TUNE HEAD
Lea
Something Worth Keeping
I had the pleasure about six years ago of writing a profile, for Larry Jarvik's zine The Idler, of the exceptionally talented D.C.-area singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Lea. (It's dated January 2001 but it was January 2002.) That was four albums ago, and I've had some catching up to do.
I'm going to take a deep breath and try to curb the hyperbole that this woman's talent has tended to inspire in me since my wife and I first happened to catch her at a church-basement coffee house shortly after 9/11. We were about to leave after hearing our friend Pam Steinfeld -- you know, baby sitter
fees and all -- but as Lea started in we did an about-face and headed right back to our seats, where we were mesmerized throughout her set.
Suffice to say that the fact a major label hasn't scooped up this great talent remains, to me, one of the more puzzling mysteries of life. She has a gorgeous, velvety alto voice; a seemingly endless reservoir of moving, intelligent songs; an amazing ear for harmony arrangements and overdubs that melt deliciously into your consciousness; superb skills on guitar, keyboards, flute, percussion, and probably some other instruments I don't know about; a fabulous feel for styles including acoustic, folk, and soft rock, samba, soul, and gospel; and a commanding but calm and in-the-moment stage presence. Clearly, she has some serious entrepreneurial skills too, putting out one self-produced album after another and keeping a challenging performance schedule, despite raising a young daughter, Laela, who makes two darling backup-vocal cameos on this latest album. How Lea's managing these ventures I can't imagine, but I'm sure it hasn't been easy.
On one hand, why rock the boat? She's doing great. She has control over her work. She's got a loyal following in the mid-Atlantic and in Germany (it's a long story . . . see the profile). On the other, I can only dimly conceive of what this woman could do with generous portions of studio time, the counsel of a range of producers, a wide group of musicians to orchestrate some bold arrangements for (guest mandolin and cello tracks on this CD and Lea's last, called Great Big World, nod in that direction), and some breathing room to be the creative soul she was born to be. Is that weird of me? Maybe, but listen for yourself, and see if you aren't having thoughts along the same lines, wondering, as the elementary school teachers say, if the record execs need an engraved invitation to pay Lea the attention she merits. I will engrave the invitation myself; I will lend out my own copies of Lea's CD's to them -- but I want 'em back!
It's not, mind you, that every track on ever album is brilliant. They aren't. Some sound like slightly underbaked takes; some have lyrics a little heavy on the peace, love, and understanding (not that there's anything funny about those); some could use a quicker tempo or a verse or two trimmed even, some could use a bit more energy. But in every album of Lea's there are at least two to four tracks that are so fresh and lovely that they readjust my musical mindset. And in Something Worth Keeping, the sweet spot is tracks seven through nine.
"Roots and Wings" is a gorgeous ballad about the good-parent vibes that, if we're lucky enough to have been exposed to them, guide us into and through adulthood. The choruses will make you tear up, I suspect, for the fine songwriting, but also for the rich harmonies, the sonorous cello accompaniment by Jen Smith, the excellent mixing by Scott Smith and Franklin Taggart, and production by Bill Wolf.
"Golden Star" is the kind of tribute to one's daughter every mom, one hopes, would sing if she could. And "Too Much" is a biting, gritty protest tune of sorts from the persona of a minimum-wage-earning mom being nickel-and-dimed by life (hats off to Barbara Ehrenreich) in an age of ostensible abundance.
I also adore the tune "Daisy," about caring for a mentally ill relative, or maybe friend. It's classic Lea, defying expectations by dodging the morose or pitying or self-pitying. It's an empathetic, gently resigned, smart, worldly lullaby, at once soothing and heartbreaking.
I could go on. I probably will go on when Lea's next album comes out. But do please take a listen to the samples at her site, to her CD's, and to her performances, and e-mail me and tell me if I'm overstating my case or whether this woman is, indeed, the genuine article.
Carrie Newcomer
The Geography of Light
Rounder Records
This is the 11th release on Rounder for this accomplished singer-songwriter with a rich alto voice and an exceptional talent for lyrics that amount to philosophical, and sometimes almost theological, puzzles. She's got wonderful deep, mellow backing from Gary Walters on piano, Chris Wagoner on violin, mandolin, dobro, and ukulele, Mary Gaines on cello, Jeff Hedback on bass, Jim Brock on percussion, Keith Skooglund on guitar, and Krista Detor on background vocals. "I am the fool whose life's been spent/between what is said and what is meant," Newcomer sings in "There Is a Tree," an opener in which her tone approaches a Christine McVie creaminess. Drawing from her Quaker background, Newcomer writes songs much like Quaker hymns or poems. The lyrics often have an additional startling idiosyncratic beauty: "Round here we grow geodes in our gardens." But in tunes like "Where You Been," the imagery becomes a little more personal and immediate -- "Call in sick for the weekend, drinkin' St. Paulis in Wisconsin, I was fishing with my buddies, it was Sunday afternoon . . ." The album's a fun mix between ethereal and earthy. The bonus track, "Don't Push Send," is a hilarious Tin Pan Alley-style reminder of everything that can go wrong with e-mail gone astray. (Ever sent a grocery list or love note to your tax adviser by mistake? Then you know what she's talking about.) It'll be an encore favorite, I bet, at live shows.
