One Track Mind: New Klezmer Trio "Feedback Diona" (1995)

by Pico

One of the subgenres of jazz that's become an underground hit over the last ten years or so is klezmer jazz. Klezmer itself, as described by AllMusic Guide, is "a Yiddish term for musician and refers primarily to a tradition of Jewish folk music with deep German and Eastern European roots." With many outstanding jazz artists being of Jewish heritage, it was perhaps inevitable that the two styles would come together in a luscious combination.

I'm not going to get into a dissertation of how and when it got combined with jazz but it probably started sometime in the sixties and really got rolling with the first album of John Zorn's Masada in 1994. Zorn has gone further than just his Masada side project to nurture the progressive side of Hebrew music, though. He signed up several like-minded Jewish artists to his Tzadik label, like Pharoah's Daughter, Koby Israelite and Frank London.

But one of my favorites of this unique breed of music is the lean, angular troika known as the New Klezmer Trio. Headlined by notable clarinetist Ben Goldberg, he is accompanied only by bassist Dan Seamans and drummer/marimba player Kenny Wolleson (Tom Waits, Norah Jones, John Patton, Sean Lennon).

The New Klezmer Trio approach to blending the Yiddish with the boppish goes like this: the music is played with the expressive clarinet central to klezmer but with the improvisional spirit of jazz. Seamans often plays the critical role of reconciling Goldberg's traditional Hebrew tones with Wolleson's abandonment of conventional time-keeping.

NKT has put out only three albums between 1990 and 2000, but it's the middle one, Melt Zonk Rewire, that's their most adventurous. They take more chances, the songs are more diverse and the jazz is more whack than on the other two.

In particular, "Feedback Diona" is unconventional because it's not just a combination of klezmer and jazz; it's a blend of klezmer, jazz and metal. The first three-fifths of the track is dominated by Seamans' over-amped bass exploding into the white noise of feedback, while Goldberg noodles on top of it and Wollesen is rummaging around below it. As the din fades away, Goldberg settles into some quiet ruminations as Seamans carefully follows along with well-chosen notes that provide a harmonic complement the clarinet's flowing melody. Wolleson's brushes complete the serene setting that closes out the clamorous beginning and middle sections.

Time and again we've seen the most forward-looking music rooted in tradition. Charles Mingus understood that. So did Sun-Ra. Miles Davis for sure. That's why klezmer jazz, when put in the hands of some ambitious and skilled musicians, can take something very old, combine it with some things more contemporary and make it sound leading edge and compelling. Such is the thing that the New Klezmer Trio did with a song like "Feedback Diona."

Sample: New Klezmer Trio "Feedback Diona"

Purchase: New Klezmer Trio - Melt Zonk Rewire


"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.

Lee Dorsey - Yes We Can (1970)

by Pico

Decades before it became a catchy rallying cry for an historic presidential campaign, "Yes We Can" was associated with an inspired message of another kind: the essence of New Orleans-styled funk.

Crescent City all-world songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint has done more in his behind-the-scenes role to shape New Orleans R&B than any other single figure. It's safe bet that all the latter 20th century music of the Big Easy that we've tackled on this little corner of the blogosphere has some sort of a connection with Toussaint in one way or another. Ultimately, it has been the people out front performing his songs who had popularized his vision. Throughout much of the sixties, one of Toussaint's most effective frontmen was fellow New Orleanian Lee Dorsey.

Dorsey has a couple of top ten hits during that time: the catchy, child-like "Ya Ya" in 1961 and Toussaint's own "Working In A Coal Mine" five years later. These and some lesser hits were all issued originally as only singles on the old Amy label. At the dawn of the seventies, however, Dorsey and Toussaint collaborated on a full fledged album that is the topic of this piece.

Yes We Can was one of those records where all the players involved were feeling it: the Meters funky backing band, Dorsey's soulful, even-tempered vocals and Toussaint's production and songwriting. It was all done with subtle sophistication and just the right amount of grit. This was where the sixties funk became the seventies funk.

