrived at the doc-in-the-box I was lead into the examination room and lethargically sitting on the cot, I stumbled through a litany of basic questions asked by the nurse. After she left the room, I sat slumped over there for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, with a light rap on the door, the doctor arrived. The friendly, young physician of Asian descent extended his hand to greet me and he introduced himself with a name I didn't catch, but that wasn't important, anyway. I just wanted him to give me powerful meds to banish the crud out of my body.

He did all the usual stuff to check on my condition; felt around my throat and neck, had me draw deep breaths while put his stethoscope to my back and had me open up my mouth and say "ahhh." In addition to finding a sore throat he also noticed wax buildup in my right ear (all this time I've been writing music reviews with one ear tied behind my back). He collected cultures by sticking q-tips way up my nose and down my throat...not fun. Then he leaves again.

More waiting. Nurse returns to flushe out the wax. Then more waiting. Finally, the good doctor returns. The strep and flu tests come back negative. It was just a sinus infection or bronchitus. He proceeds to write up three (and as I later found out, very costly) scrips.

As the young physician gave me some parting words about the prescriptions he just wrote for me, I finally looked down at his identification badge. It read: "DR. WU".

From that moment on throughout the rest of the week, my mind has been playing Phil Woods' wonderfully lyrical tenor sax solo over and over again. Oh, and the prescription meds helped me to feel better, too.


Listen: Steely Dan "Doctor Wu"

Purchase: Steely Dan - Katy Lied

"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.

Leroy Shakespeare and the Ship of Vibes, "Jubilation" (1990)

NICK DERISO: With reggae, the song's meaning isn't always the point. More often, it's the grooving from side to side.

That was largely the case with Jamaican-born Leroy Shakespeare, whose Metroplex-based band made a bar-band legend by incessantly crisscrossing the South from 1988-2001. This recently reformed group was notably voted the Dallas Observer's Best Reggae Band four straight years around the time of this album's release.

"Jubilation" remains the most accessible of the Ship of Vibes' initial burst of rhythm and fun, in a catalogue that grew to include five CDs, a cassette EP and a 12-inch.

Sure, tracks like "Positive" don't have much to say. Well, other than, well, staying positive. And it's a touch too overproduced.

But with an infectious beat, and the part-singing, part-rapping, all-original sound of Shakespeare's lead vocals -- not to mention that deft mixture of traditional then psychedelic guitar and keyboard by Dave Burris (previously a member of the original 1980s Deep Ellum reggae band, Da Nu Man) and Arthur Riddles -- it's hard to worry too much with all that. Or anything, really.

The bubbly bass? That you don't forget, either, though Ian Ellis tragically passed away last year.

The drummer, by the way, was Brandon Aly -- who had earlier formed, with Brad Houser, the multiplatinum band New Bohemians. You're reminded of that when the then-chart-topping Edie Brickell, their erstwhile leader, shows up for two tunes.

Even so, Shakespeare's polyglot purr, and those funky riffs behind him, always defined the band. And in the end, his symbiotic relationship with Burras, who shared a passion for offbeat spices like pop, Motown and rock, continues to overshadow even that naked attempt at gaining airplay.

Purchase: Leroy Shakespeare and the Ship of Vibes - Jubilation

Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin - Holon

by Pico

The composer and pianist from Zurich by the name of Nik Bärtsch and his band Ronin have just this week released their second major-label record. And even with having had the benefit is listening to Holon for a few weeks, now, it's hard to tell if this record is supposed to be a simple pleasure or cerebral contentment.

For you see, some jazz records are meant to be listened to carefully with attention paid to all the subtleties put into the music, and some are just groovers where you can enjoy more with your heart than with your mind. Holon is a groover, but in an ECM kind of way.

The "ECM" way means there's attention to detail, recorded pristinely with every subtley captured. But this fabled record label of forward thinking, mostly in the form of European-inclined jazz, is making a very un-ECM-like appeal to your heart as well as your head. Holon is a collection of repeating figures that gradually evolve---think of The Necks with discernible, rhythms divided into 2's and 3's and shorter song forms. Ronin places minimalism on top of a foundation of funk on what Bärtsch himself calls "ritual groove music."

Bärtsch's tight little ensemble consists of himself on acoustic piano, Sha on bass clarinet and alto sax, Björn Meyer on six string electric bass and Andi Pupato on percussion. Sometimes it sounds more like a trio as Rast and Pupato play so closely together as to sound like a single unit, while Sha mainly blends in providing shadings and accents. With a nearly all-acoustic outfit, Ronin executes this ritual groove music to perfection.

The most extended track "Modul 41_17" is a good example of Ronin's signature style (Bärtsch evidently is a fan of the Braxtonian song naming system). It begins with two notes played on the piano over and over. Meyer provides a low key, slinking bass solo but after that is done, the two notes gradually build up in intensity until the drums come in with a staggered rhythm for for a four note theme. Soon, the percussion drops out again and a different ostinato is introduced, building up to the same theme. After which an entirely different repeating sequence is introduced, but locked into a jungle groove. Bärtsch nimbly solos underneath it so that the insistent rhythm never leaves the listener's focus. He and the percussionist Pupato playfully trade accents. In measured, barely perceptible fashion, the song fades out.