Morcheeba
Dive Deep
Ultra Records
Brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey, and a small submarine full of guests, bring us, in Dive Deep, some moody and sensuous slow club grooves. Singers Judie Tzuke, Thomas Dybdahl of Norway, and Manda of France, plus rapper Cool Calm Pete and others join in for a rich punch of acoustic sounds over mixed kit and synth beats swimming amongst swirls, ripples, and splashes of electronic atmospherics. We "Enjoy the Ride" with Tzuke in the soulful opener, which advises us to "stop chasing shadows, just enjoy the ride." And so we shall. Dybdahl, in the "Riverbed" and "Sleep on It Tonight," has a sort of psychedelic stream-of-consciousness narrative to his musing baritone. "Thumbnails" is a trippy stare-intensely-into-your-date's-eyes-over-candlelight-at-the-Fez-Cafe kind of instrumental. "One Love Karma" woos us with its slow-mo rap rapport. "Au-dela" glows with Franco sweetness and light. And so on. Mood shifts within an appealing aqua world-music chill zone. Nice.
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J A Z Z A R I U M
Miguel Zenon
Awake
Marsalis Music
Miguel Zenon stretches his wings as arranger and orchestrator in this, his third disc for Marsalis Music. To his fab core group of Luis Perdomo on piano, Hans Glawischnig on bass, and Henry Cole on drums/percussion, he adds on select tracks a string quartet and a tenor sax/trumpet/trombone section, and even some unison group vocals. Plus Perdomo sometimes switches from piano to a Fender Rhodes, on which he provides some delicious glassy chordal cadences. These instrumental experiments add grace and heft to an exotic journey through 10 Zenon originals. Always glowing through is his tender-toned explorations from sweet to swirling to swinging. The album reminds us that experimental doesn't always mean jolting or aggressive. It can mean sensitive, thoughtful, and inviting.
Photo from B.H. Hopper Management
Russ Nolan & the Kenny Werner Trio
With You in Mind
Rhinoceruss Music
Russ Nolan, a dexterous tenor- and soprano-sax player and a talented and risk-taking composer, performed for years in his native Chicago. He met wizardly pianist Kenny Werner in 2001, and Werner not only influenced Nolan musically but helped persuade him to go to New York "to absorb the creative spirit there, or have it absorb me," as Nolan puts it. I'm not sure who or what has absorbed whom or what since Nolan moved east in 2002, but the results, as evidenced in these eight originals and one standard (Coltrane's "Naima"), tickle the ear and stir the soul, with Werner's colleagues Johannes Weidenmuller on bass and Ari Hoenig on drums delivering rich and nuanced performances as well. The funky opener, "Kilson's Groove," salutes Billy Kilson of the Dave Holland Quintet. "Stand Clear of the Closing Doors" is a dizzying off-balance homage to the subway. "Disheveled Waltz" is off-balance in a different mode -- a clever character actor masquerading as a jazz composition. But Nolan can also be a faintly melancholy charmer in ballads like the title track, also distinguished by Werner's shimmering scales in thirds, Hoenig's contemplative, quiet tom-toms, and Weidenmuller's gentle weight-shifting low intervals. The ender, "By the Way," is a rhythmically smirking, melodically plaintive tune that brings to mind a goodbye at a train station that starts out simple and ends up anything but as all the bottled-up words and thoughts come tumbling out.
Something for You:
Eliane Elias Sings and Plays Bill Evans
Blue Note
We last visited the superb pianist/singer/composer Elias in her fun RCA Victor contemporary turn for Around the City in the summer of 2006. Here, joined by bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron, she's back in a far more traditional setting with an enjoyable musical love letter to Bill Evans. It's bounteous, featuring 17 tracks, about half instrumental and half with Elias's airy, understated, and sometimes slightly over-reverbed vocals. Admittedly, the native Brazilian's accent occasionally causes a "Say what?" moment, but for the most part her English is clear and the accent frankly sort of cute, as when she trills "true" into
"t-r-r-rue." And her playing is gorgeous -- chordally dynamic, rhythmically elastic, and true to Evans's melodies without being slave to them. "Waltz for Debby," at least for this dad watching his daughter teeter into tween years, was particularly moving. "Someday all too soon / she'll grow up and she'll leave her dolls / and her prince and that silly old bear. /
When she goes they will cry / as she whispers 'Good-bye.' / They will miss her I fear /
but then so will I." Don't those lyrics seriously yank your heart? And the concluding reprise version of "Here's Something for You" -- beginning with a giddy clip from Evans himself -- is a brilliant ending, like a kiss blown across the ivories and the decades.
- Alexander C. Kafka