That's evident everywhere on the record. Take the slow funk of "Riverboat;" the supple, sparse rhythm anchored by Ziggy Modeliste's rolling beat, George Porter's lean bass lines and Leo Nocentelli's bluesy wah-wah lines. Toussaint charts horns that add a little weight but don't get in the way of Dorsey's breezy lead vocals. "O Me-O, My-O" follows the same formula for success with some nice call and response backing vocals.

The protest rocker "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further" reminds us that this was a time where black-and-white loomed large as a social issue but the lines between black and white music were much more blurred. "Gator Tail" is a sweaty, James Brown-style workout and that crack band is providing enough punch to rival the JB's.

As proof that the Meters didn't need to rely Toussaint's mighty pen to sound good, there's the lone cover, Joe South's "Games People Play," which features Porter with an early adaptation of Larry Graham's then-new thumb-popping method. Porter shines again in the Wilson Pickett-like stomper "When The Bill's Paid."

Since humor was always a big part of Dorsey's musical personality, it's only fitting that the album includes a stand-up comedy routine set to music, the grin-inducing "Would You."

As solid as this record is, it never caught fire with record buyers. If imitation is the best form of flattery, however, Yes We Can has been honored time and again. Robert Palmer made "Sneaking Sally Through The Alley" the title song of his first album (even borrowing members of the Meters to play on it). Ringo Starr covered "Occapella" on his Goodnight Vienna album. The title song was an early hit for the Pointer Sisters and John Scofield once built a song entirely around its insistent bass riff.

Today,Yes We Can is only available domestically as part of a twofer with Dorsey's only other album in the seventies, Night People. Yes We Can by itself, though, is a three-fer: some of the best of Dorsey, Toussaint and the Meters all rolled up into a single collection of maximal Crescent City rhythm and blues.

Purchase: Lee Dorsey - Yes We Can

"The Brand New Heavies," Brand New Heavies (1990)

NICK DERISO: Before they ran into GangStarr and started incorporating hip-hop elements into their sound, the Brand New Heavies were this retro-groove group with a hipster singer named N'Dea Davenport.

As brilliant as she was during a too-brief tenure, in particular on the singles "Dream Come True" and "Never Stop," I'm drawn more these days to the band's feel-good jazz instrumentals. When the Heavies stretch out, they sound like something, well, brand new. And, boy, do they enjoy it, egging each other on, laughing and clapping -- like an ageless Blue Note session you'd never heard.

Multi-instrumentalist Andrew Levy, who also produces, helped fashion something that recalled funky fusion sometimes, a new take on contemporary R&B sometimes, and something else entirely sometimes. That helped sell a then-new London-based synthesis, soon known as "acid jazz," overseas.

"Sphynx" sounds like Stevie Wonder having a talk about spirituality with John Coltrane. "BNH" adds some Blackbyrds groove, then "Gimme One of Those" goes one better: These guys are out Isaac Hayes-ing Isaac Hayes. "Put the Funk Back in It" speaks for itself.

This led directly to popularizers of the retro-groove like Jamiroquai and Erykah Badu who've since become more well-known. And, perhaps inevitably, to a reunion with Davenport -- whose breathy, romantic "Ride in the Sky" from this album remains an over-looked delight.

She returned a decade after leaving the band and, together again, the old-school Brand New Heavies released 2006's "Get Used To It."



Purchase: The Brand New Heavies - Brand New Heavies

DaSlobTribute: Pianist Doug Duffey

NICK DERISO: The list of Louisiana Music Hall of Fame inductees is predictably recognizable. You've got your Dr. Johns and Clarence "Frogman" Henrys, your John Freds and your Blackie Forestiers, your Frankie Fords and your Doug Duffeys.

