#16: Tom Waits: Bad As Me

Details: Tom Waits (b. 1949): Bad As Me. ANTI-, 2011. Total time: 44:36.

I'd love to know what would've happened had Tom Waits been dropped into,  say, the 1920s to see what kind of music he would've produced back then and how or if it would've been different. 

Waits is truly a unique musician with one of the oddest collection of vocal stylings in recorded history I would think.  His trademark low, raspy, growly, groaning singing has likely made more than a few listeners over the years a bit unsettled.

Like a good strong aged and somewhat rare whiskey,  though,  one warms to it after a few sips--or in this case, songs.

Waits has been on the scene for more than four decades now and is one hell of a songwriter as evidenced by this recent album which is another offering of saloon songs, rocking and raging blues, and other stuff that defies categorization. He plays a mean guitar on all of the songs and does piano and other instruments on various songs too.

His singular voice endures and sounds like some strange blend of bits of Louis Armstrong, Wolfman Jack, Christopher Lloyd as Rev. Jim Ignatowski on the old TV show Taxi, and maybe Willie Nelson and even a little Billie Holiday. Actually it's challenging to begin to describe his voice in any way other than indirectly.  You just have to listen to it yourself.

The album opens with not one but two knock-yer-socks-off songs,  the rollicking Chicago and a barnburning Raised Right Men, in which Waits declares emphatically and so truthfully,  "Heavens to Murgatroid...there ain't enough raised-right men."  A couple years ago he performed Chicago and Raised Right Men on the Letterman and Jimmy  Kimmel shows, I believe, in two rare and spectacular late night TV performances.

He could be offering a critique of social media such as Twitter when he sings in falsetto in the eerie third song,  "everybody's talking at the same time." It sounds like a song that could serve as the soundtrack for a scene in a David Lynch movie,  or an episode of the great old TV show,  "Twin Peaks." Waits' piano playing on this song sounds like it was done on an old upright and has the same quality as the piano on Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel."

Track 4, Get Lost, sounds a lot like The Big Bopper mixed with Buddy Holly. Track 5. Face to the Highway, is wistful and mournful.  Track 6, Pay Me -- an old fashioned waltz -- sounds like Waits recorded it sitting alone in a corner tavern at the bar reflecting,  "I gave up my life for the stage" and "all roads lead to the end of the world." 

And with that the first six songs form a truly classic first "side" of an album.  The remaining seven songs are good too but 1 to 6 are jaw-dropping good stuff.

#15: Rosalyn Tureck: Bach & Tureck at Home - A Birthday Offering

Details: Rosalyn Tureck (1913-2003): Bach & Tureck at  Home - a Birthday Offering. Classical Music, 1990. Total Time: 71:02.

All of the remarkable live performances on this album were recorded at the home of William F. Buckley in the 1970s and early 1980s. Buckley's wife first arranged for Tureck to perform a live recital for Buckley and about two dozen guests, as a surprise birthday present for her husband, at their home overlooking Long Island Sound. The annual tradition of such in-home live recitals continued for a number of years and this album (and however many others are out there) are the recordings of those performances.

Rosalyn Tureck was known as a serious Bach keyboard specialist -- even the legendary Glenn Gould cited her as his "only influence." She was known to have played Bach's keyboard music on both harpsichord and piano. Here, the present album includes her renditions on the piano of four sets of preludes and fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier, one of the English suites, the D-minor sonata, and the Italian Concerto, all of which are fascinating and compelling. Although there were apparently 25 to 30 people present when these recordings were made, you can literally hear a pin drop. There is not one distracting noise from the audience during her playing.

Having heard my mother play the piece countless times, I found Tureck's version of the Italian Concerto to be quite curious. She plays in a very different style than I am used to hearing, with what sounds to me like a few extra ornamentations here and there, and a noticeably different opening of the first movement with the first chord played as an arpeggio.

If I recall correctly my father gave me this album as a gift. I also believe this is only one of several such albums of hers in a series under this title...in other words, there are other albums "out there" recorded at the Buckley home including the Goldberg Variations. It appears that these recordings are quite rare as nothing is available even on Amazon. So I'm lucky to have even this one...thanks to my dad.

These are wonderful recordings and truly can be called priceless gifts. It's a shame there was no videorecording made. Buckley and his birthday party guests were lucky to have been there to have heard and seen these annual performances, and Buckley's wife came up with a great, creative idea for the perfect gift. Someday I hope to get my hands on the other CDs in this series.

#14: Ella Fitzgerald: The Intimate Ella

Details: Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996): The Intimate Ella. Verve, 1990 (1960). Total time: 42:38.

Titling an Ella Fitzgerald album with the word "intimate" is practically redundant as just about everything she recorded was intimate simply because it was her singing.

A master vocalist whose song interpretations and phrasing are legendary, influential and instantly recognizable she makes it all sound as effortless as exhaling or talking. Frank Sinatra credited her for his own well-developed sense of vocal phrasing.

This reissue of a 1960 album is filled with standards for which she set the, well, standard. Songs like "Black Coffee," "My Melancholy Baby," and "One More For My Baby" are truly timeless and should really never go out of style as far as I'm concerned. 

 

Her expert rendition of "Misty" makes me wonder if it wasn't too good so that it led to that old Clint Eastwood movie, Play Misty for Me, in which he plays a radio DJ who is stalked by a crazed female fan who keeps demanding to hear the song.

