Gilbert Isbin & Scott Walton, Recall

Gilbert Isbin and Scott Walton give us that most rare of duo combinations, and a whole disk's worth at that: the meeting of lute and contrabass. Recall (pfMentum 073) is the title, and it has resonance, since there is a deja vu quality to the music.

Isbin is at the lute, Walton on the bass. Together they traverse a sort of free/composed territory that combines avant improv with echoes of early music lute sounds. Not just echoes, but not direct quotations mostly, with one medieval Welsh folksong being the exception.

It's a pretty magical combination and a provocative, very well played program. Both are impressive exponents of their instruments and they work together closely and quite productively.

It's a CD you might not expect. Once you hear it a few times it starts getting to you in nice ways.

There may be nothing else like it out there. And it's good. Happy listening!

Copernicus, Deeper

Someday, thousands of years from now, space creators may come to this planet, sort through the rubble, unearth the Copernicus CD at hand today, and, supposing they could figure out the digital technology involved and also learn English, scratch their heads (if they had any) and wonder what we were all about. I am wondering myself and I am from this culture!

I speak of Deeper (Nevermore, Inc 2087), a reissue of Copernicus's 1987 opus. It is one of his best from a standpoint of a synergy between out-rockband and Copernicus's impassioned, bellicose incantations. The band is rather large and Copernicus responds in kind, giving us an inspired lunacy fully befitting his determed-ly marginal status, an outsider crying not in the wilderness, but shouting a message from the periphery to the center.

I've said this before, but Copernicus takes the sort of dark imagery of Jim Morrison in "The End" and takes it further, further, to a world that might not seem like OUR world. But in fact, it is. So, it speaks to us. Do we listen? I don't know. Copernicus will never be on top 40 radio, especially not today.

That's probably good.

Cheatahs, Extended Plays EP

Cheatahs? Yes! Here's a band that has that wonderful sense of vocal melody and chord progression, who do a hard hitting lyrical yet advanced rock thing, a new Sonic Youth of sorts, an REM'd gift for presence, a beautiful wall-of-sound-sound.

I speak of their EP Extended Plays (Wichita Recordings). They are England-based and this release is a combo of a couple of mini-EPS out for a while in the UK. They are in the middle of touring the States right as I write this so look out for them.

It's just a band and a set that has it. Four guys with the guitars, bass, drums, voices and some really good hard-joy songs....with the knack!

I would recommend that you track this down if you like hard tunefulness.

More!

Scott Healy-Glenn Alexander Quartet, Northern Light

How is it that 20 years go by and a session that was well worth hearing in 1991 or so doesn't see the light of day until now? It happens. Such is the case with the Scott Healy-Glenn Alexander Quartet's Northern Light (Hudson City), just out now after a lengthy wait in the can.

The album gives us composed rubato tonal melodics in a sort of post-Methany lyrical mode. Scott Healy mans the piano and synthesizers, Glenn Alexander plies the guitar, Kermit Driscoll gets into the acoustic bass and Jeff Hirshfield gives the music solid foundations on drums.

Everybody sounds good, the tunes are quite pleasing, and the improvising fits right in with the style parameters they set for themselves.

It's as good a run at this sort of jazz as anything that came out at the time. Guitar fans will no doubt love what Glenn is doing but it's a very good effort from everybody.

Edgar Broughton Band, Live in Hamburg, The Fabrik Concert, 1973

There's an old joke that goes "if you remember the '60s you probably weren't there!" I do, though, and I was there, at least as far as time zones are concerned. What has struck me over the years is how many things, at least in music, attributed to the '60s are in fact a product of the period between 1967 and 1974.

The CD up today qualifies. It is a concert recorded in 1973. The Edgar Broughton Band hold forth Live in Hamburg (Sireena 2107) for a lively set. They are English and in loosely good form. If you are not familiar with them, I actually wasn't either, so not to worry. If you are, then you have a leg up on the rest of us. They play music that is usually more associated with the '60s than 1973, hence my opening salvo.

They have that loud, brash, in your face insouciance of the MC5, only English style, somehow. . . . plenty of heavily amped guitar power-chording and an authentically frantic vocal style are there for you to appreciate in the 75 minute set.

The sound is typical of what a loud band in a club might produce back then. It is not going to win any sonic awards but it has the sound of the real thing from the period.

It's the hard-knock school of psyche-rock, and if that sounds good I think you'll like this one indeed.

The Rolling Stones, Mick vs. Keith: The Strange Case of Jagger & Richards, 2-DVD Documentary Box Set

On tap today is a 2-DVD box set on the Rolling Stones: Mick vs. Keith: The Strange Case of Jagger & Richards (Chrome Dreams DVD-IS 035), which contains two complete documentaries: The Roaring '20s: Mick Jagger's Glory Years and Keith Richards Under Review. The latter covers Richards' career as whole, the former Jagger and the Stones when Mick was in his '20s.

Both DVDs take the form of review bios of this sort, covering the period of time in terms of salient events and recorded output. Because both DVDs come to grips with similar time periods at the intersection of the '60s through early '70s there is some overlap, but always from the perspective of either Richards or Jagger.

In the end the emphasis is on the development of the Stones as the premiere hard rock outfit of its day, especially from the advent of the hit single "Satisfaction" through Let it Bleed and a bit after. Most certainly from the perspective of Keith Richards, this was when his growing influence was key to the instrumental punch of the group sound. It was also when Jagger did some of his best work.

The DVDs take the form of chronological narrative with key critics commenting on the recordings and those who were witnesses to the period relating what they experienced.

The critics don't have much good to say about the music that did not follow the blues and r&b sides through to the hard rock breakthrough. The folk rock and psychological aspects of the band in the '60s are fairly roundly dismissed. That is probably how the mainstream of Stones fans feel who came to the band later in the history--especially as their fame and popularity as a live act spread. And the critics cited here have something to do with stressing that interpretation of the band in print.

Others (like myself) may feel that the less prototypical Stones work for that period has at least equal interest. No matter. Brian Jones's influence and input understandably gets less attention, given the subject matter of the DVDs. And that too is part of Stones orthodoxy.

Altamount, Richards' drug problems, Jagger's increasing infatuation with success and the glamour life are all given due consideration. The directly musical aspect of the Richards documentary is perhaps the most interesting, e.g., his way with a riff, his guitar tunings, etc.

It's all quite respectable entertainment, informative and rather insightful at points. In the end it is the sort of documentaries that Stones fans will find to their taste and anyone with an interest in the era.

Ultimately I was brought to wonder at the resilience of Richards in spite of personal difficulties, the balsiness of Jagger and the development of his stage persona, the fragile interaction of the two when the band was at its later best and the long run of great music they managed to produce.

This is not the last word or thoughts on the Stones, of course, but well worth seeing.

Barry Romberg's Random Access, Crab People

Drummer-Composer-Bandleader Barry Romberg has scored big with his Random Access band on the 2-CD set Crab People (Romhog 123). This is his twelfth release and, though I wasn't counting, this one corks it!!

The band includes Ben Monder and Geoff Young on very electric guitars, and some very hip players in general going after a post-Milesian-fusion-rock that is very advanced-funky and harmonic-line advanced as well.

Kelly Jefferson and Kirk McDonald play soprano-tenor and tenor, respectively and they sound good. Trumpet, two contrabasses, electric bass, percussion and keys round things out and it all hangs together exceptionally well.

About half the album puts together spontaneous compositional junkets, the other half addresses written motifs and their jammed, highly sound-colored realizations.

It's music that is out and grooves too. Really grooves when it gets into the mode. This is one hell of an electric band in a very adventuresome mood.

If you like out fusion, this will kill you!