Three for 2010: Chieftains, Farnham & Beck
by Paul Rosano on Jul.22, 2010, under Music
In the first half of the year, I’ve been listening to three CDs quite a bit, all beautifully executed but quite different from one another. They are easily three of the best records from the first six months of 2010 and three you should give a listen.
The Chieftains’ San Patricio gives a featured billing to Ry Cooder, an occasional collaborator with the Irish group who writes, plays, sings, produces and arranges on this unusual yet intriguing mix of Celtic and Mexican music based on a fictionalized version of the story of Irish soldiers fighting with the Mexican army.
San Patricio is somewhat reminiscent of Santiago, another Chieftains’ effort from 1996 on which they blended Celtic sensibilities with Galician music from northwest Spain.
The group showed the direct link between the two musical heritages while including collaborators Cooder, Linda Ronstadt and Los Lobos, among many others.
The music on San Patricio is joyous, celebratory, heartfelt, forboding and ultimately upbeat and forward moving. The highlights are many, including the opener La Iguana with sensuous vocalist Lila Downs, who also appears on El Relampago; Ronstadt’s tender La Orilla de Un Palmar; the Cooder compositions The Sands Of Mexico and Cancion Mixteca (Intro) along with the song proper by Jose Lopez Alavez; March To Battle (Across The Rio Grande), which features a narration by Liam Neeson; and traditional numbers that feature Los Folkloristas and Los Camperos deValles.
It’s all a rich tapestry of the blending of these two musical styles that share so much in common.
The Irish soldiers, led by Captain John Riley during the war with Mexico (1846-48) were discriminated against and treated brutally by the American troops. So much so they defected to join a people with whom they had much more in common.
Although the thread of story on this record is entirely fictitious, there is no doubt music must have been a big part of the Irish soldiers’ experience as it is imbued so deeply in both cultures. A wonderfully realized example of what we now call World Music but is simply an inspiring work under any title. (continue reading…)
Mick Taylor finally arrives in America
by Paul Rosano on May.01, 2010, under Music
Last July, blues guitarist Mick Taylor was scheduled to play four shows in New England during an American Tour, his first gigs in the U.S. since 2007. The entire tour was canceled, though, after Taylor was diagnosed with a blood clot in his chest and pleurisy.
Recovered and looking healthy, Taylor rescheduled the tour for this spring and arrived in Boston Wednesday night. His five-piece group, which includes notable keyboardist Max Middleton, played in Northampton Thursday at the Iron Horse Music Hall to an enthusiastic and rowdy capacity crowd.
Though the band was jet-lagged, as Taylor mentioned, they shook off the rust and ran through a 1 1/2-hour set that showcased Taylor’s brilliant single-string and slide guitar work. The outfit was a bit on the loose side but still rocked hard throughout. Taylor’s voice, which is pleasing if not technically adept, carried off some of his own best-known tunes to his loyal following and some other more widely-known material.
Taylor, best known as the 17-year-old wunderkind of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in 1968-69, replacing Peter Green who departed for Fleetwood Mac, or as the ideal replacement for the fired Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones, giving that band one of its most accomplished lineups, is now in his early 60s and bit more rotund than that slim, young, baby-faced guitar player from what was a magical time for blues musicians. But he seemed happy, ready to please and rocking throughout his group’s set, showing alternately tender and fiery musicianship as he soloed frequently. (continue reading…)
The 10 best for ‘09
by Paul Rosano on Dec.22, 2009, under Music
Last year I picked five albums I considered the best of the year. This time I’m upping it to 10 with a few bubbling under and some added tidbits.
1. Already Free, The Derek Trucks Band: Traditional blues with modern sensibilities and influences from jazz, roots and world music, all played by an array of accomplished musicians and one of the best slide players of our time.
2. The Deep End, Christine Ohlman and Rebel Montez: Stellar songwriting, impassioned vocals and infectious grooves highlight Ohlman’s fifth album, which also features an impressive roster of guests. Her best yet.
