McCoy Tyner (4 stars)
Illuminations
Speaking strictly from a sales standpoint, jazz is in sorry shape and getting sorrier. Look for it in Billboard's rankings. Find it? Didn't think so.
But even as jazz gradually—for many of us, painfully—recedes from America's musical consciousness, it's comforting to know that artistically, one of this country's most glorious contributions to world culture still has its fiercely proud guardians.
Proving anew his ability to keep the barbarians from the gate, piano legend McCoy Tyner, with all-star sidemen Gary Bartz on sax; Terence Blanchard, trumpet; Christian McBride, bass; and Lewis Nash, drums, sets a purist's heart aflame on Telarc Jazz's Illuminations, with up-to-the-minute grooves planted securely in traditional bebop roots.
The 10-track disc kicks off with a trio of Tyner-penned pieces. The frisky title tune, a nubile little number, highlights Nash's off-the-beat accents framing a straight-ahead jazz train chugging cheerfully along, punctuated by clean contributions from every sideman, notably McBride's puckish plucking. Latin-flavored "Angelina" singles out Blanchard, with his piercing bleats and sky-scraping trumpet riffs, and "New Orleans Stomp" is the hippest, bluesiest ragtime march to ever strut out of the Big Easy.
Revisiting a golden standard, Tyner playfully roams all over the keyboard with fancy finger work on Harold Arlen's "Come Rain or Come Shine," while the Bartz composition "Soulstice" and Blanchard's "Blessings" fire up their solo souls. McBride's "West Philly Tone Poem" provides a pensive counterpoint, the composer's bowed bass lines intertwining with Tyner's liquid curlicues on piano.
And "The Chase" is a frenetic little flight of fancy, the perfect soundtrack if a cartoon jazz cat gave the Roadrunner a smoke break, eluding Wile E. Coyote while riffing maniacally.
Illuminations can brighten the heart of any despondent jazz fan—especially after rifling through Billboard.
ZZ TOP (3 stars)
Rancho Texicano: The Very Best of ZZ Top
It's hard to believe that the ZZ Top of the loose, gritty blues number "Brown Sugar" which opens Rancho Texicano, their latest best-of collection, is the same ZZ Top as that of the processed, canned cover of "Viva Las Vegas" that closes it.
Rancho Texicano is a somewhat frustrating collection for die-hards and casual fans alike. The curious don't need two discs' worth of material, and the dedicated will be disappointed that the set ignores the band's four post-1992 albums for RCA, with their steps back from the '80s synth-cheese material. Rancho's first disc is full of plenty of blues-rock classics, from the band's first hit, "La Grange," through the cheeky "Tush" and the energetic "Heard it on the X."
The second disc has the biggest hits, like "Legs" and "Sharp Dressed Man," but it also has some truly atrocious '80s songs that sound more suited to Huey Lewis & the News than a Texas blues band. The three bonus tracks, including (shudder) the dance mix of "Legs," are mere filler. Still, if you're searching for a balanced look at a classic band, warts and all, this isn't a bad place to start.
Cole Porter (4 stars)
Cocktails With Cole Porter
It would be understandable for you to be confused about what decade, even century, you're in, what with the confluence of Cole Porter material in the media. First, there's the new movie which screened at CineVegas, De-Lovely, a biopic about the famous composer and lyricist's life. Then there's Ashley Judd pimping the movie on TV talk shows. Now there's Cocktails With Cole Porter, a new release from Capitol's Ultra-Lounge series.
A compilation of Porter's material performed by a wide variety of 1950s and '60s artists, Cocktails presents an exhaustive overview of the famous American songwriter's work from the '20s and '30s.
As with any collection of 20 tracks by different singers, including a pair of duets, there are some that come out weaker by comparison. Certainly, Steve Lawrence's rendition of "Night and Day" stands out as a winner, while Dean Martin on "True Love" comes closer to sounding like a catatonic Perry Como than his normal swingin' self. Julie London's version of "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" is so addictive, I had to physically restrain myself to stop hitting the repeat button, but Judy Garland is utterly drowned by orchestration in "I Happen To Like New York," almost to the point of satire.
Overall, however, Cocktails is a great sampling of a great artist, and a perfect accompaniment to a chilled martini and some plastic modular furnishing from Urban Outfitters.
Martin Stein