Hold up, Doug Duffey? The northern Louisiana-based globe-trotter may be one of the state's most under appreciated ivory-pounders. Perhaps, it's because Duffey -- in the tradition of Howlin' Wolf, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Muddy Waters and dozens of other blues-based performers -- found his greatest successes overseas.

"The people are just wonderful -- and, as a musician, you're really respected over there," Duffey said of one trip to the old U.S.S.R. "They really study jazz and blues over there. To them, it's like an art form -- and it is. It's an American art form that nobody else has."

Doug still takes the occasional Louisiana working sabbatical, primarily returning to New Orleans, which he calls his "spiritual hometown." But it was in far-off lands -- Belgium and Holland, Germany and Switzerland -- where Duffey solidified his pianistic promise.

There, it seems everybody knows he's the guy who collaborated with George Clinton in his "One Nation Under A Groove" heyday. A dude who knows Rolling Stones pianist Nicky Hopkins' home phone number.

Doug's right. Europeans often, and sadly, are more into that hip-shaking beauty than we are.

Duffey would play Professor Longhair for the Rooskies -- and they'd turn red (or, redder, I guess) screaming praise.

"They can really relate to the blues," Duffey says, "because they can feel it. They've lived through a lot of pain."

That said, Duffey's never gotten tripped up by his roots. He dabbles in everything, from psychedelic to disco.

When he was asked to play a wrap party for New Orleans Jazz Festival honchos a few years ago, Doug didn't do R&B; it was like a 12-inch dance mixdown. He once performed locally with three vocalists, singing acappella to his own instrumental recordings.

Maybe that would be strange from anybody else. But not Duffey. "My music tends to have a lot of nostalgie de la boue, with fantasy and fact camouflaging each other," he says.

Duffey "got started playing at the rec centers in Monroe," he says, with a laugh. This wasn't fun and games, though. It was for life.

An old interview, one from when he first went out to record in L.A., sums up Doug's plans for that album -- and the career that would follow.

"I want it to be tied together, kinda like an abstract painting, each song an entity to itself but relating to the whole," Duffey said. "My first album will be ... well, can you imagine a cross between Star Trek and New Orleans?"

Really, that is what it's been all along. Doug would put out a record called "Living the Blues," then one called "Danger, Sex and Sound FX."

There's a unifying element, and something he always comes back to: "It's cerebral soul music," Duffey allows. "As an artist, it's my duty to report what I see and experience. I've had it all and I've had nothing."

He's certainly had plenty of bands. Favorites include the Distractors, Merging Traffic, Street Level, Razin' Cane, the Next, the Stage 618 Band and Chill Factor.

"My first band was called the Secret ... and that's what I've done all my life -- no day jobs."

Duffey wasn't in the Secret for long. Hopefully, that Hall of Fame induction will guarantee that he'll never be one again.



Purchase: Doug Duffey - Rectified Spirit (2001)

Quickies: Akoya Afrobeat, Joe Jackson, Herbie Hancock

by Pico

Most of this go around of Quickies is about catching up on some of the more recent big name releases. Spending so much time off the main highway of current music, I sometimes need to get back on it to regain a sense of where the mainstream is to begin with. Well, "mainstream" from the perspective of the middle-aged, anyway. And as I am often reminded, the mainstream still has interesting and worthwhile music to offer. Just not quite as often, that's all.

One of those "big name" CD's I gave a spin is the new offering by Lenny Kravitz, It Is Time for A Love Revolution. But aside from the "The Immigrant Song" soundalike "Love Love Love" this record just didn't grab me, so, I'm not going to write about it. Oops, too late! Oh well, here's the rest in greater detail. But before getting on that main thoroughfare of popular sounds, our journey starts on a dusty road in west Africa:

Akoya Afrobeat P.D.P.