3. Electric Dirt, Levon Helm: On this electrified followup to his comeback album Dirt Farmer, Helm blends traditional roots music with elements of folk, blues, soul and gospel. The mix of new original material and classic covers works perfectly. The arrangements are clean and to the point and musicianship impeccable.
4. Middle Cyclone, Neko Case: A wonderful concoction of folk, rock, country and pop interlaced with enigmatic lyrics and penetrating melodies. All topped with Case’s crystal clear voice.
5. All In One, Bebel Gilberto: Her best since Tanta Tempo in 2000, this work is alive with beautiful songwriting and Gilberto’s gorgeous, hushed, cool vocals. Aided by her pals Carlhinos Brown and Didi Gutman among others.
6. Soul On Ten, Robben Ford: A ripping, rocking live set with two live-in-the-studio cuts, filled with Ford’s interesting blues-based originals, some classic covers and his unique take on blues, rock and jazz playing.
7. The List, Rosanne Cash: A love letter to her father Johnny and her audience, giving back songs from his list of 100 that he gave to his teen-age daughter. Arrangements and execution by Cash and husband John Levanthal are enthralling. (continue reading…)
Jeff Beck gives Tal a hand
by Paul Rosano on Dec.10, 2009, under Music
Back in April, I wrote about a remarkable concert given by Jeff Beck and his group at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods in Connecticut.
One of the sequences of the show that was absolutely startling was a solo taken by Tal Wilkenfeld, a 23-year-old bassist from Australia who looks no more than about 17, during which Beck takes off his guitar, walks over to the bass player and proceeds to accompany her by playing on just the E and A strings of her bass.
This video, produced by an astute videographer at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza in New York gig the night before I saw Beck at Foxwoods, shows the duet. They play it fast and loose, having a lot of fun with it as they did at the Grand. Her virtuosity is overwhelming for someone so young. Just a treat to watch.
Can you pick out the melody and changes Tal plays at the end of the solo?
Butterfield rocks Rockpalast
by Paul Rosano on Jun.26, 2009, under Music
I was more than a little surprised but quite pleased to learn a Paul Butterfield performance from the late 1970s was being released this year as part of the Rockpalast DVD Collection.
For the uninitiated, Rockpalast is a long-running German TV show that started in the early 1970s and broadcasts live concerts. Many performances from those shows by scores of artists have been officially released or generally available over the years.
This DVD, Paul Butterfield Band Blues Rock Legends Vol. 2, is part of a new series. Other recently released DVDs from the Rockpalast (which translates as Rock Palace) include John Cipollina, who played with Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane, Commander Cody, Randy California and Spirit, and Dickey Betts.
This concert was filmed long after the heyday of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, a revered and highly influential but often overlooked group from the mid-to-late ’60s and early ’70s. Butter was a solo artist at this point, having released the album Put It In Your Ear (1975) and two years after this show North South (1980) on the Bearsville label, neither of which made much of a dent on the sales charts or the public’s perception.
The DVD’s notes state this is Butter’s first European performance. It was taped on September 15, 1978 in Essen at the Grugahalle in a show that also included Alvin Lee and Peter Gabriel. (continue reading…)
Concerts Vol. 6: Jimmy Page and The Yardbirds
by Paul Rosano on May.19, 2009, under Music
A few weeks before leaving for Boston University, and later Berklee School of Music, in August, 1967, and after the Bram Rigg Set had broken up, my good friend Beau Segal and I drove down to New York to see the Yardbirds. Beau was the one who found out about the show and it was his treat, sending me off to school in style.
Jeff Beck had left the Yardbirds and now Jimmy Page was the sole guitar player in the group. We had loved the single issued earlier in the year, Little Games, and most of the subsequent album release by the same name, although the U.S. release is a bit of a hodge-podge and left out some key tracks that appeared on the U.K. album. The double CD release of the early ’90s and then a later reissue rectified all this by including just about everything from that period.
