Shopping List: The New and the Recommended
Revenge of the hipster folkies! Plus Nigerian juju, world-jazz fusion, and fiery guitars.
David Bromberg, Try Me One More Time (Appleseed)
The Greenwich Village folk star keeps it sublimely simple on his first studio album since 1990. Bromberg's elegant finger picking and no-frills baritone voice refresh timeless material by Bob Dylan ("It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"), Elizabeth Cotton ("Shake Sugaree"), and the Reverend Gary Davis ("I Belong to the Band") as well as several traditional tunes.
Judy Henske, Big Judy: How Far This Music Goes 1962-2004 (Rhino Handmade)
This two-disc anthology celebrates the bumptious babe that producer Jack Nitzsche deemed "queen of the beatniks." Judy Henske worked coffee shops across the nation during the early-'60s folk boom, combining big-throated folk and blues with an acerbic cabaret sensibility. Highlights include moving versions of Fred Neil's quasi-psychedelic "The Other Side of This Life" and "Dolphins in the Sea," and four cuts from Henske and Jerry Yester's shoulda-been acid-folk classic, Farewell Aldebaran.
Rod McKuen, If You Go Away: The RCA Years 1965-1970 (Bear Family)
Last century's most commercially successful poet-songwriter gets the lavish box-set treatment with this seven-disc set (and hardcover book) released by Germany's small Bear Family label. I've always been fascinated by McKuen, a guarded yet weirdly beloved mixture of Walt Whitman, Jacques Brel, and Hallmark Cards. (He's probably found his most comfortable home online.) McKuen always strikes me as one of America's great outsider insiders, not unlike Elvis Presley or Liberace, and I'm proud to continue listening to the warm as part of his enduring mega-cult.
Joe Zawinul, Brown Street (Koch)
The Joe Zawinul Big Band proves itself a joyful world-jazz juggernaut on this live double-CD recorded last year. The septuagenarian keyboardist expands tunes written originally for Miles Davis ("In a Silent Way") and Weather Report ("Black Market") into mighty groove vehicles that have really never sounded better.
King Sunny Ade, Gems From the Classic Years (Shanachie)
Sunny Ade and his thirteen-piece band blend Yoruba-language vocals and tribal rhythms with lilting rock and Hawaiian steel guitars on an album boasting some of the most joyous and danceable guitar music you may ever hear. Recorded in Nigeria between 1967 and 1974 as Ade's career was taking off, the most valuable of these Gems are four sixteen- and seventeen-minute tracks featuring convivial spaced-out medleys. Highly recommended.
Elliott Sharp's Terraplane, Secret Life (Intuition); The Mahavishnu Project, Return to the Emerald Beyond (Cuneiform)
Composer-guitarist Elliott Sharp makes the blues sound wicked and modern and relevant again on Secret Life, which features both Howlin' Wolf-influenced singer Eric Mingus (son of jazz giant Charles) and Howlin' Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin in addition to Sharp's own Hendrixian riffage. Drummer Gregg Bendian leads another remarkably virtuosic group through a two-hour-long live re-creation of the second Mahavishnu Orchestra's original 1975 recording. The Project nails the fiery jazz-fusion virtuosity and soaring electric spirit of guitarist John McLaughlin's most complex and eclectic compositions.