Some large ensembles pay lip service of being multi-cultural and international but Akoya lives up to the billing more than any other acts I've come across lately. This 13-piece ensemble is comprised of members hailing from Panama, Ghana, Benin, South Africa, Japan and the USA. The lead singer Kaleta is a veteran of Afro-beat legend Fela Kuti's Egypt 80 band. This group sports a five piece horn section, four percussionists, two backing vocalists and four guitarists. One of those guitarists just happens to be Ryan Blotnick, an up and coming jazzer from Maine who Mark Saleski profiled recently.

So, with all these influences in the band, the product is predictably of a worldly nature, but it's predominantly African blended in with American seventies-style funk and a hint of fusion. Kind of like what you might get if you were to blend Kuti with James Brown, Bob Marley and occasionally, some Soft Machine. The jams are all extended, ten-plus minute pieces that hold it together for so long with deep grooves, multilingual shouts by Kaleta and the occasional jazzy solo by the keyboardists or a guest sax player.

This makes for a great party record that doesn't require a party to enjoy. P.D.P. hits the street on March 1.

Joe Jackson Rain
At least in the beginning, Jackson's music career took the same path as Elvis Costello's: an angry young new-waver turned serious pop meister. But Joe eventually lost me (and many others) when his music got too orchestral and heavy for his own good. Lately, he's been going back to his original sound with his original band and while Volume 4 was a more obvious return to his youthful form, Rain's absence of a guitarist makes Jackson lean more on his piano. And since that's one of greatest strengths, it's a welcome wrinkle.

Anyone who has come of age with pop music in the nineties instead of the eighties are likely to call Rain a Ben Folds Five tribute, especially when they hear the opening "Invisible Man" or "King Pleasure Time." But of course, it's Folds who owes much of his aggressive piano pop style to Jackson, not vice versa. Jackson's songwriting even today reveal a subtle depth that few could quite match, though. There's a certain Burt Bacharach-esque way in his chord progressions within tunes like "Wasted Time" that you don't hear much of anymore. And of course, the breezy piano bar jazz of Night And Day is back, as in numbers like "The Uptown Train."

Maybe it's time to start paying attention to Joe Jackson again.

Herbie Hancock River: The Joni Letters
It's a little embarrassing to be covering jazz as much as I do and not bother to listen to the first jazz record to win an Album Of The Year Grammy in 43 years until after the fact. In spite of all the praise I've seen heaped on this record the last few months, I've resisted giving it a whirl. I'm naturally suspicious of records by excellent instrumentalists who bring in a parade of big-name guest vocalists and 2005's Possibilities did little to change that suspicion. But in this case, I was wrong.

River isn't some Supernatural-styled compromise that puts unit sales over art, for several reasons. First of all, Hancock's list of Mitchell songs were chosen more for how they fit his own complex piano stylings, not for how well-known the songs themselves are. Even the one obvious choice "Both Sides Now" sounds nothing like the original. Secondly, Herbie is not a sideman on his own record. His piano shares lead voice with the singer and even if one were to strip out the vocal tracks, the songs still work; it sounds more like instrumental advanced bop with vocals, not vocal jazz. Several of the selections are entirely instrumental, anyway. Thirdly, the vocalists themselves work well with the complex structures that Hancock creates (including Joni herself, who had once worked with Charles Mingus, after all). Tina Turner deserves special mention for her turn in "Edith And The Kingpin;" she showed a lot of sophisticated phrasing and control that her voice isn't normally known for.

Still, it's the playing that I like the most about this record. Hancock is backed superbly by Dave Holland, Vinnie Colaiuta and Hancock's longtime saxophone partner, Wayne Shorter. When they take a break from Joni's compositions to tackle Shorter's own "Nefertiti" it turns out to be possibly the best rendition of that classic tune aside from Miles Davis' original recording of it since Holland's and Chick Corea's abstract take around 1970.

River is no match for Hancock's Blue Note output but unlike Future Shock, it's a fine segueway into it.