But I couldn’t get enough of the shuffle feel of the single with Page’s mesmorizing rhythm guitar part and biting lead in the middle section. Later the next year, my group Pulse came up with a song with a similar feel that Beau wrote. I still have his original lyric sheet. It has no title on it but we used to refer to it as If You Love Me Today, and we played it in the second incarnation of Pulse, which was a four-piece with Harvey Thurott on second guitar.
The Yardbirds were playing at the Village Theater in New York on August 25, about six months later it would become Fillmore East. We didn’t know then that it was actually a rather momentous occasion because this was the show at which Page would get the inspiration, to put it politely, for one of Led Zeppelin’s signature tunes from their first album, Dazed And Confused. (continue reading…)
Seeing Beck play is believing
by Paul Rosano on May.08, 2009, under Music
So many times, directors just get it wrong when making a concert film. Too many quick cuts, MTV-style editing, no focus on the performers, annoying special effects. It’s not only in recent years either. The effects problem started way back when Tony Palmer documented Cream playing its Farewell concert at Royal Albert Hall in 1968.
It’s a pleasure to note that the film makers of Jeff Beck Performing This Week … Live At Ronnie Scott’s got it right. So right it’s one of the best concert films in recent memory. The last with this type of professionalism and dedication to the music and musicians was another Cream gig, the reunion concert from 2005, also at RAH. But the Beck show is better.
The intimate atmosphere of one of the world’s great jazz clubs, Ronnie Scott’s in London, the tightknit performance by Beck’s group on a small stage, the immediacy of the audience, complete with rock celebs such as Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, all contribute to this excellent video document of the same performance released on Beck’s CD version of the show late last year.
The DVD has all of the CD performances, plus five numbers with guests Joss Stone, Imogen Heap and Eric Clapton. Most important, the DVD reveals much of what Jeff Beck is all about. The camera work is stellar in capturing his unique guitar playing style and technique, often zooming in on his hands, which are an endless source of fascination. (continue reading…)
Bolero, Beck-Style
by Paul Rosano on Apr.13, 2009, under Music
Billed as the Legendary Jeff Beck, the guitar maestro walked onto the stage of the 4,000-seat MGM Grand at Foxwoods Saturday night decked out like a white knight. He had on a white T-shirt, white vest, white scarf, skin-tight white pants tucked into white boots with fringe and a white, the body naturally yellowed, Fender Strat with a white pickguard.
He launched into what has become in the past few years his traditional opener, Beck’s Bolero, a Jimmy Page composition from the classic 1968 Truth album with the Jeff Beck Group, which influenced most of the heavy blues-based rock that would follow in the 1970s (see Led Zeppelin). The album cut is heavily produced. In concert, the tune benefits from a scaled down, tight, spare version with his four-piece band: Vinnie Colaiuta, drums, Tal Wilkenfeld, bass and Jason Rebello on keyboards.
The tune set the stage for a set consisting of most of Beck’s best known tunes from his fusion era, which now spans the mid-to-late 70s to present day. The Pump and You Never Know, from the ’80s album There And Back, followed. Beck is still in command of his considerable and unique skills, playing in his hybrid style, sans pick, of using his thumb and fingers and producing a trademark sound with effects he generates mainly through only his hands, sounds he has been noted for since his days with the Yardbirds in the mid-’60s.
The first ballad was the stellar Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers, from Blow By Blow, the album that really brought Beck to prominence as a solo artist in the 1970s. The tune, though, was dominated by Wilkenfeld, a 23-year-old female wunderkind, who took a breath-taking solo and received a big response from the audience. (continue reading…)
Concerts Vol. 2: Blown away
by Paul Rosano on Mar.25, 2009, under Music
Several times over the years I’ve seen opening acts blow away a headliner. I mentioned one such concert that involved the original Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart at Woolsey Hall in New Haven in 1969.
Two stand out above the rest though. The more recent was on Oct. 18, 1977. I know the date not because I still have a ticket stub, but because the concert became an album release for the headliner, Robin Trower (left, top), titled King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents, recorded at the now demolished New Haven Coliseum.
I was a huge Trower fan at the time and had seen him in the same venue close to two years earlier after the release of his third solo album. His band included James Dewar on bass and vocals and drummer Bill Lordan, who had played with Sly Stone.
