Music Review: Liz Childs - Take Flight

This article was first published at Blogcritics.

The thing that intrigued me the most about jazz vocalist/pianist Liz Childs' second album Take Flight was that among the seventeen jazz standards and tunes from the great American songbook , the kinds of songs you would normally expect from a jazz singer, she had included two pieces from Leonard Cohen and one from Bob Dylan.  Having just reviewed a CD from Monika Borzym, another promising young jazz vocalist, that featured an unlikely repertoire of music from the likes of Fiona Apple and Amy Winehouse, I was interested in seeing what Childs was doing with this material. 

There is nothing wrong with songs that are tried and true, but there is something important to be gained both for the artist and the genre when they broaden their horizons.  Jazz, after all, is in a real sense about breaking away from the same old same old.  It is about taking a piece of music and making it your own.   Childs takes us on a biting ride through Cohen's iconic "Hallelujah." At times her voice fairly reeks with bitterness and scorn, at least until the very end.   "Famous Blue Raincoat" is  a wistful haunting gem.  Childs invests both lyrics with an emotional truth that is nothing short of mesmerizing.  Bob Dylan's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" gets a swinging old style treatment with some nice guitar solo work from Ed MacEachen.  Truth to tell, I wouldn't have minded a few more of these kinds of songs.

Not that there's anything wrong her work on the standards, she has a voice that rings with bell like clarity, that can move from intense passion to playful girlishness with equal appeal.  She takes a lyric and plumbs its depth weaving sweet scat arabesques around its melodies.  Two good examples are the songs which open and close the album.  Jimmy van Heusen's "It Could Happen to You" and "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To," the Cole Porter classic, both highlight her scatting talents.  Her vocal play on "fire" and "desire" in the Porter tune is a kick.  There's a nice little obligatory bossa nova in Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Dindi."  There is even a nod to the blues with Bobby Troupe's "Baby All the Time." Among the other standards on the album are Porter's "Just One of Those Things," Lorenz Hart's "Lover," and Toots Thielemans' "Bluesette," each getting a fine reading.

The album takes its title from an original piece by guitarist MacEachen, who also is responsible for arranging ten of the songs on the CD.  "Take Flight" offers some nice opportunities for interaction between the singer's scatting and the composer's guitar. 

Childs is backed by MacEachen, Dan Fabricatore on bass and Anthony Pinciotti on drums.  She, herself, has decided to escape from the piano for this album.  "I wanted," she says, "to experience the freedom to explore singing without being constricted by sitting at the piano, and to be able to more completely respond to the band as a vocalist only.  So, that's what this CD is the start of."  If this is any indication of what she can do standing at the front of the band, one can only hope to hear more from her in the future.

Music Review: Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan In Concert Brandeis University 1963

Article first published as Music Review: Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan In Concert Brandeis University 1963 on Blogcritics.

While Bob Dylan devotees will be thrilled with the release of a previously unknown live recording of the young singer taped at Brandeis University's First Annual Folk Festival in May of 1963, more casual fans may be less impressed. The concert tape was discovered in the archives of music critic and Rolling Stone founder, Ralph Gleason, by his son a little more than a year ago after the death his mother. Only twenty one at the time of the concert, Dylan was yet to establish himself as one of the luminaries of the folk scene. Although he was recording with Columbia records, his first album, Bob Dylan, which contained very little original material hadn't been particularly successful. His second album which included some of his soon to be iconic songs had yet to be released. Festival headliners were Pete Seeger and Jean Ritchie; Dylan was the equivalent of an opening act.

The concert tape contains two sets and seven songs all of which are available elsewhere in studio recordings. There are three talking blues: the "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues," "Talkin' World War III Blues," and "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues." The first is a satirical attack on the anti-communist lunatic fringe, which was later to create some controversy when Dylan was not allowed to sing it on The Ed Sullivan Show. All three show the singer still in the Woody Guthrie phase of his early career. There is a foreshortened version of "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" which was to be included on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The "Ballad of Hollis Brown," as intense a composition as anything in Dylan's early canon, is the longest of the songs on the album. "Bob Dylan's Dream," sung with a kind of lyric clarity that no longer seems to interest the seventy year old singer, and the plaintive protesting "Masters of War" are probably the highlights of the two sets. The latter, which ends Dylan's first set, gets a really enthusiastic reception from the audience.