So clearly, the performances are built around the percussive effects of Rast, Pupato, Meyer and yes, even Bärtsch himself. That emphasis on the beat is well demonstrated by the YouTube video below; note in this live performance from last year (of what I believe might be "Modul 44") and you will see the drummer Rast and bassist Meyer right at front center.

Ultimately, I've concluded that Holon is not a treat exclusively for the heart or mind, but for both. With records like Holon, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin proves that a thinking person's music can be quite accessible. And even quite funky.


Purchase: Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin - Holon

One Track Mind: Ringo Starr, "Harry's Song" (2008)

NICK DERISO: None of them were better apart, but never was this more true than with Ringo Starr.

See, the other Beatles, in turn, could typically find the pitch-perfect note for Ringo -- and his best work, within the band and without, always had their fingerprints on it: The aptly titled "With A Little Help From My Friends" (McCartney), of course, but also "It Don't Come Easy" (Harrison), "Only You" (Lennon), "Yellow Submarine" (McCartney), "Photograph" (Harrison), "I'm the Greatest" (Lennon), "You're Sixteen" (McCartney) and even on later -- though smaller -- successes like "King of Broken Hearts" (Harrison) from 1998's "Vertical Man."

That made mounting a solo career its own daunting task for Ringo, who became the only former Beatle to fail to chart an individual No. 1 hit in his native Britain. Starr's subsequent traveling all-star tours, and a more recent series of collaborations with the ultimately too-reverent producer Mark Hudson, were fun, but couldn't be confused with creative triumph.

Insert new producer and former Eurythmic Dave Stewart, however, and perhaps things would be different on Starr's belated return to EMI Records, "Liverpool 8." No masterpiece, mind you, but something more impressive than the simply affable, which was the best Ringo had mustered in years.

I stayed away from the title track, since it promised yet another mawkish chronicle of Starr's joining the Beatles. (Not to mention the fact that it begins with this: "I was a sailor first/ I sailed the sea." Right.) Similarly, I've only listened once to "Gone are the Days" -- with its too-obvious Indian raga intro, Lennon-like "oh no, oh no!" and (not kidding) it-don't-come-easy lyric.

"Harry's Song," on the other hand, is everything you'd like a Ringo Starr song to be. That is, a Beatlesque track that's not trying so hard.

Dedicated to the mad genius that was Harry Nilsson, who died in 1994, Ringo loosens up in the tradition of Nilsson himself -- a sometime musical collaborator/drinking partner with Lennon (the superlative "Old Dirt Road") who had this crazy knack for mixing Tin Pan Alley and 1970s' Hollywood hedonism.

It's this record's best cut. In the same way Ringo once buttressed three of rock's most important songwriters -- and that is Starr's true, largely underestimated legacy -- he finds full flower during "Harry's Song" in restating what made those old collaborations great, and greatly missed.

It begins with the kind of bawdy guitar riff Lennon always loved, stumbles over an end table into this soaring vaudevillian chorus right out of the McCartney playbook, gets lost for a moment in bouncy George-type psychedelia, then skips into a happy finish that nearly matches those loveably utopian lullabies associated with the Beatles' middle period.

An inspired (for a change) piece of reminescence, this bit of sweet and folky pop is just right for Ringo, like a final gift from his Beatle buddies. It doesn't overstate those previous successes (again, for a change), so much as it fondly recalls them.

"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.

Purchase: Ringo Starr - Liverpool 8

The Blind Boys of Alabama, "Down in New Orleans" (2008)

DERRICK: The Blind Boys of Alabama have been providing great gospel music for so long, and have such a reputation in Southern Gospel circles, that for many no further review is needed.

After all, they began carving their reputation in stone from humble beginnings at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind way back in 1939. Their career includes Grammy Awards too numerous to count, and the inevitable induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Nobody does the four-part gospel harmony known as “The Alabama style” better than the Blind Boys.

So, expectations were high for a new album, called "Down in New Orleans." And it's a knockout: 12 songs of worship recorded in the Crescent City at Piety Street Studios, with some cream of the New Orleans music crop. It probably couldn't have gone wrong, no matter what.

Amazingly, the Blind Boys have never recorded in New Orleans or been backed by New Orleans musicians. Thankfully that travesty is corrected here -- with golden result. The Hot 8 Brass Band, Carl LeBlanc, Allen Toussaint, Bennie Pete and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band are here.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band plays a hand, and mightily, in two of my all-time favorite hymns included here: "Down by the Riverside" and "Uncloudy Day." An especially fine version of the old gospel burner "I’ll Fly Away," featuring the Hot 8, is not to be missed.

A bonus lucky 13th track, the live version of "Soldier (In the Army of the Lord)," is more than capable of driving home the point that if the Boys tour anywhere around, you get there - and quick.

Meantime, get a copy of "Down in New Orleans." Fry up some chicken and cook up a mess of collard greens and macaroni & cheese some lazy Sunday evening. Sit on the front porch and listen.

You can thank me later.

Purchase: The Blind Boys of Alabama - Down in New Orleans