Tag Archives: music now & then

New Albums from Loretta Lynn and Margo Price (with a little Jack White backstory)

Loretta Lynn released “Full Circle” on March 4th, her first new album since 2004.  Work on the album began in 2007 under the guidance of daughter Patsy Lynn and John Carter Cash. Its fourteen tracks were culled from hundreds of recordings made in those past eight years.  At 83 Lynn’s voice is still pitch perfect, and the duet “Lay Me Down” sung with her contemporary, Willie Nelson, is sure to be a favorite. The song was written by Mark Marchetti, the husband of Patsy’s twin sister Peggy.

I’ll wager that both the album and the duet will win Grammys this year. If they do, it would be a repeat of the success of Lynn’s last album, “Van Lear Rose”. Here’s the Grammy-winning duet “Portland Oregon” from that album, featuring its producer, Jack White.

Margo Price has been singing in Nashville for a dozen years, and her debut album “Midwest Farmer’s Daughter” is reportedly the first by a new country artist for Jack White’s Third Man Records. This album doesn’t feature White or bear his production imprint though, Price recorded it at Sun Studios in Memphis and Third Man released it just as Price recorded it.

Here’s the upbeat first official video from the album, “Hurtin’ (On the Bottle)”. Perhaps she’ll sing it when she performs on Saturday Night Live on April 9th!

More Jazz – Esperanza Spalding

Been covering a lot of jazz so far this year, but there’s so much good stuff out there!

Esperanza Spalding won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2011, an unusual feat for a a singing, songwriting, bass-playing jazz artist.  She beat out Justin Bieber, Drake, Mumford & Sons, and Florence + The Machine that year – gives you a feel for the impression she made to stand out in that decidedly non-jazz company.

Spalding released her fifth album “Emily’s D+Evolution” on March 4th.  It was co-produced by Tony Visconti who also co-produced David Bowie’s “Blackstar” (see our recent post).  The psychedelic visuals for the album’s first track “Good Lava” go with its progressive rock/jazz vibe, and you know you want to see her in concert after watching the live video for the album’s second track “Unconditional Love”.

While the new album shows off her eclectic side, Spalding’s career features plenty of straight jazz sensibility as well, winning her praise from the likes of Gary Burton, Pat Matheny, and Joe Lovano. Here she is playing live at the White House earlier this year, and a couple of years ago with Herbie Hancock at the Kennedy Center Honors, singing Sting’s “Fragile”

Aspiring Artists Cover the Classics

In a bit of pre-March Madness, I’ve been binging on “The Voice”.  While the show’s been criticized for not producing huge new artists in its ten years on the air, it is great fun.

This year, three aspiring, young artists dug deep into the vaults of classic rock and folk to find 90-seconds of magic that would feature their talents and get the celebrity judges to turn their chairs.

Fifteen-year-old Caroline Burns chose the Carole King classic “So Far Away ” from “Tapestry” released in 1971.  Enjoy her snippet, and then this amazing live performance by Carole King with James Taylor, accompanying on guitar as he did on the album.

Digging slightly farther back in the annals of rock was Ryan Quinn who chose Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home”. The tune is from the 1969 one-and-only-album released by the super-group that featured Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker post-Cream, and Stevie Winwood post-Traffic. Here is Ryan’s condensed version, and a very nice solo acoustic version by the composer – Winwood himself.

The award for the deepest dig goes to Owen Danoff who covered my favorite Dylan song, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”. Here’s the performance that got Owen a spot on “The Voice”, and the original, written in 1962, from “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”. That album, by the way, was the legend’s second, and where his eponymous debut album was mostly covers, “Freewheelin'” was mostly original material. I promise that listening to the whole Dylan track won’t be a waste of your precious time.

2016 Grammys – Jazz Vocals & More

Last week I covered some fine jazz instrumental winners from the 2016 Grammy Awards, and this week I’ll add the winner for Best Jazz Vocal Album. “For One to Love” is the third album by 26-year-old Cécile McLorin Salvant.  Her second album, “WomanChild” was nominated for the same Grammy in 2014.

Half of the songs on “For One to Love” were composed by McLorin Salvant, and the other half are by a raft of famous composers.  First listen to her composition “Look at Me”. Could this become a jazz standard some day?

One of the more interesting covers on the album is “Wives and Lovers”. The lyrics of this Burt Bacharach / Hal David tune are viewed as a bit sexist these days, but in McLorin Salvant’s hands the song gets a fresh feel that is anything but. And the dance moves of Storyboard P make for a super video. By the way, this song won the 1963 Grammy for Best Male Vocal Performance for crooner, Jack Jones. And in the 60’s it was covered by Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne and Dionne Warwick (of course), as well as Frank Sinatra, Billy Eckstine and Vic Damone.

If you are not one of the lucky ones to have seen the hit musical “Hamilton” on Broadway, you got a small taste on the Grammy Awards show. The cast performed the opening number via telecast to celebrate the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. To hear a bit more from the show, the a cappella group Range fit in snippets of all 27 of the show’s songs in this 7-minute video. If you’d like to hear more from Range, here is a link to more videos on their website.

2016 Grammys – Instrumental Jazz

As I write, the Grammy results are not all in yet, but winners in a number of jazz categories have been announced. It’s great to know the musical form is still going strong.

Thrilled to report that Snarky Puppy won Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for “Sylva”. I wrote about the band a bit over a year ago, a few months before the April release of “Sylva”. For this album the group teamed up with Holland’s Metropole Orkest. Enjoy this video performance of the album’s first three tracks. It’s 15 minutes long, but well worth it.

A couple of weeks ago you read about young Joey Alexander, who was nominated for two Grammy awards. Well, he didn’t win either, but no shame in that when we look at the winners (and since he’s just 12, Joey will have plenty more chances).

Bassist Christian McBride won Best Improvised Jazz Solo for “Cherokee” from “Live at the Village Vanguard”. It’s hard to find someone in the world of jazz whom McBride hasn’t played with over the years, from Wynton Marsalis to Chick Corea to Herbie Hancock. And he’s played with the likes of Paul McCartney, James Brown and The Roots as well. There is plenty of great soloing by all three musicians on this track by the Christian McBride Trio, but that is some fine base work.

In the category of Best Jazz Instrumental Album, young Joey was bested by legendary guitarist John Schofield for his latest release, “Past Present”. Schofield’s jazz resume may be even more amazing than McBride’s, having played with George Duke, Charles Mingus, and Gary Burton, before a long stint with Miles Davis.  For “Past Present” he teams up with saxophonist Joe Lovano, a bandmate from the 80’s.  Here’s “Get Proud”.