Technically the CD version of this 1960 album sounds perfect. The clarity of sound is superb and helps create the intimacy. Much of this is due to all of these songs consisting of simply Ella's voice and subtle, thoughtful piano accompaniment by Paul Smith.  And really, isn't that all that is needed?

#13: U2: Boy (remastered deluxe edition)

Details: U2: Boy (remastered & bonus). Island, 2008. Total time (2 discs): 94:41.

Yes, this album was reviewed earlier this week. However, this is a different, later edition -- a remaster of the original 1980 album plus a bonus disc of alternate versions, different mixes, a couple instrumentals, and live performances of songs from that timeframe, both from the 1980 album as well as a few singles released prior to the debut '80 album in 1979 and earlier in 1980.

The bonus disc may be of interest only to longtime, serious U2 fans, particularly for both studio and live versions of "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" and "Boy-Girl" (both live versions from a London gig in September 1980) along with "Another Day" and a wild-sounding (and post-punk new wavish) live version of "Cartoon World" from a concert in Dublin performed in February 1980.  

Clearly the lads were in that liminal, or in-between, space from boyhood to manhood, as well as experimenting with musical sounds and styles early in their development as a band. It's a bit amusing to see the original album artwork including the back of the "Boy" album which lists the names of the band members as:

Bono:  Singer
Adam Clayton:  Bass Player
The Edge:  Guitar Player
Larry:  Drummer

Now here they are, 35 years later, in the same band, in the same roles.

#12: Cecilia Bartoli: Mozart Arias

Details: Cecilia Bartoli (b. 1966), Mozart Arias.  Decca, 1991. Total time: 58:01. 

Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli started on the road to superstardom in the late 1980s when she was in her early 20s. The daughter of two professional singers, and graduate of the historic Academy of Santa Cecilia in her native Rome, Bartoli began by singing roles in Mozart and Rossini operas before later moving on to a wide range of projects including Baroque research and revivals, and her current successful leadership and management of an annual music festival in Salzburg, Austria.

This album of Mozart arias shows off Bartoli early in her career in her mid-20s.  She delivers flawless and electrifying versions of arias from several of Mozart's operas including La Nozze di Figaro, Cossi fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, and La Clemenza di Tito. If Mozart were alive to hear Bartoli sing these arias, I have to believe he would be pleased.

As with anything by Mozart, "it's all good" as the saying goes. Having said that, the real gems on this album are "Non so piu," "Alma grande e nobil core," "Parto, parto," and "Ch'io mi scordi di te?" In addition to all of her other talents, it helps to have an Italian native sing these songs, all of which are in Italian.

Bartoli's voice here is clear and clean, displaying amazing vocal technique while also being pleasing to listen to. In addition to her academy training, one of her longtime primary vocal teachers was her own mother. Her parents obviously made a wise choice when they named their daughter Cecilia, after the patron saint of music.

#11: Diana Krall: Wallflower

Details: Diana Krall (b. 1964), Wallflower (deluxe edition). Verve,  2015. Total time: 59:18.

This'll be the first of quite a few Diana Krall album blogs over the next year, but this one is rather unusual. Normally Krall records albums of jazz, standards, bossa nova, and the like. Then again, torch singer Julie London -- to whom Diana Krall has sometimes been compared vocally -- was known for cranking out albums every year in the 1960s containing remakes of contemporary pop songs, so this isn't without precedent. Plus, established as a jazz superstar since the mid-1990s, Krall can pretty much do whatever she wants now and people will buy her albums.

On this new album just out this year, she offers 12 remakes of mostly 1970s mellow ballads, produced by David Foster. Clearly the 1970s were an influential decade in Krall's youth and her interpretations here are not run-of-the-mill but in several instances quite thoughtful and fresh-sounding. Her rendition of California Dreamin' kicks things off and she does a great job with the song, slowing it down and putting some real aching in the vocals. 

The second track, I think, is the standout on the entire album. Her version of Desperado is brilliant -- she does an excellent job with a kind of old worn-out (in my opinion) song and brings a new, fresh perspective to it for the listener. I was really surprised by this one.

Another song she does a nice job with is I'm Not in Love, the song that made 10cc famous. In particular on the outro she does some interesting stuff with the piano (and the producer with other instruments) in place of the original 10cc outro.  The rest of the album is mostly 1970s stuff with the exception of Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House from 1986.  There are a couple duets including one with Michael Buble' and another with Bryan Adams.

While I think her wheelhouse is jazz standards, her walk down Mellow Memory Lane in this new album is good stuff with several really outstanding moments. The deluxe version of this album features a few bonus songs including a heartbreaking version of Elton John's Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word. 

#10: Chants for Life

Details: Choir of the Vienna Hofsburgkappelle: Chants for Life. Director: Joseph Schabasser.  Excelsior, 1994. Total time: 63:37.

Not much to say about this one as not much detail is known beyond the above.

I've always found Gregorian chant,  an ancient church musical form, to be timeless and contemplative.  A few years ago while visiting relatives in California I somehow ended up attending Mass one Sunday morning at the cathedral in San Francisco (which is an amazing architectural piece,  incidentally) and much of the liturgical music at that Mass was Gregorian chant performed by the small choir. In such an acoustical environment it was perfect.

Chant has a healing effect and immediately causes a hush in the listener. The nearly two dozen chants on this hour-plus disc are designated for holy days including Easter and Christmas and include introits, offertories, communions and alleluias.

The sound always conjures for me images of monks in robes walking single file in an interior courtyard in a monastery, along a long corridor between and beneath columns and arches, at dusk or dawn.

Great music for early evening on Spirit Sunday.