At that concert, most of the material came from the seminal hard blues-rock album Bridge Of Sighs (1974), including Day Of The Eagle, Too Rolling Stoned and others, and a smattering from his latest, For Earth Below (1975). By 1977, Trower had released Long Misty Days, not as popular as his first three, and had just released In City Dreams, which took a decided funkier and not quite as heavy turn.
The opening act was the group Derringer, led by another guitar flash Rick Derringer (left). Since Derringer had released its first album in 1975, they had toured relentlessly and played in Connecticut frequently and New Haven often at the Arcadia Ballroom on Whalley Avenue, which at one time was a Nelke Motors dealership, selling Mercedes cars, and in Waterbury at the Red House.
I’d seen Derringer many times and his band was a solid hard rock outfit, with good songs and outstanding players. The original lineup included Vinny Appice, brother of Carmine (Vanilla Fudge, Rod Stewart) on drums, the remarkable Kenny Aaronson on bass and Danny Johnson on second lead guitar. Neil Giraldo, who went on to play with and marry Pat Benetar, would replace Johnson within a year and Myron Grombacher took over for Appice. By the time of the Trower concert Mark Cunningham was on second guitar.
Derringer had a great stage show, but I always felt it was more suited for small clubs. I’d never seen the kind of pyrotechnics he had planned for this opening slot. In addition to material from the Derringer albums, he also played Rock ‘n Roll Hoochie Koo and Still Alive And Well, prior hits. Early in his set a large group of the audience rushed to the front of the stage where they were allowed to rock out. I was midway back on the floor and though I thought they sounded great, I also thought it was kind of strange that fans were rushing the stage, even for Derringer.
It all built to a heated and intense peak when Derringer and Cunningham stood on opposite sides of the stage and actually flipped their guitars high above their heads so they twirled in the air across the stage to each other, once, twice and then flipped them high in the air and caught them without a hitch. The crowed went absolutely bonkers. (continue reading…)
Concerts Vol. 1
by Paul Rosano on Mar.11, 2009, under Music
The first in a series that will focus on concerts I’ve seen and serve as companion pieces to the Connecticut rock ‘n roll scene posts I started with Connecticut’s Own and Pulse, Part 2.
I’ve been to quite a few concerts over the years, many influential, some inspiring. The earliest big venue shows were in the fall of 1965, both at the New Haven Arena. In early November, it was the Rolling Stones with Brian Jones on second guitar in the wake of their summer mega-hit Satisfaction. The Stones sounded and looked great, but it was a relatively sedate performance compared with ones for which the band became infamous. A side note on the Stones show is that the first time they were booked for the Arena, the summer of ‘64, the show was actually canceled because of insufficient ticket sales. Amazing. The second show, the Beach Boys with Brian Wilson on bass, on Thanksgiving Day. The Boys wore yellow short-sleeved oxford shirts with gray slacks, not their customary black-and-white and white khakis (I guess because it was a holiday) and with Brian in the fold sounded like angels. Two rather different groups but both rode the singles charts and that’s what drove the music industry at the time.
But the earliest show that made a huge impression on me was in a much smaller venue, the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village in the winter of 1967. The headliner was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. But let’s back up a little.
I had been playing bass since 1964 in a couple of garage bands, most notably the Vanguards with Gary Gerard and Peter Neri, whom I would later play with in Bram Rigg Set and Pulse. I also played with and learned quite a bit from the Aiardo brothers, Tony and Peter, from North Haven who played first as the Highlights and later as New England Jam. They played everything from weddings to proms to clubs such as the House of Zodiac on Route 34 on the West Haven/New Haven line. They were schooled more than most musicians in the area and worked constantly. I’ll never forget a few years later when working with them again temporarily, we played a wedding in the afternoon, a dinner-dance in the early evening and an after-prom into the early hours. This was pretty typical and I learned a great deal from both of them, particularly Peter, who was a brilliant guitarist and was my second bass teacher. (continue reading…)
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