Liner notes for the album are written by Michael Gray author of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia and Song & Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan. They provide an interesting prospective on the singer and his repertoire at this early stage of his career. The concert, Gray points out, was not a momentous performance. "It reveals him not at any Big Moment but giving a performance like his folkclub sets of the period: repertoire from an ordinary working day."

DVD Review: Dylan Revealed

Article first published as DVD Review: Dylan Revealed on Blogcritics.

The most disappointing thing about Joel Gilbert's documentary Dylan Revealed now available on DVD in time for Dylan's 70^th birthday is that in all of its 110 minutes there isn't even one sample of the man singing, let alone a complete song. There is plenty of concert footage, but it is always film accompanied by talking head voiceover rather than the music. When there is music, it seems from the credits to be the music of a tribute band.

While a documentary about a musician that fails to include the man's music may not make a lot of sense, what the film does have is a lot of film from the singer's long career that it claims has never been seen before. Unfortunately the quality of much of this film is not always up to par. More often than not, it is taken from home movies shot by amateurs. For example there is film of Dylan on his 1966 Electric World Tour which was taken by drummer Mickey Jones who does the bulk of the narration about this period of Dylan's career. In the first half of the concerts Dylan would do an acoustic set, and Jones would go out and film from the audience. He'd get one of the roadies to film the second half when he was on stage. This is supplemented by film of Dylan and his entourage as they travel from country to country. Some of it is interesting, but after awhile it's like watching your brother-in-law's vacation movies. I mean "Bob Dylan visits Elsinore" and D. A. Pennebaker in and out of his top hat leave something to be desired.

The film is less a biography than it is a look at various more or less significant moments in the singer's career, although by no means all significant moments. It begins in 1962 with his Columbia recording contract, the dismal sales of his early recordings, and the problems this caused for legendary producer John Hammond. It jumps ahead to the Dylan goes electric period, and essentially makes the point that those who think he was selling out for the money are wrong. In fact, the poor reception his electric sets got from audiences cost him fans and money. Mickey Jones describes the cat calls and booing that greeted the electric portion of the concerts, a description that has been echoed recently by Robbie Robertson as he makes the talk show rounds in support of his new album.

Other aspects of Dylan's career that get major attention are his Rolling Thunder Revue Tour, his support of Reuben 'Hurricane' Carter, his born again period and his return to his Jewish heritage. And although the documentary's title seems to indicate that there are revelations in store for the viewer, I don't know that there is a whole lot that is new here. Clearly Dylan's preaching from the stage after his Christian conversion rubbed many concert goers the wrong way. As critic, Joe Selvin, points out, his audiences expected something quite different from him. If this conversion didn't last very long, those people who discuss it seem to feel it was an honest commitment. His return to Judaism may well have been honest as well, but the footage of his appearance on a Chabad telethon is downright embarrassing.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this film is the insight into the way Dylan worked with the other musicians he played with. Violinist Scarlet Rivera talks about the freedom Dylan gave her to develop her own ideas. Bassist Rob Stoner talks about the disorganization of recording sessions. Drummer Winston Watson describes his sink or swim audition for Dylan's band. In general, the picture of Dylan that emerges from their accounts is of an artist who seems more concerned with spontaneity and creative surprise than he is with rigid control.

Dylan Revealed is a very conventional documentary about a very unconventional artist. It does call attention to what might be considered the many faces of Bob Dylan, but certainly not as creatively as Todd Hayne's I'm Not There. It does tell you something about Dylan in the sixties, for example his 'supposed' motorcycle accident, but not in the detail that you get from David Hajdu's Positively 4^th Street. It does talk about his electric apostasy, but it really gives little insight into what if anything he was trying to accomplish. Unfortunately the DVD doesn't include any extra material. A director's commentary on the making of the film would be welcome. It would be nice to know why there is no film with the man actually singing. It would be nice to know why little is said about the singer's early relations with Joan Baez. It would be nice to know why Mickey Jones is the only member of The Band interviewed for the film. In the end what Dylan Revealed reveals is that there is still much about Mr. Dylan that needs revealing.