Purchase: Akoya Afrobeat - Introducing the Akoya Afrobeat Ensemble
Purchase: Joe Jackson - Rain
Purchase: Herbie Hancock - River: The Joni Letters


"Quickies" are mini-record reviews of new or upcoming releases. Some albums are just that much more fun to listen to than to write about.

John Adams, "On the Transmigration of Souls" (2002)

DERRICK: It happened much the same way these type of things usually do -- be it Elvis, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin ... whatever.

Late one night, roused out of sleep by a sound on the radio you've never heard before, or can't quite place -- something different. That was my introduction to John Adams and his 2002 piece "On the Transmigration of Souls."

At first, there were street sounds and sirens. Understandably, that is probably what woke me. Then came the sound of a boy's voice chanting names, monotone, over and over. A lot of names. Different names. I couldn't understand what it was.

A quick glance at the XM radio gave me the information, through bleary eyes, that what I was listening to was a composition by someone with the oddly presidential sounding name of John Coolidge Adams -- and the name of the music had something to do with souls.

Somehow, I vaguely became aware that it had something to do with 9/11 souls. I'm not sure if I recognized some of the names or maybe it just made sense. Whatever the import of the piece or the subject, I'm afraid I failed to give either the proper respect they deserve and promptly rolled over and went back to sleep.

So much for that. Or maybe not.

The next day, I got curious and I did what we always do here in the post-Elvis age (some might prefer as "BE" and "AE") -- I Googled. Perhaps it speaks somewhat of the power of the piece, or the subject, that it stuck with me long enough to even remember those sketchy details.

I won't fiddle with the truth here: "Souls" is difficult, not so much because it is a classical operatic piece of the minimalist school but simply because 9/11 is the type of subject that so many of us have so many different feelings about -- and further still, so many of us just don't know how to feel about what happened, even after such a long period of time.

I believe it would be fair for me to say there are so many different emotions stirred by those memories that there is no way to predict how any piece of music of this nature is liable to strike a person.

"Souls" is such a work and it turns out that John Adams is such a composer. It was tough to get a handle on any opinions because it seemed every review on Amazon.com was different. Depended on whom you asked. Either Adams was inspired (a 2003 Pulitzer Prize and three 2005 Grammy Awards make the point) or he was a cheap hack making a few bucks off 9/11.

It is an interesting thing that the collapse and fall of the Towers has produced a certain effect among some. They just got tired of hearing about it and very quick. Some of the negative reviews on Amazon seemed to be inflicted with this peculiar disease. A recent presidential campaign ultimately went down the tubes due to 9/11 fatigue, and perhaps "The Transmigration of the Souls" is doomed to suffer the same fate.

The music is powerful: Much of the "lyrics" of the 25-minute recording is nothing more than words and names taken directly from the homemade missing posters that began to appear all over New York. The playing is as wonderful as you can expect from the New York Philharmonic, which commissioned the piece in 2001 for the one-year anniversary of the attacks.

Adams, it turns out, is likely at least as interesting as the piece -- since the liner notes tell the tale of charges of anti-Semitism thrown at one of his previous compositions (1991's "The Death of Klinghoffer") as well as unstated controversies regarding his piece "Nixon in China" -– neither of which I've heard, or had a clue about previously.

"The Death of Klinghoffer" also faced accusations of romanticizing terrorists, which also makes Adams a very interesting choice indeed to compose a piece on 9/11. I imagine there is quite the interesting story about that somewhere, but even Google has its limitations apparently.

In the end, I suspect we would all agree the 9/11 was a miserable day, though with occasional dashes of inspiration thrown in. Ultimately, how much enjoyment you get from the music will depend on how much you want to relive that particular experience -- and that is what makes "Souls" a tough call.

"On the Transmigration of Souls" is an intriguing enough piece of music to investigate. In its entirety, I find it a sad, lonely work without many answers or inspiration given in the end.

Then again, that pretty much sums up my 9/11 experience.

Proceed with caution.

Purchase: John Adams - On the Transmigration of Souls