Book Review: Positively 4th Street, by David Hajdu

Article first published as Book Review: Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina by David Hajdu on Blogcritics.

Marking the tenth anniversary of its publication, Picador is issuing a new edition of David Hajdu's delicious portrait of the 60's folk scene as it was embodied in two of its greatest lights and two of its lesser luminaries--Positively 4th Street. In some sense this is the story of a quartet of unusual people, the queen of folk, Joan Baez, the prince, soon to become king, Bob Dylan, the queen's little sister, Mimi, and the court jester, Richard Farina. But in their story, there is the story of a decade of social and cultural mutations that were to make a shambles of the Leave it to Beaver picture of the country. This is the story of four people who were right for the time, a time that was right for them.

Although Hajdu does pay some attention to their earlier lives, it is the 60's that is the focus of the book. Folk music which had long been thought of as a niche music form for a limited audience of folklorists and socialists had begun finding a broader audience in the fifties. A group like The Weavers was finding its way onto the pop charts. Harry Belafonte was singing calypso. The Kingston Trio’s first album came out in 1958. People were singing "Irene," "The Banana Boat Song," and "Tom Dooley." The scene was set—all that was needed was some fresh blood to take advantage of it.

And along came Joan. Come from California with her family to Belmont, Massachusetts, she quickly gravitated to the Cambridge coffee house scene, at first joining with the singers from the audience and then moving up to the stage, captivating audiences with her shy soulful soprano. At times she sang duets with her sister, but Mimi was still in high school and not yet ready to compete for attention. Besides it was likely, Joan had little desire to share the stage. There was Farina, a student at Cornell, not really a musician, but ambitious and filled with youthful confidence and braggadocio. He wasn't yet but could be a writer, novels, essays, poems, songs—name it, he knew he could write it. Then there was Dylan, up from Minnesota with a "jones" for Woody Guthrie looking to make a name for himself in Greenwich Village. Hadju discusses at length the arcs of their careers, their inter-connections both professional and personal. It's all there: Joan's championship of Dylan's music, their love affair, Dylan's transition to the electric guitar, Farina's novel and his instrument of choice, the dulcimer, his secret marriage to Mimi in Paris and their emergence as a musical duo. And this doesn't begin to scratch the surface. He talks about their appearances at everything from Gerde's Folk City to the Newport Folk Festivals. He talks about their tours and their records. He discusses Joan's commitment to social and political activism, and Dylan's movement away from political protest. He describes Farina's poetry and his song writing. He shows how Mimi was relegated to a back seat in their professional relationship, despite her superiority as a musician. He summarizes some of the critical reaction to their work and does some evaluation of his own.

The book is filled with juicy gossip. Joan may have stolen her original material from the act of a friend she had teamed up with for awhile. Farina liked to tell people that he had been a gun runner for Castro, that he had fought with the IRA, that he had an steel plate in his head. Mimi was dyslexic. Joan was jealous of her beauty. The first time Dylan met the Baez sisters, he was more interested in Mimi. Dylan picks all the meat out of a stew Joan has made for a dinner party. And on, and on—plenty of little tidbits for all appetites.

He is not particularly interested in writing hagiography. They are not always portrayed as very nice people. Dylan is moody and is not beyond humiliating those around him. He seems to feel no obligation to anyone. Baez is jealous and controlling. Farina is boastful and reckless. Mimi, perhaps the nicest of the bunch, comes across as a naïve romantic, still she is all of 21 when the book concludes, so what can one expect. Perhaps these are the sins of youth, perhaps it is simply the self centeredness necessary for success in the music world, whatever it is, it can be disturbing to see that one's saints may well have those proverbial clay feet.

Now ten years old, the book is still a compelling read. But it is ten years old, and it is filled with references to people, places and events that could use some explanation. Even for those of us around at the time, a little help from our friends jogging our memories would be nice. For younger readers, the addition of explanatory footnotes couldn't hurt. If you're going to do a new edition, why not do a little editing. Sure it's only ten years, but memories are short.